What Students Say About Rubrics

• Many students at Cubberly (a K-8 school) have been using rubrics since 4th or 5th grade.
  
  
• Some students grasp the idea that rubrics help guide students to do their best work; others associate rubrics primarily with grading.
  
  
• Many students find the language of some rubrics too "jargony" to understand. In practice, some teachers use generic rubrics and do little to adapt them to the age group they're working with. LaCroix and Maine usually rewrite generic rubrics to make them more middle school-friendly."
  
  
• Most kids believe rubrics have helped them improve their work (although the improvements are not always apparent in their writing).
  

Have you used rubrics to give your fellow students feedback about their work?

-- "Yes, I used rubrics to grade students work in english and math classes. They help me determined if the work is good or not."

-- "Yes, I have and now the rubrics help everybody and they help us explain to the other people what they need to learn. But I don't like to grade other people's rubrics. Sometimes it is fun and sometimes it is not."

-- "I have used rubrics to correct my classes' work. In English when we finish a writting assignment, we partner up and use a rubrick to correct each others work. The grades would range from 3 to 6. We also do this for math."

-- "Yes. When using a rubric you tend to be able to grade better when you have qualifications for the grade there in front of you."

-- "We used them in Algebra and just recently we used them to evaluate a project in science."

-- "Our teacher lets us grade other people's work with the rubrics, so we get an idea how we can improve and know where we messed up. Then she lets us try to improve it."

-- "I used it to help my frined do her homework by telling what her homework requires, based on what the rubric said."

-- "It's fun looking at our fellow students' paper. Grading them is also fun because then you get ideas from each other to make your paper better."


Do you think rubrics help you improve your work? Why or why not?

-- "I would strongly suggest a rubric for any task, because they help you to know what you left out. What am I doing wrong?"

-- "I think rubrics really help me improve my work because since I've been using them, I've been getting good grades. Mostly in Math and English."

-- "I think they do for me because it is like a list you go down to check off what you've done."

-- "Rubrics are an easier way of grading. There is less guilt, favorites or decisions. This is a more 'fair' way of grading. Also you can see why you got that grade."

-- "Yes, because before I knew about a rubric I was terrible. (K)now I kind of understand."

-- "You can go back and make your work better if you haven't completely followed the rubric. It lets you know exactly what you need to do to get an A."

-- "Rubrics help you improve your work because you are told right away what is expected of you."

-- "When you are given an assignment, you need to look at its requirements. Sometimes there are things on the rubric that I have overlooked. I can change, and know what to change, by the rubric guidelines."

-- "The best thing about rubrics to me is that if you follow along the rubric you already know your grade."

-- "Whether I use it on my paper or someone else does it, it gives me a chance to see how I can improve."

-- "Yes, I think rubrics imporve my work because it gives me guidelines on what I do. If I was supposed to do a project without a rubric, my grade would definitely be lower. I've noticed that in my work. My classmates feel the same. if rubrics didn't improve work, why are teachers giving it?"


What do you feel is the worst thing about rubrics?

-- "Sometimes I really don't like these (rubrics) because some of the rules are very strict and I'm not the best writter or speller. But what i really don't like is the spelling rubrick because spelling is not my thing at all."

-- "Some rubrics don't fully cover all the situations."

-- "The worst thing is the rules can't be changed. There are no acceptions."

-- "For me it's that you have everything the rubrics ask you to put on your paper but it has to be almost perfect and fully explained."

-- "When I use a rubric, I don't always get a (perfect score). True, it's right there, but you really think you got it all and you don't. Your teacher may disagree."

-- "The worst thing about rubrics is that if you don't follow it step by step it could ruin your work."

-- "Having to follow by the directions closely until you find what you need."

-- "They're not always easy to understand."

-- "If you lose your rubric you're in a great deal of trouble."

-- "I think the worst thing is that it is kind of confusing because it has too many rules."

-- "The worst thing about rubrics is it is hard to translate them into a letter grade."

-- "The worst thing is that if you're off by just a little bit from the rubric your score goes down."

-- "Most of the time it's the language. It can be hard to understand, especially the CAS2 (district test) rubric."

-- "I think the worst thing about rubrics is that maybe you're at a level 3 and maybe it makes you feel bad because you feel you have to push yourself harder to get to a 5 or 6."

-- "I've been using the rubrics since 4th grade and would like to say that it really helps me a lot. It improves my writing. I have used them in many subjects. If there was no rubric for me to use, I bet my writing scores will go down big time."


Other student comments about rubrics:

-- "It has brought my grades on Problems of the Week way up. And it helps me when I write esseys in English. It bothers me that most of them require a lot."

-- "I feel that we should be using rubrics in our other classes like science and P.E."

-- "I'm kind of getting tired of rubrics because we even have a rubric at lunch which is rediculess."

-- "I think rubrics can help teachers grade better than just thinking of a grade in their heads."

-- "I like the way they word the scores and also how they show you to get that score. The guidelines are right down to the point and are precise to what you need to get that score."

-- "I think rubrics should only be used in big exams not in stories or anything creative."

-- "The best rubrics show you each step to complete your work. Also, they give some examples of how you should do it so you can follow them."

-- "Rubrics are very sketchy, although the main advantage is it being fair."

-- "In the end they help make things fair so that a student can't complain about his grade, and it also gives the teacher back up for the grade he/she gave. A student can also use it for them if they feel they have been unfairly graded."

-- "I think if teachers used rubrics instead of oral directions students would get better grades because they could just look at the rubric instead of keeping asking the teacher. Also, it would be better with teachers if they had a rubric because if they liked you they could give you a better grade and if the teacher didn't like you they could give you a bad grade and the student couldn't do anything. But if they had a rubric they couldn't because they would have to point out what you did wrong."

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