Rubrics
A clear, well-designed rubric makes expectations visible to students, aligns feedback and grading with learning goals, supports more consistent feedback within teaching teams, clarifies what students are being asked to do, and helps them understand how individual assignments build toward larger course goals. While rubrics can help make expectations more transparent, they should point students toward a deeper understanding of their progress and areas for improvement, rather than serving as a checklist of minimum requirements or “paint by numbers” approach to assignments.
When using rubrics in your teaching, the Bok Center recommends:
- Create a Rubric for Each Major Assignment: Develop a rubric that defines the key criteria on which students will be evaluated. Criteria should be aligned with the assignment prompt (e.g., thesis clarity, evidence use, genre conventions) and reflect course learning goals.
- Share Rubrics with Students Early: Provide students with the rubric at the start of the assignment to clarify expectations and make feedback more legible as formative practice.
- Use Rubrics to Guide Grading and Feedback: Apply the rubric consistently across students and sections. Keep feedback focused on rubric criteria and use shared language with your teaching team. Consider holding a grade-norming session with your teaching team to calibrate evaluation standards across instructors..
- Revisit and Revise Rubrics as Needed: If a rubric is refined over the course of an assignment (e.g., based on changes in what material or what skills get covered), share those revisions with students to help clarify how feedback and grades reflect assignment goals.
- Use Rubrics to Strengthen Assignment Design: Rubrics can serve as a tool for improving assignment prompts. Clarify criteria such as purpose, genre, evidence and analysis, audience, and style and conventions in both your prompts and rubrics.
For step-by-step guidance and models for implementing these steps, visit the Bok Center's Canvas module on rubrics.