how to make a presentation rubric

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

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Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

Eberly Center

Teaching excellence & educational innovation, creating and using rubrics.

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly describes the instructor’s performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric identifies:

• criteria: the aspects of performance (e.g., argument, evidence, clarity) that will be assessed
• descriptors: the characteristics associated with each dimension (e.g., argument is demonstrable and original, evidence is diverse and compelling)
• performance levels: a rating scale that identifies students’ level of mastery within each criterion  

Rubrics can be used to provide feedback to students on diverse types of assignments, from papers, projects, and oral presentations to artistic performances and group projects.

Benefitting from Rubrics

• reduce the time spent grading by allowing instructors to refer to a substantive description without writing long comments
• help instructors more clearly identify strengths and weaknesses across an entire class and adjust their instruction appropriately
• help to ensure consistency across time and across graders
• reduce the uncertainty which can accompany grading
• discourage complaints about grades
• understand instructors’ expectations and standards
• use instructor feedback to improve their performance
• monitor and assess their progress as they work towards clearly indicated goals
• recognize their strengths and weaknesses and direct their efforts accordingly

Examples of Rubrics

Here we are providing a sample set of rubrics designed by faculty at Carnegie Mellon and other institutions. Although your particular field of study or type of assessment may not be represented, viewing a rubric that is designed for a similar assessment may give you ideas for the kinds of criteria, descriptions, and performance levels you use on your own rubric.

• Example 1: Philosophy Paper This rubric was designed for student papers in a range of courses in philosophy (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 2: Psychology Assignment Short, concept application homework assignment in cognitive psychology (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 3: Anthropology Writing Assignments This rubric was designed for a series of short writing assignments in anthropology (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 4: History Research Paper . This rubric was designed for essays and research papers in history (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 1: Capstone Project in Design This rubric describes the components and standards of performance from the research phase to the final presentation for a senior capstone project in design (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 2: Engineering Design Project This rubric describes performance standards for three aspects of a team project: research and design, communication, and team work.

Oral Presentations

• Example 1: Oral Exam This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing performance on an oral exam in an upper-division course in history (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 2: Oral Communication This rubric is adapted from Huba and Freed, 2000.
• Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing group presentations in history (Carnegie Mellon).

Class Participation/Contributions

• Example 1: Discussion Class This rubric assesses the quality of student contributions to class discussions. This is appropriate for an undergraduate-level course (Carnegie Mellon).
• Example 2: Advanced Seminar This rubric is designed for assessing discussion performance in an advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar.

See also " Examples and Tools " section of this site for more rubrics.

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How to Create a Rubric in Five Steps (With Examples)

by Amanda Melsby — February 2, 2024

OK, Confession Time

As a new teacher in the early 2000s, I avoided rubrics like the proverbial plague.  I had my reasons!  Rubrics always felt generic and vague.  I wasn’t even sure how to create a rubric.  And when I did try my hand at a rubric, it took forever to make.

What did I do before using a rubric, you ask?

I’d simply write a score and brief comment on the student’s work.  I apologize to any of my former students who may recognize the following teacher comment:

45/50  Great job on this!  Excellent artwork to go with your ideas!

No categories. No criteria.  No real feedback.  Best practice it was NOT.

What I needed was a rubric.

Many years later, I am here to tell you that rubrics are your friend.

Rubrics can be wonderful tools that streamline grading for the teacher.  For students, a rubric communicates the criteria for grading and encourages self-reflection on the quality of their work.  

If you are just starting with rubrics, here are key questions to think through to make your rubric work for you.  Once you have these components, consider using a rubric generator to begin the process or, for no work involved, start with one of ours and then determine what tweaks you would like to make for future assignments.  

How to Create a Rubric in Five Steps

Step 1: identify 4-5 elements you want to grade..

Rubrics work best when there are four to five categories–any more and it becomes cumbersome for both you and the students.  The more you can fully define what you want to assess, the better you will be able to choose rubric criteria that will assist your grading.  

Yes, there are many more categories that you could grade.  Rubrics force you to be very clear about what is most important for the assignment and award points only to those categories.

To download this Oral Presentation rubric, click here .

For a Persuasive Essay rubric click here .

For a Group Work rubric, click here .

Step 2: Clarify the criteria within those categories to differentiate each level.

Once you have your categories, consider the criteria that differentiate a “meets standards” from an “exceeds standards” and so on.  If you use a rubric generator, the criteria will populate itself.  That is helpful.  Carefully read through it to determine if the AI-generated descriptors work for you.  If not, tweak the criteria so it is more in line with your students’ work.  

