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Using Your Grade Book to Store Course Rubric Information

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The usage of rubrics has been greatly shown to aid in consistent grading, faster grading, and improved student understanding of grades. Traditionally, the rubric is used to calculate a grade for the assignment, and then that final grade is recorded in the course grade book. This article presents a practical method for retaining within a grade book not only the final grade for an assignment, but also the individual sub-scores used to calculate that final grade. Grades are stored in Microsoft Excel, with each major assignment being stored on an individual workbook tab. Rows represent individual students, and the columns indicate the sub-scores for each line item on a grading rubric. Rubric scores are multiplied by a weighting factor to obtain an overall score for the assignment. From this data store, grade sheets, including grading comments, can automatically be generated for the students through a mail merge operation. These grade sheets can then either be printed in hard copy or e-mailed to the students as pdf attachments. Individual student performance can be tracked and graphed over time on multiple dimensions, allowing for easier observation of students who may be struggling with key concepts in the course, and the data can be used for overall assessment of course outcomes.

1. Introduction One of the aspects that often surprises new engineering faculty members is the amount of time which must be devoted to grading. This is especially true if one is at an undergraduate teaching institution which does not have teaching assistants. In this environment, faculty members are faced with grading for 2-4 courses per term. If one factors in homework assignments, lab reports, and exams, it is possible that the professor is grading at least two to three individual assignments per class per week. Optimal efficiency is thus paramount.

One common problem which plagues new faculty members is trying to be efficient while also maintaining grading consistency between class sections and classmates. One technique that is often employed is the usage of grading rubrics. A scoring rubric represents a quantitative schema developed to guide in the assessment student work. First adopted in the K-12 educational arena, rubrics are now commonly being used in colleges, including the engineering field. Scoring rubrics can be applied to writing assignments, group activities, term projects, and oral presentations1. Grading rubrics provide advantages to both the student as well as the faculty member.

From the student’s standpoint, rubrics offer many advantages. Students like the usage of rubrics as they aid in determining the expectations for an assignment. Students also like rubrics for grading as they allow them to better plan their working, gearing their development towards what is expected rather than overachieving on an assignment. Overall, students feel that rubrics result in them delivering a higher quality submission as well as receiving a fairer grade when the submission is assessed. Students like rubrics

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Schilling, W. (2009, June), Using Your Grade Book To Store Course Rubric Information Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--5153