As described by D. Stevens (2005) Five Basic Parts of a Rubric Part 1: Course Learning Outcome We have added this as a rubric component (to the basic four outlined in Introduction to Rubrics). Course learning outcomes are your expectations for what you want students to learn by the end of a course. Your assignments and other curricular activities should help students achieve these outcomes and the rubric is an effective way of assessing the levels of their achievement. Placing the course learning outcome at the top of the grading rubric gives relevance to the assignment. Part 2: Task Description… >>>

They take more time to create and use. There are more possibilities for raters to disagree. It is more difficult to achieve intra- and inter-rater reliability on all of the dimensions in an analytic rubric than on a single score yielded by a holistic rubric. There is some evidence that raters tend to evaluate grammar-related categories more harshly than they do other categories (McNamara, 1996), thereby overemphasizing the role of accuracy in providing a profile of learners' proficiency. There is some evidence that when raters are asked to make multiple judgement, they really make one. Care must be taken to… >>>

Does it exist a specific number of words we should use for each detail that we assess? I love rubrics. They might be time consuming but they are a great tool. The only major frustration I have had is to explain in few words my expectation in each detail I want to assess. Sometimes I feel I am not reaching out if I don't write a lot. It has been successful though so far; However, just for curiosity and improvement, I would love to hear from other educators and instructors if you have read how many words average we should… >>>

Are you being perceived negatively by students in your classroom? After we set aside the hard grader and tough policy enforcement arguments some of which are not entirely valid, we are left with how students perceive us as faculty in chat, email and in the classroom. When we are sharing life-changing and positive advice, our approval ratings are through the roof! But when it comes time to deliver the bad news, many fall short. - How do you explain why plagiarism is not acceptable, but not viewed as an ogre? - How do you counsel a student on not giving… >>>

Outside Resources I use other technology outside of that provided by the university. To have some fun in the classroom, I subscribe to www.animationfactory.com – I get cool animated gifs and great powerpoint backgrounds. As silly as this may sound, students comment on the FUN graphics and how it makes everything come to life and seem more interesting. Every session a few students email me weekly and say that they look forward to seeing what crazy graphic will be used on an email or a posting. Anything that can make a student look forward to information about an assignment is… >>>