Common Problems of First Draft Rubrics

• Task/project inappropriate for rubric
• Insufficient attention to content, over-emphasis on form
• Descriptors aren’t clustered
• Rubric dimensions are missing (analytic)
• Dimensions are not sufficiently prioritized or labeled
• Over-reliance on quantitative terms used (several, numerous, some) to define levels of performance
• Over-reliance on words that say more but less clearly
• Lack of specificity in descriptions
• Lowest level is primarily described in terms of missing elements
• Top level is not real-world standard or does not allow student to see the relationship between the top level and the real-world standard
• Product attributes and process attributes are mixed together

The rubric development process takes time, isn’t always neat, and can be difficult at times. The evolution of a rubric in action.