2.6 Design Rubrics with Transparent Criteria
Challenge
Do you find sometimes your assessments are measuring unintended skills and outcomes?
Rubrics are effective tools in making the learning outcomes and expectations of an assignment explicit. They clarify what is expected and can even include room for students to add goals they have for a given assignment. Clarifying expectations through a rubric allows for consistent measurement of the intended learning outcome.
Allowing students flexibility in how they demonstrate their learning is key to promoting autonomy, identity, and a sense of belonging, as well as fostering strategic, goal-directed learners. By offering a range of ways for students to express their understanding, you empower them to choose methods that align with their personal strengths, cultural backgrounds, and preferred communication styles. Referring back to Kevin’s positive assessment experience (from the Three Assessment Experiences shared earlier), critical to his success was his ability to choose a learning product (podcast interview) in keeping with his preferred mode of expression (verbal) and gave him a sense of ownership over his learning. This approach not only supported his success but also promoted autonomy and engagement by offering him a meaningful way to connect the assessment to his personal strengths.
🧩 Universally Designed Assessment (UDA) Tip #6: Assess the Whole Learner
Key Insight: Effective assessments are responsive to the whole learner, considering context, culture, and other personal factors. All learners are unique and bring diverse needs to the classroom, even when they share common traits. Flexible assessment practices ensure accurate evaluation of learners’ knowledge and skills, free from barriers related to identity or historical disadvantage.
Inclusive Assessment: Design assessments that meet the needs of all learners, including those historically marginalized due to cultural, linguistic, or systemic inequities. Flexibility ensures that every learner can succeed without compromising the integrity of the learning outcomes.
This flexibility stemmed from a learning outcome which was intentionally separated from the means of achieving the outcome. One of the challenges in providing this kind of flexibility is grading diverse assessment products while ensuring that the process remains transparent and supports students’ autonomy and sense of belonging. You may be asking yourself, ‘How do I apply consistent and equitable grading to a podcast, presentation, essay, and website?’
The answer lies in stripping away all the frills or ways of demonstrating learning. In Kevin’s case, the construct included a knowledge outcome (understanding how government policy interacts with Canadian cultural industries) and a skill outcome (conducting an analysis). The next step is to create a rubric based on these two main outcomes. Here’s an example rubric for Kevin’s assignment:
Creating Rubrics for Universally-Designed Assessments
- Step 1: Look at samples. Include a variety of formats (e.g., essays, podcasts, presentations, videos) to highlight different ways students might demonstrate learning. Show students examples of “good” and “developing” work. Identify the characteristics that make the good ones good and the developing ones incomplete.
- Step 2: List criteria. Use the discussion of models to begin a list of what counts in quality work. List criteria that are tied to learning outcomes, but ensure these criteria leave room for student autonomy and expression. For instance, include categories such as “creativity in format” or “clarity of communication,” which are applicable to multiple types of assessments.
- Step 3: Articulate gradations of quality (not frequency). Describe the best and worst levels of quality; then fill in the middle levels based on your knowledge of common problems and the discussion of developing work.
- Step 4: Practice on samples. Have students use the rubrics to evaluate the samples you gave them in Step 1.
- Step 5: Use self– and peer–assessment. Give students their task. As they work, stop them occasionally for self- and peer-assessment. When using self and peer assessment, encourage students to reflect on how the format they chose for their assessment aligns with their personal strengths or identity. This builds autonomy and connection to the task and by making it personal it engages students and reduces the chances for them to effectively use AI to produce work in a manner that is not allowed in the course.
- Step 6: Revise. Always give students time to revise their work based on the feedback they get in Step 5.
Source: UDLresource.ca (n.d.).
Reflection: One Small Step
Ask yourself:
- What are the skills or understandings this assessment is intended to measure?
- Have components that are not tied to learning outcomes been removed from my rubric?
- Are there opportunities for choice within the rubric to engage learners in the assignment?
- Are there clear, transparent criteria that promote both autonomy and consistent measurement across diverse assessment products?
A statement of what we want students to learn to do. Effective learning outcomes typically include an observable action-based verb, reference the content, and describe the criteria that will be used to evaluate student performance. The criteria describes the level of proficiency learners will need to demonstrate by providing information on things like quality, quantity, or time measurements.
