 Welcome to our video on creating rubrics. In this video, we will look at what rubrics are and their benefits, how to make them, and how to use them in your courses. A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for students' work that includes descriptions of level of performance quality on the criteria. As this definition points out, rubrics have two parts, the criteria by which students' work will be graded and descriptions of levels of how well students meet the criteria. Here's an example of a rubric to give you an idea of what they look like. This one is for students' oral presentations. On the left, you can see the criteria, such as eye contact, posture, clarity, fluency, etc. Along the top, you can see the levels that students could achieve for each criteria. Students can be expert, proficient, or novice. And then under each level, you can see the descriptions for that level. For that criteria, for example, students who are experts in the area of eye contact maintain consistent eye contact with the audience. Many rubrics also add points so that students know how much each section is worth. For example, if you have a rubric with five sections and the incitement is worth 100 points, you might write on your rubric that each section is worth up to 20 points. The purpose of rubrics is to assess students' performance. They are usually used to give grades, and they can be used for formative or summative assessments. Almost any student work can be assessed with a rubric, such as papers or reports, presentations, lab reports, use some equipment, such as in a lab. Even artwork or a concept map can be assessed with a rubric. Not only teachers can use rubrics, students can evaluate their own work, revise it as necessary, and then turn it in for a grade. So rubrics, they have many benefits. They specify for students exactly what the students' expectations are for the assignment. They provide clear feedback to students. They help instructors create a well-organized assignment and then teach what students need in order to succeed in the assignment. They can be customized for different assignments. They increase fairness for students since instructors can focus on if each student has met stated expectations. They minimize instructor grading time through helping students produce better work and by making marking easier. They can be given to students online, which reduces the amount of paper that instructors need to use and carry around. So those are the benefits. And while they are beneficial, there are some considerations to keep in mind when you create and use rubrics. For one, it is important that they be clear and as simple as possible. The language across the descriptor levels should be consistent. For example, in the one that we looked at earlier, you can see very similar language between expert eye contact, student maintains consistent eye contact with audience, and proficient eye contact. Student mostly maintains eye contact with audience. If rubrics have too many words or are confusing, they will only frustrate students. Since EMI students are studying in a second language, you want to be extra careful about wording on rubrics. Another consideration is that rubrics should be linked to your student learning objectives and the objectives for your assignment. If you have an assignment where students need to interview an industry expert, write a report, and then present their main findings, you would want to have all those areas on your rubric. A third consideration is that the criteria and descriptors should be based on student performance, something that is observable and measurable. Looking at our example again, you can see that all the criteria are things the instructor could see. For example, with organization of content, the expert level is that the main idea is identified quickly and that clear transitions are used. Finally, keep in mind that creating a useful rubric does take time. Once you make it though, you will hopefully be able to use it many times and writing rubrics gets easier with practice. It's possible sometimes to find an existing rubric online that is not copyright protected and that you can use in your class, but many times you'll need to modify at least a bit of any rubric you'd find online so that it matches your assignment.