The more specific you are with the criteria, the easier it will make your grading and the clearer your grading will be to the students.  

Step 3: Determine if the rubric’s grading scale fits your assignment.

Generally, the auto-generated rubric will be on a four- or five-point scale. You might see levels classified like the examples below.

Other options include letters (A-F) or numbers (1-4).  Take a moment to make sure that whether you are using a four- or five-point level scale, it fits with your assignment.  

The main question to ask yourself is if the scale gives you enough flexibility to accurately identify the category that the work falls into.  If you find yourself constantly wanting to circle the middle, you may need an additional level in your rubric.

Step 4: Use the rubric to add objectivity to a subjective grading task.

Rubrics are generally used for writing, presentations, and projects.  Often these can be some of the most difficult assignments to grade because they are more subjective than a quiz or exam.  

The rubric is there to help you grade more consistently and accurately.  

Begin by marking rubrics — simply circling the descriptors that match the student’s work is fine. It’s helpful to practice with 3 to 5 pieces of work (preferably from students of varying abilities) and compare them to the categories and criteria.  

Once you start to see patterns in the work, your scoring will become more accurate, consistent, and timely.  Practicing with a few first will give you a sense of the quality of the work you are receiving and how they fit into the criteria you have on your rubric. 

Step 5: Decide how those circles on a rubric translate into a grade in your grade book.

Chances are, each student has a variety of levels circled throughout the rubric, which will need to be translated into a score.  

The easiest way is to decide on the overall point value (say 50 points) and decide on the number of maximum points per category (20 points for analysis of evidence, 20 points for quality of evidence, and 10 points for mechanics).  

From there you will need to decide the point value for each level (20 points for a 4, 16 points for a 3, 14 points for a 2, and 10 points for a 1).  You then add up the points from each category for the overall grade.  

One note of caution: stick to one point value per level.  If you try to have a range within each level, it will cause more headaches than not using a rubric at all.

Choose an assignment or two this year to experiment with these time-saving tools.

Building a rubric after having built your assignment may seem like an added step that you do not have time for.  However, it can be a great time-saver.  

Choose a couple of assignments this year (presentations or group work are great places to start) and jump in.  It may feel clunky at first, but once you get into the groove of working with and using rubrics, you’ll be glad you did.

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About Amanda

Amanda Melsby has been a professional educator for 20 years.  She taught English before working as an assistant principal and later as a high school principal.  Amanda holds an Ed.D. in Educational Practice and Leadership and is currently a dean of teaching and learning.

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Presentation Rubric for a College Project

We seem to have an unavoidable relationship with public speaking throughout our lives. From our kindergarten years, when our presentations are nothing more than a few seconds of reciting cute words in front of our class…

...till our grown up years, when things get a little more serious, and the success of our presentations may determine getting funds for our business, or obtaining an academic degree when defending our thesis.

By the time we reach our mid 20’s, we become worryingly used to evaluations based on our presentations. Yet, for some reason, we’re rarely told the traits upon which we are being evaluated. Most colleges and business schools for instance use a PowerPoint presentation rubric to evaluate their students. Funny thing is, they’re not usually that open about sharing it with their students (as if that would do any harm!).

What is a presentation rubric?

A presentation rubric is a systematic and standardized tool used to evaluate and assess the quality and effectiveness of a presentation. It provides a structured framework for instructors, evaluators, or peers to assess various aspects of a presentation, such as content, delivery, organization, and overall performance. Presentation rubrics are commonly used in educational settings, business environments, and other contexts where presentations are a key form of communication.

A typical presentation rubric includes a set of criteria and a scale for rating or scoring each criterion. The criteria are specific aspects or elements of the presentation that are considered essential for a successful presentation. The scale assigns a numerical value or descriptive level to each criterion, ranging from poor or unsatisfactory to excellent or outstanding.

