Rubrics

I think rubrics are a great way for assessing student work. First, rubrics provide students with a direction as to what the teacher is looking for in the final product. There are no surprises, no hidden agendas, students know exactly what is expected of them. Second, I think rubrics provide the teacher with reasons for grades. When parents call in and ask why their son or daughter received a failing grade on the project, myself as the teacher can say well according to their grading sheet, they were missing this, this, and this and didn't complete this, this, and this and so on.

I had an interesting experience with using a rubric during my student teaching. There was a rubric created for students book report projects. The projects were quite extensive as was the rubric. Many times, I found myself looking over projects thinking they were done very nicely but when graded against the rubric for the content I was really looking for, many of them did match up to the grades I would have given them if I was just going off my first assumption. I think that is a great example of how important rubrics can be so teacher's aren't being bias in their grading and also so that teachers can really assess the content they are looking for.