The Chocolate Chip Cookie Rubric

If you want to learn how to make a rubric, just think about how you would judge the quality of a chocolate chip cookie. Let's say that you are the judge at the county fair and you and a group of other judges must find the best chocolate chip cookie in your county. Where would you begin? Likely, one of the first conversations would be centered around the criteria by which you would judge the quality of the cookie. Such criteria might include texture, the number of chocolate chips in each bite (but what constitutes a bite?), the size of the cookie, flavor and so on. Before you can move on to the rating system however, you must be able to define what the texture of the cookie would be like.

This common knowingness defines what each judge will use when judging using the criteria. So agreement must be reached on each of the items viewed as the criteria.

Once you have established criteria, you must have a rating system so that each cookie tasted can be rated or graded for each element of the criterion. These ratings must also mean something specific. For example, are you going to have a rating scale that rates the cookies from 1-5 or poor, fair, good, very good and so on. What does a 1 mean? Only after coming to agreement on each of these elements can the judging actually begin to determine whose recipe wins the blue ribbon for the county?s best chocolate chip cookie. See The Advantages of Rubrics and there you can view the chocolate chip cookie rubric http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/rubrics/4522.html

Similarly, when creating a rubric for an assignment, the instructor must ferret out the most significant elements. What are the criterion by which the assignment will be judged? For example, if the student is writing a paper, it must be determined whether the paper is to be a persuasive argument or a research paper.  Research papers address content differently than the way in which it is addressed in a persuasive argument. Is it important to cite references to support opinions? If so, what style is to be used (APA, Chicago, MLA)?

The instructor thinks about the critical elements and documents these for the student. The student then by using the rubric has a clearer idea of what the instructor?s expectations are. The instructor also indicates what the rating scale is. Many times it is most helpful to the student if the instructor identifies when using a scale what a 2 on a scale of 1-5 actually means. For example, here is a rubric that can be used to grade student discussion posts.
Magnuson, C. (2005). "Experiential Learning and the Discussion Board: A Strategy, a Rubric and Management Techniques", Distance Learning (an official publication of the USDLA), V2, No 2, p. 15-20.
Cleo Magnuson
Instructional Designer
NCSU-DELTA

Posted by cgmagnus ( Oct 30 2008, 12:57:20 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]