Evaluating Your Students and Yourself

Professor:
Although the concept of rubrics has been around for a long time, it is only recently that they’ve come into use in higher education. In fact, most of my colleagues don’t even know what they are when I first mention them but embrace rubrics when they realize how using a rubric makes grading incredibly easy. If you have questions, I recommend the American Association of Higher Education website. Rubrics also help reduce the number of students asking for clarification about the grade they earned because the rubric spells out all the expectations for each grade.

TA:
The first answer that comes to mind is YES! For me, fairness in grading is crucial and very hard to preserve. Preparing a detailed rubric is a good way to introduce order and accountability in your grading. If a student asks for a re-grade or the professor asks you to justify your scoring, you have an easy to communicate evidence to support your approach. For more information on how to use and prepare rubrics click here.