Common criteria found in presentation rubrics may include:

• Content: This criterion assesses the quality and relevance of the information presented. It looks at factors like accuracy, depth of knowledge, use of evidence, and the clarity of key messages.
• Organization: Organization evaluates the structure and flow of the presentation. It considers how well the introduction, body, and conclusion are structured and whether transitions between sections are smooth.
• Delivery: Delivery assesses the presenter's speaking skills, including vocal tone, pace, clarity, and engagement with the audience. It also looks at nonverbal communication, such as body language and eye contact.
• Visual Aids: If visual aids like slides or props are used, this criterion evaluates their effectiveness, relevance, and clarity. It may also assess the design and layout of visual materials.
• Audience Engagement: This criterion measures the presenter's ability to connect with the audience, maintain their interest, and respond to questions or feedback.
• Time Management: Time management assesses whether the presenter stayed within the allotted time for the presentation. Going significantly over or under the time limit can affect the overall effectiveness of the presentation.
• Creativity and Innovation: In some cases, rubrics may include criteria related to the creative and innovative aspects of the presentation, encouraging presenters to think outside the box.
• Overall Impact: This criterion provides an overall assessment of the presentation's impact on the audience, considering how well it achieved its intended purpose and whether it left a lasting impression.

“We’re used to giving presentations, yet we’re rarely told the traits upon which we’re being evaluated.

Well, we don’t believe in shutting down information. Quite the contrary: we think the best way to practice your speech is to know exactly what is being tested! By evaluating each trait separately, you can:

• Acknowledge the complexity of public speaking, that goes far beyond subject knowledge.
• Address your weaker spots, and work on them to improve your presentation as a whole.

I’ve assembled a simple Presentation Rubric, based on a great document by the NC State University, and I've also added a few rows of my own, so you can evaluate your presentation in pretty much any scenario!

CREATE PRESENTATION

What is tested in this powerpoint presentation rubric.

The Rubric contemplates 7 traits, which are as follows:

Now let's break down each trait so you can understand what they mean, and how to assess each one:

Presentation Rubric

How to use this Rubric?:

The Rubric is pretty self explanatory, so I'm just gonna give you some ideas as to how to use it. The ideal scenario is to ask someone else to listen to your presentation and evaluate you with it. The less that person knows you, or what your presentation is about, the better.

WONDERING WHAT YOUR SCORE MAY INDICATE?

• 21-28 Fan-bloody-tastic!
• 14-21 Looking good, but you can do better
• 7-14 Uhmmm, you ain't at all ready

As we don't always have someone to rehearse our presentations with, a great way to use the Rubric is to record yourself (this is not Hollywood material so an iPhone video will do!), watching the video afterwards, and evaluating your presentation on your own. You'll be surprised by how different your perception of yourself is, in comparison to how you see yourself on video.

Related read: Webinar - Public Speaking and Stage Presence: How to wow?

It will be fairly easy to evaluate each trait! The mere exercise of reading the Presentation Rubric is an excellent study on presenting best practices.

If you're struggling with any particular trait, I suggest you take a look at our Academy Channel where we discuss how to improve each trait in detail!

It's not always easy to objectively assess our own speaking skills. So the next time you have a big presentation coming up, use this Rubric to put yourself to the test!

Need support for your presentation? Build awesome slides using our very own Slidebean .

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Creating an Oral Presentation Rubric

In-class activity.

This activity helps students clarify the oral presentation genre; do this after distributing an assignment–in this case, a standard individual oral presentation near the end of the semester which allows students to practice public speaking while also providing a means of workshopping their final paper argument. Together, the class will determine the criteria by which their presentations should–and should not–be assessed.

Guide to Oral/Signed Communication in Writing Classrooms

To collaboratively determine the requirements for students’ oral presentations; to clarify the audience’s expectations of this genre

rhetorical situation; genre; metacognition; oral communication; rubric; assessment; collaboration

• Ask students to free-write and think about these questions: What makes a good oral presentation? Think of examples of oral presentations that you’ve seen, one “bad” and one “good.” They can be from any genre–for example, a course lecture, a museum talk, a presentation you have given, even a video. Jot down specific strengths and weaknesses.
• Facilitate a full-class discussion to list the important characteristics of an oral presentation. Group things together. For example, students may say “speaking clearly” as a strength; elicit specifics (intonation, pace, etc.) and encourage them to elaborate.
• Clarify to students that the more they add to the list, the more information they have in regards to expectations on the oral presentation rubric. If they do not add enough, or specific enough, items, they won’t know what to aim for or how they will be assessed.
• Review the list on the board and ask students to decide what they think are the most important parts of their oral presentations, ranking their top three components.
• Create a second list to the side of the board, called “Let it slide,” asking students what, as a class, they should “let slide” in the oral presentations. Guide and elaborate, choosing whether to reject, accept, or compromise on the students’ proposals.
• Distribute the two lists to students as-is as a checklist-style rubric or flesh the primary list out into a full analytic rubric .

