Using Rubric Makers

Video Transcription

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are having a wonderful day today. Today we're going to be taking a look at various rubric makers and how we can use those. And for today's lesson, I've chosen a quote by Aristotle, which states, "What we learn to do, we learn by doing."

Now by the end of the lesson today, you are going to be able to first review the usefulness of rubric makers, and then identify some popular rubric makers and what they can do for you.

First, let's go ahead and take a look at just a little overview of what rubric makers are. So generally, rubric makers generate the structure for a rubric that we have. Rather than just starting with a blank sheet of paper and creating it yourself, rubric makers have that similar structure. And some even produce various filled-in elements that can really help you save time because it's already all filled in there as we're constructing it. Rubric makers also tend to be very customizable, so you can put in your own specific information based on your assessment.

Now as a general rule when using rubric makers, there are a couple of things that teachers want to keep in mind. First and foremost, teachers should remember to address the standards within the rubric. If this is going to be what you are assessing students on, and what you are going to use to mark that assessment, then you want to make sure that it is very closely aligned to the standards that we have established at the beginning of a lesson are going to be the focus of that. You also want to make sure that you include in there the various criteria to help the students meet those specific standards.

And finally, you want to make sure that you are aligning the key knowledge and the skills that you are hoping students can show throughout back to those standards. So these are all things that are very common parts of what we do within education. But you want to make sure that you keep all of that in mind when you create that rubric because that's what you and the students are going to go back to to help justify their level of proficiency or the grade that they get on a certain project.

Now what I'd like to do is take a look at a couple of common rubric makers and what they can really do. So the first one we're going to talk about is iRubric. Now iRubric is a studio, a rubric studio in which teachers can really choose some various possible rubrics that already exist that they can customize, or they can build and an rubric entirely on their own.

Now when students are assessed within iRubric, there are a number of elements that really make it positive for teachers. So students' grades can be saved to a specific grade book within iRubric, or a copy of that rubric after you've filled it out, along with any notes, if you want to make notes within there. Those can be sent to each individual student if you have them signed up for a part of this.

So also, there's the possibility to share these rubrics with other teachers. So this can be a really great choice for a school that already has that technology integrated, or for teachers who really want the opportunity to be able to share out those rubrics with others.

The next type of rubric that I want to focus in on is called RubiStar. And this is a rubric maker that usually provides for you a generic type of rubric. And then, as the teacher, you can print those off and use them for common projects or various assessments. So this rubric is more general in nature, and you use the levels that are filled in there to kind of make it your own.

However, once you take that general rubric, you can also find ways to customize them, so there is a level of customization that you can include as the teacher. So for example, when you, as a teacher, choose how you're going to evaluate a specific category, all of those quality ratings are filled in so it is ready for you to use. There is an opportunity for you to just kind of go and get started with it right away. So this is easy, quick.

The next type of rubric maker that I want to talk about is called Goobrics. Now Goobrics provides, like these others do, very general generic rubrics that you can print and use. But these are built within Google Sheets using what's called the Doctopus add-on. So you have it already built into Google sheets, which means if you're a Google Drive school, this is something that's going to be readily available for you.

Now within Goobrics, you'll have the opportunity to really build and use those rubrics right within Google Drive applications. So if a student is turning something in using Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Presentations, you can use Goobrics to help kind of create that and make that happen.

Also, if we focus in on Doctopus, Doctopus allows teachers to assign that work out, and then to check everything with a rubric and then get feedback, whether it is written or even audio feedback, back to the students. And then scores can then be emailed to those students and automatically uploaded in a teacher's spreadsheet if you want to use that spreadsheet to kind of keep track of the grades in your class or form some analytics of how students are doing. So again, those communications between the teacher and the student are really quick, really simple, very easy.

The last rubric maker that I want to talk to you about today is called EssayTagger.com. EssayTagger is probably the most unique of the four rubric makers that we're talking about. It's an online tool that offers teachers the opportunity to really interact with the rubric generator so you can build those standards-based rubric, as you're working with it, to help assess the student work.

Now the benefit of this rubric creator is that it is based on the Common Core state standards. So if you are in an area that relies heavily on those Common Core standards, then this could be a really good rubric builder for you. So the way that you use it is once you log in, you're kind of guided through the process where you select the grade level, and then you choose your content area, and then you're able to go through the strands and the key knowledge and skills that students are going to need to know that supports those standards, and then you can include those in your rubric. So you don't have to go to multiple different places in order to pull the standards that you need and transfer that language over.

Then, once the rubric is established based on those standards, you're able to kind of drag and drop various components in using those tools so that you can provide specific feedback in an effective way based on those standards. There are other tools that are included that allow teachers to pull those analytics that we talked about with Goobrics in so that you can evaluate a lot of those trends that you're seeing in the scores for student writing, and then use that to make changes to what you're doing in your instruction.

Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, you have been able to review the usefulness of rubric makers as well as identify some popular rubric makers and what they can do.

Now that we've reached the end of today's lesson, I want you to take just a moment to reflect. As you look back over those four major rubric makers that we discussed today, which one do you think would be most effective given the kind of teaching that you do in your classroom?

Now it's your turn to take what you've learned today and apply it. You'll find the Additional Resources section incredibly helpful in helping you achieve this. The Resources section has various links that will provide you with useful tools as you go about applying your newly acquired skill set.

That's all we have for right now. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.