Workshop: creating and using rubrics for assessment

Rubrics are valuable assessment tools that reduce subjectivity in grading, make learning criteria transparent and inform students about their performance and learning needs. This is only true, however, if they are well-written. Hastily constructed rubrics may be difficult to use, difficult to understand, and obscure what actually matters in the assignment. 

Please bring with you a rubric of your own you would like to improve, or someone else’s rubric you would like to improve.

At the end of this session you will be able to:

• Identify evaluation criteria for a rubric
• Draft suitable descriptors
• Revise and improve existing rubrics to make them more effective

This activity may count towards your Continuing Professional Development (CPD) if relevant to your situation.

About the trainer

John Harbord is Academic Writing Advisor at FASoS and a member of the FASoS Assessment Support Team. He has some 25 years of experience in giving feedback on student writing and training academic staff to give effective feedback. He also provides student workshops on how to give effective peer feedback and how to use and learn from feedback received.