Here’s an example of one possible rubric created from this activity; here’s another example of an oral presentation rubric that assesses only the delivery of the speech/presentation, and which can be used by classmates to evaluate each other.

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Creating and using rubrics.

A rubric describes the criteria that will be used to evaluate a specific task, such as a student writing assignment, poster, oral presentation, or other project. Rubrics allow instructors to communicate expectations to students, allow students to check in on their progress mid-assignment, and can increase the reliability of scores. Research suggests that when rubrics are used on an instructional basis (for instance, included with an assignment prompt for reference), students tend to utilize and appreciate them (Reddy and Andrade, 2010).

Rubrics generally exist in tabular form and are composed of:

• A description of the task that is being evaluated,
• The criteria that is being evaluated (row headings),
• A rating scale that demonstrates different levels of performance (column headings), and
• A description of each level of performance for each criterion (within each box of the table).

When multiple individuals are grading, rubrics also help improve the consistency of scoring across all graders. Instructors should insure that the structure, presentation, consistency, and use of their rubrics pass rigorous standards of validity , reliability , and fairness (Andrade, 2005).

Major Types of Rubrics

There are two major categories of rubrics:

• Holistic : In this type of rubric, a single score is provided based on raters’ overall perception of the quality of the performance. Holistic rubrics are useful when only one attribute is being evaluated, as they detail different levels of performance within a single attribute. This category of rubric is designed for quick scoring but does not provide detailed feedback. For these rubrics, the criteria may be the same as the description of the task.
• Analytic : In this type of rubric, scores are provided for several different criteria that are being evaluated. Analytic rubrics provide more detailed feedback to students and instructors about their performance. Scoring is usually more consistent across students and graders with analytic rubrics.

Rubrics utilize a scale that denotes level of success with a particular assignment, usually a 3-, 4-, or 5- category grid:

Figure 1: Grading Rubrics: Sample Scales (Brown Sheridan Center)

Sample Rubrics

Instructors can consider a sample holistic rubric developed for an English Writing Seminar course at Yale.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities also has a number of free (non-invasive free account required) analytic rubrics that can be downloaded and modified by instructors. These 16 VALUE rubrics enable instructors to measure items such as inquiry and analysis, critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, quantitative literacy, teamwork, problem-solving, and more.

Recommendations

The following provides a procedure for developing a rubric, adapted from Brown’s Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning :

• Define the goal and purpose of the task that is being evaluated - Before constructing a rubric, instructors should review their learning outcomes associated with a given assignment. Are skills, content, and deeper conceptual knowledge clearly defined in the syllabus , and do class activities and assignments work towards intended outcomes? The rubric can only function effectively if goals are clear and student work progresses towards them.
• Decide what kind of rubric to use - The kind of rubric used may depend on the nature of the assignment, intended learning outcomes (for instance, does the task require the demonstration of several different skills?), and the amount and kind of feedback students will receive (for instance, is the task a formative or a summative assessment ?). Instructors can read the above, or consider “Additional Resources” for kinds of rubrics.
• Define the criteria - Instructors can review their learning outcomes and assessment parameters to determine specific criteria for the rubric to cover. Instructors should consider what knowledge and skills are required for successful completion, and create a list of criteria that assess outcomes across different vectors (comprehensiveness, maturity of thought, revisions, presentation, timeliness, etc). Criteria should be distinct and clearly described, and ideally, not surpass seven in number.
• Define the rating scale to measure levels of performance - Whatever rating scale instructors choose, they should insure that it is clear, and review it in-class to field student question and concerns. Instructors can consider if the scale will include descriptors or only be numerical, and might include prompts on the rubric for achieving higher achievement levels. Rubrics typically include 3-5 levels in their rating scales (see Figure 1 above).
• Write descriptions for each performance level of the rating scale - Each level should be accompanied by a descriptive paragraph that outlines ideals for each level, lists or names all performance expectations within the level, and if possible, provides a detail or example of ideal performance within each level. Across the rubric, descriptions should be parallel, observable, and measurable.
• Test and revise the rubric - The rubric can be tested before implementation, by arranging for writing or testing conditions with several graders or TFs who can use the rubric together. After grading with the rubric, graders might grade a similar set of materials without the rubric to assure consistency. Instructors can consider discrepancies, share the rubric and results with faculty colleagues for further opinions, and revise the rubric for use in class. Instructors might also seek out colleagues’ rubrics as well, for comparison. Regarding course implementation, instructors might consider passing rubrics out during the first class, in order to make grading expectations clear as early as possible. Rubrics should fit on one page, so that descriptions and criteria are viewable quickly and simultaneously. During and after a class or course, instructors can collect feedback on the rubric’s clarity and effectiveness from TFs and even students through anonymous surveys. Comparing scores and quality of assignments with parallel or previous assignments that did not include a rubric can reveal effectiveness as well. Instructors should feel free to revise a rubric following a course too, based on student performance and areas of confusion.

