Creating Rubrics and Assessing with Rubrics in Pearson LearningStudio Table of Contents Creating Rubrics..2 Assessing With Rubrics.7
Pearson LearningStudio s Rubrics tool is designed to provide instructors with the ability to assess students upon their completion of specific learning objectives as they complete course assignments. The tool can be used to create and assess student work on any gradeable item in the course. Currently, instructors can create rubrics and then use those rubrics to evaluate student work in the gradebook; students cannot yet see the rubrics that instructors create. Our recommendation is that instructors provide copies or explanations of the rubrics they create elsewhere in the course for students to view. Please note: setting up rubrics with the rubrics tool should take place after the course content has been created and the gradebook has been set up because the Rubrics tool will automatically generate a list of gradeable items for which rubrics can be created. This list will be pulled from the items the instructor has marked as gradeable during the Gradebook setup process. Creating Rubrics To begin using the Rubrics tool, instructors will need to click first on Gradebook, then on the Setup Gradebook & Rubrics button. In the screen that opens, click the Rubrics tab. In the screen that appears, two columns will display. In the left column, a list of gradeable items will appear; in the right, buttons that will allow the instructor to create a rubric for each gradeable item will appear. To create a rubric for a gradeable item, the instructor will simply click the +Assign Rubric button. After clicking +Assign Rubric, a new window will open. At the top, the instructor will see the title of the item for which he or she is creating the rubric. Underneath 2
the title will be a box that will allow the instructor to add a new rubric or copy an existing rubric (i.e., one that is already in the course). Clicking in the text box that says Add a new rubric, or copy an existing rubric will open a lightbox in which the instructor will be prompted to provide a title for the new rubric or copy an already existing rubric from another item in the course. To copy an existing rubric, simply choose the rubric you d like to copy from the list of existing rubrics under the Existing Rubrics header. A screen with the criteria already associated with that rubric will appear. Make any necessary amendments to those criteria or add a new criterion by clicking the +Add Criterion button, then click Save. 3
To create an entirely new rubric for an item, from the list of gradeable items, click +Assign Rubric, then click in the text box to give a title to the new rubric. Then click Add as New Rubric. A new screen will open. In this screen, instructors can provide an optional description of the rubric and begin to assign criteria with various performance levels to the rubric. 4
Once the rubric has been given a name and a description, the instructor can decide whether to use for numeric grade. Currently, the Show to Student option will only allow the student to see the numeric grade, not the entire rubric. After these selections have been made, the instructor can begin adding criteria and associated levels to the rubric. So, for example, a rubric for assessing a threaded discussion item might have three criteria: punctuality of posts, substantiality of posts, and number of responses to classmates. Each criterion might have four performance levels: Excellent, Good, Poor, and Fail. At the highest level, perhaps called Excellent, the instructor can indicate what the characteristics of an Excellent score for the first criterion would be: for example, that the posts are made on the first or second day that the discussion was open and that follow- ups and responses to classmates were made well before the end of the week to help ensure a lively discussion for all participants. For the second level, perhaps called Good, the instructor might indicate that the characteristics of Good include responses within the first three or four days of the discussion and that responses to other students were made before the sixth day of the discussion. 5
When all of the criterion and associated performance levels desired have been created, the instructor will need to click Save. *Note: If the instructor receives the following error message after clicking save, there is a blank criterion in the rubric one that has probably been expanded without the instructor s meaning to use it the system reads it as though the criterion has no performance levels associated with it. To fix this problem, hover over the points field in the blank criterion a trashcan will appear. Click the trashcan to delete the blank criterion. Then click Save. 6
Assessing with Rubrics To assess a gradeable item with a rubric that the instructor has already created, the instructor will need to open the Gradebook and go to the item with which the rubric is associated. Items with rubrics attached to them are indicated in the Gradebook by a above it. Click on the title of the item to be graded (i.e., Introductions or Introductory Assignment in the image above). A new window will open with a list of the students names along the left. Click on the first student s name; the Gradebook Detail screen will open for that student. To expand the rubric for the item, click the down arrow to the right of the Rubrics field, as shown below. 7
Once the Rubrics field is expanded, the performance levels associated with the criterion will display. Simply hover over the performance levels to click on the performance level the student earned. Instructors can also click the down arrow next to each performance level to read the characteristics of the levels, as shown below. 8
Clicking on the performance level will autofill the number of points the student earned. As additional criteria are assessed, the system will automatically update the number of points the student has earned. Instructors can add comments to their assessment of each criterion by clicking the black comment cloud to the right of each criterion. 9
When all criteria associated with a gradeable item have been assessed, the instructor can type in a letter grade if desired and then click Save. To move to the next student, the instructor will click the forward arrow next to the student name at the top left of the page as shown below. 10