Welcome to the Rubrics Homepage! In here you can learn all about
one of the most exciting developments in education today. Rubrics are gaining
in popularity among educators as the need for more effective methods of
testing a student's knowledge intensifies. The MEBBS team hopes that you
will be able to learn the basics of rubrics with this visit to our homepage.
What is a rubric?
A rubric acts as a scoring guide for more elaborate assignments that test
many aspects of a student's skills such as term papers, projects and public
presentations. Such assignments need not only proper academic skills
but require values such as team-work, neatness and a general willingness
to put in 100% into the assignment.
In a rubric the various grading criteria are stated and every criterion
has several levels. Each level corresponds to a respective grade.
Within each level is elaborated the requirements to achieve the respective
grade. For examples, refer
to the rubrics developed by several faculty of Iowa State University.
Why have rubrics?
An assignment as described above would not be easy to execute and would
also be difficult to grade. Values such as team-work may not seem to have
a specific grade. Previously, instructors relied on factors such as intuition.
When instructors create rubrics for their assignments, they give students
a chance to see for themselves just what good team-work means or just how
neat one has to be to get an A. Rubrics therefore encourage higher
standards of work by putting into concrete a clear definition of instructor's
expectations.
Acknowledgements
The MEBBS team would like to thank the following people for their support
and help with the rubrics page :
Dr. Radha Sarma,Iowa State University, for giving the MEBBS student
members a chance to be involved in her project
Dr. Judy Vance, Iowa State University, for her help in pointing out
the direction the rubrics team should move
Dr. Mary Huba, Iowa State University, for her expertise in rubrics
and giving us some wonderful samples of rubrics.