Rubrics "set the table" for Students

To best understand rubrics and how they are used in education, I encourage you to consider an activity that is routine, such as setting the table for dinner. Consider the different activity that goes into setting the table: placement of dishes, placement of utensils, and placement of napkins may be a few. Some of you might like to have a tablecloth down or candles lit, depending on the atmosphere you are trying to achieve. At my house, we all set the table on different days. Sometimes, my four year-old Cosette sets the table. On these nights, we sometimes have a legitimate amount of ice in our glasses, but other times we might just have a cube or two. Sometimes my fork is found next to somebody else's plate, but at least she gets it to the table. She also places napkins on the table, but those might seem to be thrown there, as opposed to how my wife might place them. When my wife sets the table, we obviously have all of our utensils in the right places, often our drinks are already filled, and sometimes she plays music to add a little ambience. 

In school, rubrics are used to show the difference between my daughter setting the table with a worthy effort and my wife setting the table with years of practice and knowledge of what our preferences are. However, we are using topics that students will have a little more variance in than setting a table! However, we want our teachers to know that variance. What does it look like when a student has mastered the "distributive property" in algebra? What does it look like when a student has at least a basic understand of it? That's what rubrics are for! What does it look like in Biology when a student has mastered the "characteristics of life?" What does it look like when a student is nearing mastery? Rubrics allow teachers to document these answers and for students to plainly understand them, too!

Rubrics are not new to Borgia. For several years, our teachers have been using a rubric to determine an overall score for an assignment. For instance, when a student wrote an essay, he or she might have been graded on the "thesis," "support," and "grammar." Each of these areas might have received a score of up to 20 points so that no one category dictated the overall grade; the student had to be strong at each. Another example might have come with a class project that was to be presented. The student may have been evaluated on "content," "originality," and "presentation." Again, each of these things may have been worth a set value of points that summed together to form a final grade.

At Borgia, we are working towards making these rubrics as informative as possible, even more informative than they may have been in the past. For instance, if "content" is a piece of the rubric, we want students to be able to identify what specific indicators will be present if it is a perfect 20 of 20. If the student has not mastered the skill, we want the student to see how the indicators might be different if it is graded as an 18 of 20 or a 16 of 20.

Some teachers may be able to look at an assignment and immediately know that it is "A" quality work, or "B" or "C" quality work. However, we are working very hard to be able to define this for our students, and for ourselves. Teachers of an English course may have very different opinions of what a good "thesis" looks like. Teachers in a history course may have different indicators or evaluation methods to determine how well a student understands the "American Revolution." However, our work with rubrics will help teachers to agree on what Mastery looks like, and we hope that will translate to a benefit for our students. If they know where the target is and what it looks like, I bet we can teach them to hit it. However, if they're shooting blindly, our task as educators becomes much more challenging.