Using Rubrics as a Defense Against Grade Appeals

Sydney Fulbright, PhD, March 21st, 2016

Rubrics provide the criteria for assessing students’ work. Giving students the rubric along with the assignment can clarify the instructor’s expectations. A rubric allows for much quicker, fairer, and more transparent grading. After an instructor grades 30 essays, fairness can become secondary to exhaustion. Following the rubric takes less time, and doing so allows grading the first essay to look exactly like grading the last essay. Students will be less likely to say, for example, “She got a 3 on this section, and I got a 2 for almost the same content.”

more on rubrics in this IMS blog:

https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=rubrics&submit=Search