Interactive Assignment Rubrics Use Case

As an English Composition faculty, you want to prepare your students for the type of work you expect to see in order to receive a high grade. With Rubrics you can create clear grading standards for any class assignment.

While Rubrics can be unique to everyone, this use case is based on skills common to college English composition rubrics. Let’s take a closer look at how Rubrics can be integrated in the classroom.

Note: Make sure Teachers have the Grading Rubric roles enabled under Core, Security. See here for more on Role tasks.

The first thing you need to do is to create a new Rubric from Faculty > My Day > Rubrics. From here:

  1. Select + to start the creation process.

  2. Add a Rubric Name. For this example, a name like English Composition Rubric or Writing Essay Rubric works well. You have two optional fields to consider as well:

    1. You can a Description to the rubric which can help identify what the rubric is for.and, though these are not required.

    2. The option to change how the assignments are evaluated by can also be set. Potential methods include points, a point range, or comment only.

  3. Create the first Skill to evaluate, which is an area where a student is graded. Though this is entirely subjective, potential examples could include things like Organization, Main Idea, Grammar, or Mechanics. As an English faculty member, you’ll likely want to grade the student on their use of grammar and comprehension. Perhaps you also want to see how well they supported their main idea or if they used the correct MLA formatting style.

  4. Add new proficiency levels for the skill. This helps students understand what is expected of them in order to receive a specific evaluation. You can create as many proficiency levels as you need, though traditional rubrics start at a max, high proficiency value and move through a range that decreases until it ends on a low or needs improvement score.

  5. Select Done to save the skill or Cancel to back out completely. If additional skills are needed, select Add another skill and follow the previous steps again.

  6. If needed, you can also associate the newly created Rubric to specific classifications or school departments which helps make the rubric searchable. Since this rubric is focused on writing composition, select the English department.

  7. Once completely finished with the Rubric, select Save to my Rubrics or Cancel to close without saving.

Now that your English Proficiency rubric has been created and added to your My rubrics list, you now need to add it to the course assignment for which it was created. As long as the coursework has not already been graded, you can add a rubric to a new or existing assignment.

For this example however, we’re going to create a new assignment from scratch and then apply the Rubric to it. From Faculty > My Day > Assignment Center, select + Assignment.

  1. First, add an assignment title. In this case, let's create an assignment for a take home essay and call it What I'm Going To Do On My Summer Vacation. If needed, you can also add a description to provide a bit more context on the essay including the type of assignment this is going to be.

  2. If you plan on using supplemental attachments to better assist students like links or downloads, add them here. Otherwise, continue to Gradebook & rubric.

  3. Add an Abbreviation, Max Points and scoring factor for the Gradebook.

  4. Finally, enable Associate rubric and then select the name of the rubric you just created above. If you want to see a preview of the rubric, select See rubric. Also note that Max Points automatically updates regardless what you entered to match the value inside the associated Rubric.

  5. Finish the rest of the Assignment details, and select Save, Save and add another, or Cancel.

The newly created assignment is added to the Assignment Center where you can select it and see the details. Here the class roster appears along with the assigned date, due date, average grade, and how many have been graded already.

Once students have submitted their assignment, select their name from the class roster to access additional evaluation options such as if the assignment is Missing, Incomplete, Late, Collected, or if the student is Exempt. For now, select Evaluate with rubric to start the grading process.

Note: Once the rubric is used to evaluate a student, that instance is locked down and can't be edited until the grading is complete. The template under My Rubrics can be modified for future assignments at any time.

After the rubric you created slides into view, select the proficiency level for each skill based on your evaluation of the student’s submitted work. When you select a specific proficiency, it automatically adds the points from the selection to the counter at the top left, giving you a clear indication of how the student is doing.

For example, if an assignment is worth 100 points in total, the counter first displays 0/100. Each proficiency holds a value that when selected, increases the total score. So if you select a proficiency with a value of 10 points, then those points are automatically added to the counter, showing 10/100. The point value continues to rise until the rubric is finished, where you then see the student’s final total score.

Though it is optional, each skill allows you to add comments if you want to provide additional details or explanation if needed. The option to print the rubric or clear out all entered data is available as well.

Whether you’ve graded all students or just a few and want to publish them, head back to the Assignment detail page to select Commit grades & post rubric. Doing so adds all available grades into the Gradebook and posts the completed rubrics so that students and parents can view them. If you created a Comment Only rubric, it becomes available to students/parents immediately after you finished evaluating with it.