How can rubrics help students know how to do better next time? You will know doubt be familiar with using rubrics to help you grade assessment but remember that rubrics are also a powerful tool to help students know what they have done well and what they need to improve on for the next assessment. Rubrics can also be connected to peer assignments meaning that students can also give comments and give each other feedback using the rubric that you have designed.

Watch and reflect

Have you used a rubric for your assignments? What advice would you give to your colleague who is new to using rubrics? If you are new yourself, which questions would you like answered about creating a rubric?

In the video (3.49 minutes) below Helen Graves from the California Virtual Campus, Online Network of Educators, gives us advice on rubrics in general and rubrics in Canvas.

A few notes from the video:

Rubrics help students to visualise what they are aiming for and help you the teacher to grade systematicall and consistently.
A well thought-out rubric helps to clarify what you want from the student.
The criteria you use need to help students to know how to do better next time.
Frame your language in positve way. For example, - instead of "The logical sequence is weak" you can instead say "the ideas presented would benefit from a stronger logical sequence."
Think of your rubric as pre-feedback to give assess to your logic for grading before they attempt the assignment.

Below are a few tips that Helen Graves has given on using rubrics in the Online Network of Educators,

Three tips for effective rubrics:

Choose between three to seven criteria.
As much as possible, omit negative wording. Be encouraging; indicate what you’re seeking rather than what you don’t want.
Use clear and specific language. Words like some, several, perfect, and boring are all subjective evaluations.

KI's toolkit for assessment has a section on assessment rubrics.

Tips for writing a strong rubric with examples

QuickRubric.com provides a page with tips on writing a strong rubric. The guide gives an overview on how to decide on a which type of rubric you want to create: Analytical or Holistic? The guide gives you examples of these two.

Canvas’s rubric tool there are three parts to the rubric grid:

Criteria: These are the big-picture categories for grading. In a Discussion, for example, your criteria might be “Initial Post” and “Replies to Classmates.”
Ratings: These are the explicit descriptions of the levels of performance that might be achieved within the specific criteria category.
Points: This is your rating scale.

For the KI's Swedish guides to rubrics in Canvas start here.

Video tutorials for rubrics in Canvas

This video (14 minutes) tutorial from Ashlee Espinosa on Youtube takes you through Speedgrader and Rubrics in Canvas course Ashlee Espinosa: Speedgrader and Rubrics in Canvas course or this video from Suzy Lolley (12 minutes) is very detailed on creating the rubric: Canvas Crash Course Series #4: Rubrics and Speedgrader

More reading

Education Trends in Edutopia: Tame the Beast: Tips for Designing and Using Rubrics: Clarifying "what" and "how" for your students
By Andrew Miller
Know what it is that you are assessing: writing assessment criteria (University of Reading)