Lori Voss-Schoonover

JCCC MATH

Rubrics

Purpose/Focus:
Rubrics in math classes can be used for projects or everyday homework. Rubrics provide students
guidance on required quality for assignments to be completed.

Instructional Groupings
Whole Group
Homogeneous
Small Group
Heterogeneous
Peer Partners
Individual

Readiness

Student Learner Elements

Interest

Differentiation
Content
Process
Product

Learning Profile

Pre-Assessment:
No specific pre-assessment of the students is done before utilizing rubric. Student reading ability can
play a role in the ease of utilizing a rubric, but rubrics are typically designed to be easy-to-read,
comprehensive, and allow for differentiation in regards to all student learner elements and all
instructional groupings.

Results of This Lesson:

Students will KNOW (basic facts and essential information)
comprehensive information about grading scale, due dates, and assignment parameters
detailed information about individual parts of an assignment
Students will UNDERSTAND (principles, generalizations, and big ideas)
Expectations for quality of final products
Depending on the purpose of the rubric, differences between exceptional, adequate, and
beginning work for a particular product.
Students will BE ABLE TO (essential skills, observable and measurable outcomes)
Create a product which meets standards for demonstrating learning
Justify their work and show that they have met the standards
Evaluate their own work before submission to determine if they have adequately completed a
task.

Differentiation Strategy:
Rubrics allow instructors to differentiate instruction by creating a document for student and instructor
use which provides clear guidelines as to the quality of student work. Often, rubrics allow for
differentiation with respect to products as variable content might require a new rubric. Students are
able to self-evaluate work that is in progress with an established rubric. Rubrics can also be used as part
of classroom assessment when an instructor compares the quality of student work to the provided
rubric.

Rubrics also provide hands-off scaffolding to students so they can independently determine if they are
making adequate progress toward a completed product. Instructors can check-in with students and help
them compare their work to the stated requirements in the rubric while maintaining a higher level of
assistance for all students in the classroom.
Rubrics can be used most variations of instructional grouping. Typically rubrics are used for individual
work but can also be created to address group or paired projects. This tool is less often used in whole
class instruction as rubrics are intended to be a measure of quality for in progress or completed
assignments.

When to Use This Strategy

(e.g., introducing a topic, group work, individual work, culminating learning activity)

Rubrics can be used for almost every evaluative part of a learning activity. Students can use rubrics to
measure progress on an assignment which has not yet been completed. Instructors can use rubrics to
determine the final grade for an assignment. This tool also ensures accurate, unbiased feedback is given
to a student. A rubric such as the Homework Quality Rubric (see additional resources) provides a
framework for expectations for individual, daily homework.

Problems/Challenges with This Strategy

Choose at least one, and describe how you might overcome the possible challenges.

Two main challenges come with the use of rubrics: development is time intensive and the document is
less flexible while an assignment is in progress. Because rubrics are meant to be easy-to-read and
comprehensive, development must be done before an assignment is made available to students and
must take into account all facets of a potential assignment. The rubric for a group assignment will be
different than one for an individual assignment, so some rubrics must be completely remade before
each opportunity arises to use them. If a lesson is not progressing according to the instructors original
plan, changing a rubric would be much like changing the syllabus for a course everyone must be
notified and made extensively aware of the change to avoid affecting learning.

Strategy Evaluation
What are you trying to accomplish? How will you know the strategy is working?

Rubrics are useful in helping students to determine their own progress on an assignment. Instructors will
know that the use of a rubric is successful because the students will be able to self-evaluate. Ideally,
students will spend less time on the format of a project and more time on adequately learning or
demonstrating knowledge. If a student does have troubles, the rubric provides specific topics for the
instructor and student to discuss and work on together.

Additional Instructor Resources

Example: Homework Quality Rubric (next page)
Online Rubric Development tools such as RubiStar, Annenberg Learner, and other similar tools.
Departmental rubrics which have already been created at your school.

Additional Student Resources

Example: Homework Quality Rubric (next page)

Math 111 Homework Quality Rubric

Exceeding
Expectations
Relevant work is fully
shown.

Meeting
Expectations
Relevant work is mostly
shown.

Approaching
Expectations
Limited relevant work is
shown.

Beginning

All answers are

mathematically correct.

Answers are
mathematically correct.

Answers are
mathematically correct.

Work is shown in an
organized way and
allows the reader to
easily follow along.
Answers are labeled
appropriately, easy to
find, and, when
appropriate, written in
grammatically correct
sentences.
Supporting evidence is
concise but complete
and allows a reader to
see individual steps and
the entire thought
process.

Work is shown in an
organized way.

Work follows a sensible

order but is difficult to
follow along.

Answers are correct but

no relevant work is
shown.
Answers are incorrect,
but some relevant work
is shown.
Work follows an order
but is difficult to follow
along.

Answers are labeled

appropriately.

Answers are not labeled

appropriately.

Answers are not

labeled.

Enough supporting
evidence is included to
explain to someone else
how you got your
answers and what they
mean.
Answers are incorrect
due to computational
errors but process is
complete and correct.

Limited supporting
evidence is included to
explain to someone else
how you got your
answers and what they
mean.
Answers are incorrect
due to computational
errors but process is
correct.

Very little supporting

evidence is included to
explain to someone else
how you got your
answers and what they
mean.