This short word makes me cringe. Don’t get me wrong. As teachers we need guidelines to help us properly grade our students. Rubrics fill that need. But lately I’ve noticed that rubrics are becoming the panacea of grading…and grades. Students, parents, and administrators are demanding there be rubrics and they are draconically followed. That bothers me as an educator. When things bother me, I start thinking. And when I start thinking, things get dangerous.
Let me reiterate, I think rubrics are useful tools for grading. Otherwise, grading can be as subjective as political views. I also believe, however, that we’ve gone too far with relying on them. Students have started to look at rubrics as the directions to get good grades (or just the grade they want). Parents have started to look at rubrics as weapons to use against teachers if the student did not get a “good enough” grade on an assignment or project. Administrators have now made rubrics a requirement for what they consider “best practices” by teachers. These are all bastardized definitions of rubrics and their purpose.
As I stated before, teachers need guidelines for grading in order to be consistent and fair. That does not mean that all students are graded the same. Little Joey might be a gifted artist. Little Lisa might be a gifted writer. So how would a teacher grade them on a project that required both of these skills? Use a rubric! But the teacher needs to take into account the effort, improvement upon a weakness, the actual performance, and a multitude of other factors to come to a proper assessment. Then the teacher needs to take that assessment and formulate a new rubric to help develop Joey’s and Lisa’s academic growth based on those factors while still taking into account their strengths. Can this be done with just one rubric? Of course not! And that is why rubrics are not the miracle cure of grading.
Additionally, students often look at rubrics as directions to get certain grades. They are not as dumb as they pretend to be. Students, when it comes to getting the grades they want, are extremely intelligent. They know how to play the system. If a student follows a rubric for an assignment in order to get a ‘B’, does that really show what the student has learned? Or does it merely show that the student knows how to game the system and not put forth their best effort? The answer is obvious. Too often, though, teachers have made the rubrics so specific that the students have no room for interpretation of the assignment. There’s no room for creativity. There’s no incentive for risk-taking. We’ve created the very risk-averse monsters we wanted to avoid.
For instance, a couple years ago, I had a student that was a gifted artist. For a project she wanted to recreate cave paintings. I did not have a project rubric for anything like that. But I needed a way to grade her project. What to do? I told her that it would be great, but I’d also like her to do a short essay that addressed the five journalism questions. The rubric? Did she make something that looked like cave art? Did she discover something about cave art and explain it in the essay? That was it! I gave her free-rein and let her creativity drive the way I graded the project. (As an aside, I was blown away by the artwork and the essay was one of the best I’d seen from her)
Teachers need to get away from the process of grading and start looking at the product that is being graded. It’s not about grades so much as it’s about kids growing and expanding their knowledge. Had I given my cave-art student a rigid rubric, it would have been a project as I envisioned it. It would have ceased to be a learning experience for my student. It would have been “just another project”. Over the years, I have taken this approach to my student’s projects and have had incredible success. Yes, I have had some flops as well. The three-sided pyramid immediately comes to mind (think about it, you’ll understand if you think three dimensionally). The student that used an empty beer can to create a replica mirror from ancient times was great. The source material could have been better, but the idea and creativity was there. The learning was there. The rubric became a mere guideline. What my students have done over the years sans rubrics has been nothing short of amazing.
So, teachers, students, parents, and administrators, I ask you to stop being so rigid with rubrics. Be creative. Allow creativity. Be flexible. We give lip service to student-initiated and student-driven learning when we create rubrics and rigidly stick to them. Let’s allow students to be creative and play to their strengths. Help them where they need direction. But don’t dictate how assignments and projects must be completed based on our own narrow vision. Who knows? Maybe the teacher will learn something cool as well.
Let me reiterate, I think rubrics are useful tools for grading. Otherwise, grading can be as subjective as political views. I also believe, however, that we’ve gone too far with relying on them. Students have started to look at rubrics as the directions to get good grades (or just the grade they want). Parents have started to look at rubrics as weapons to use against teachers if the student did not get a “good enough” grade on an assignment or project. Administrators have now made rubrics a requirement for what they consider “best practices” by teachers. These are all bastardized definitions of rubrics and their purpose.
As I stated before, teachers need guidelines for grading in order to be consistent and fair. That does not mean that all students are graded the same. Little Joey might be a gifted artist. Little Lisa might be a gifted writer. So how would a teacher grade them on a project that required both of these skills? Use a rubric! But the teacher needs to take into account the effort, improvement upon a weakness, the actual performance, and a multitude of other factors to come to a proper assessment. Then the teacher needs to take that assessment and formulate a new rubric to help develop Joey’s and Lisa’s academic growth based on those factors while still taking into account their strengths. Can this be done with just one rubric? Of course not! And that is why rubrics are not the miracle cure of grading.
Additionally, students often look at rubrics as directions to get certain grades. They are not as dumb as they pretend to be. Students, when it comes to getting the grades they want, are extremely intelligent. They know how to play the system. If a student follows a rubric for an assignment in order to get a ‘B’, does that really show what the student has learned? Or does it merely show that the student knows how to game the system and not put forth their best effort? The answer is obvious. Too often, though, teachers have made the rubrics so specific that the students have no room for interpretation of the assignment. There’s no room for creativity. There’s no incentive for risk-taking. We’ve created the very risk-averse monsters we wanted to avoid.
For instance, a couple years ago, I had a student that was a gifted artist. For a project she wanted to recreate cave paintings. I did not have a project rubric for anything like that. But I needed a way to grade her project. What to do? I told her that it would be great, but I’d also like her to do a short essay that addressed the five journalism questions. The rubric? Did she make something that looked like cave art? Did she discover something about cave art and explain it in the essay? That was it! I gave her free-rein and let her creativity drive the way I graded the project. (As an aside, I was blown away by the artwork and the essay was one of the best I’d seen from her)
Teachers need to get away from the process of grading and start looking at the product that is being graded. It’s not about grades so much as it’s about kids growing and expanding their knowledge. Had I given my cave-art student a rigid rubric, it would have been a project as I envisioned it. It would have ceased to be a learning experience for my student. It would have been “just another project”. Over the years, I have taken this approach to my student’s projects and have had incredible success. Yes, I have had some flops as well. The three-sided pyramid immediately comes to mind (think about it, you’ll understand if you think three dimensionally). The student that used an empty beer can to create a replica mirror from ancient times was great. The source material could have been better, but the idea and creativity was there. The learning was there. The rubric became a mere guideline. What my students have done over the years sans rubrics has been nothing short of amazing.
So, teachers, students, parents, and administrators, I ask you to stop being so rigid with rubrics. Be creative. Allow creativity. Be flexible. We give lip service to student-initiated and student-driven learning when we create rubrics and rigidly stick to them. Let’s allow students to be creative and play to their strengths. Help them where they need direction. But don’t dictate how assignments and projects must be completed based on our own narrow vision. Who knows? Maybe the teacher will learn something cool as well.