Chapter 4: Closing the Feedback Loop on Rubrics: From Design to Grading and Faculty Engagement

Transparent and intentional assessment design is essential to make concrete connections for students between learning outcomes and expected quality of work. Crafting quality and consistent rubrics for assessment and program evaluation is often done with assessment professionals in silos, but it cannot be completed without partnerships with faculty. There are also competing dialogues and tensions around the use of standard rubrics, academic freedom, and implications for policy and practice (McKnight et al., 2020). Rubrics can be used as effective tools for learning, teaching, grading, and reliable assessment data sources, but only with faculty collaboration and acknowledgment of some inherent pedagogical challenges and shortcomings.