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Table of Contents

Using Rubrics to Evaluate Student Work

A rubric is a scoring tool that gives assessment-literate educators and students accurate information about current performance as well as feedback on how to improve. A rubric is more sophisticated than a checklist; it also articulates gradations of quality for each criterion.

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View the video below for an explanation of rubric basics:

Creating and Judging Rubrics External Link(Run time: 2:54)

Source: Kansas State Department of Education 2013



Select the screen shot above to begin.


Scoring selected-response assessments is straightforward; answers are either correct or incorrect. On the other hand, scoring constructed-response assessments, such as essays and performance tasks, requires a scoring rubric. Recall from Unit 2 that performance tasks were introduced and you analyzed some Smarter Balanced sample items that included rubrics.


Select the icon to read the definition of Constructed Response Assessments.



Select the icon to read the definition of Performance Tasks.