In the almost four decades that I have been teaching college, one of the changes to how we teach that I appreciate the most is the use of rubrics for assignments. For professors, rubrics are helpful to ensure consistency in grading, for example. And for students, there are three times you would benefit from reviewing the assignment rubric.
FACT: I’ve never heard of a student earning a lower grade on an assignment as a result of referring to the rubric. And I’ve evaluated hundreds of thousands of assignments.
Before
Before you start working on an assignment, reviewing the rubric will help you understand what the components are so you can create your battle plans for completing the assignment. You’ll also see what components of the assignment are worth the most, which might help focus your attention appropriately.
Questions about something in the rubric? Ask your professor! We genuinely want to see you succeed.
During
During the writing and editing phases, it’s a good idea to check your work against the rubric to make sure you don’t leave out anything important. I recommend comparing your work to the rubric several times as you write and edit.
If you have time, wait a day after you complete an assignment, and then review it against the rubric one last time before submitting it. It’s likely you’ll catch something that you missed earlier.
After
This always surprises me a lot: some students only look at their number/letter grade, but fail to look at the rubric after their professor has evaluated the assignment. In the completed rubric, you’ll see where you did well (yay! do that stuff again) and where you fell short of the expectations (drats! now I know what to do differently next time). In addition to the checked boxes in the rubric, your professor will likely give you additional, more specific, qualitative feedback.
At Ashworth College where I now teach, students have two opportunities for success on each test/quiz and assignment. Choosing to ignore the feedback from the first submission of an assignment is unwise; your professor is pointing you in the right direction for a better grade by completing the rubric!
So what do you think? Are rubrics helpful for students? Or is this just a professor’s pipe dream? Please let me know in the Comments.
