Rubrics

Rubrics for the Art Teacher

Because art teachers measure student skills using independent judgment, they need another method to grade student work. Performance-based assessment has been shown to be much more effective in evaluating student performance. Art teachers have always been ahead of the game with performance-based assessments by using portfolios.

To make their judgment more consistent and fair, art teachers need to create rubrics for grading. To make a rubric, a teacher first needs to know exactly what constitutes "A" work. Rubrics can improve student work by letting students know exactly what's expected of them.

Rubrics provide feedback to students about their work in specific areas of a project. You can also allow students to revise their projects based on your feedback on their rubrics. It is important to use clear and measurable language with rubrics. For example, the level of quality called, "creative project" must be defined. What exactly is creative?

Rubrics have a column for the criteria for your lesson - the aspect of the assignment you want graded. The rows are generally the level of quality with the assignment from excellent to poor. Students may assess their own work with rubrics.

Picture of rubric The hardest part is creating your rubric. Once you do, you've made grading much easier and save time in the long run- especially if you reuse them for other classes.