Additional Resources

Cox, G. C., Brathwaite, B. H., & Morrison, J. (2015). The Rubric: An assessment tool to guide students and markers. Advances in Higher Education, 149-163.

Creating and Using Rubrics - Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and & Educational Innovation

Creating a Rubric - UC Denver Center for Faculty Development

Grading Rubric Design - Brown University Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Moskal, B. M. (2000). Scoring rubrics: What, when and how? Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation 7(3).

Quinlan A. M., (2011) A Complete Guide to Rubrics: Assessment Made Easy for Teachers of K-college 2nd edition, Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Andrade, H. (2005). Teaching with Rubrics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. College Teaching 53(1):27-30.

Reddy, Y. M., & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(4), 435-448.

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How to design effective rubrics.

Rubrics can be effective assessment tools when constructed using methods that incorporate four main criteria: validity, reliability, fairness, and efficiency. For a rubric to be valid and reliable, it must only grade the work presented (reducing the influence of instructor biases) so that anyone using the rubric would obtain the same grade (Felder and Brent 2016). Fairness ensures that the grading is transparent by providing students with access to the rubric at the beginning of the assessment while efficiency is evident when students receive detailed, timely feedback from the rubric after grading has occurred (Felder and Brent 2016). Because the most informative rubrics for student learning are analytical rubrics (Brookhart 2013), the steps below explain how to construct an analytical rubric.

Five Steps to Design Effective Rubrics

The first step in designing a rubric is determining the content, skills, or tasks you want students to be able to accomplish (Wormeli 2006) by completing an assessment. Thus, two main questions need to be answered:

• What do students need to know or do? and
• How will the instructor know when the students know or can do it?

Another way to think about this is to decide which learning objectives for the course are being evaluated using this assessment (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wormeli 2006). (More information on learning objectives can be found at Teaching@UNL). For most projects or similar assessments, more than one area of content or skill is occurring, so most rubrics assess more than one learning objective. For example, a project may require students to research a topic (content knowledge learning objective) using digital literacy skills (research learning objective) and presenting their findings (communication learning objective). Therefore, it is important to think through all the tasks or skills students will need to complete during an assessment to meet the learning objectives. Additionally, it is advised to review examples of rubrics for a specific discipline or task to find grade-level appropriate rubrics to aid in preparing a list of tasks and activities that are essential to meeting the learning objectives (Allen and Tanner 2006).

Once the learning objectives and a list of essential tasks for students is compiled and aligned to learning objectives, the next step is to determine the number of criteria for the rubric. Most rubrics have three or more criteria with most rubrics having less than a dozen criteria. It is important to remember that as more criteria are added to a rubric, a student’s cognitive load increases making it more difficult for students to remember all the assessment requirements (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wolf et al. 2008). Thus, usually 3-10 criteria are recommended for a rubric (if an assessment has less than 3 criteria, a different format (e.g., grade sheet) can be used to convey grading expectations and if a rubric has more than ten criteria, some criteria can be consolidated into a single larger category; Wolf et al. 2008). Once the number of criteria is established, the final step for the criteria aspect of a rubric is creating descriptive titles for each criterion and determining if some criteria will be weighted and thus be more influential on the grade for the assessment. Once this is accomplished, the right column of the rubric can be designed (Table 1).

The third aspect of a rubric design is the levels of performance and the labels for each level in the rubric. It is recommended to have 3-6 levels of performance in a rubric (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wormeli 2006, Wolf et al. 2008). The key to determining the number of performance levels for a rubric is based on how easy it is to distinguish between levels (Allen and Tanner 2006). Can the difference in student performance between a “3” and “4” be readily seen on a five-level rubric? If not, should only four levels be used for the rubric for all criteria. If most of the criteria can easily be differentiated with five levels, but only one criterion is difficult to discern, then two levels could be left blank (see “Research Skills” criterion in Table 1). It is also important to note that having fewer levels makes constructing the rubric faster but may result in ambiguous expectations and difficulty providing feedback to students.

Once the number of performance levels are set for the rubric, assign each level a name or title that indicates the level of performance. When creating the name system for the performance levels of a rubric, it is important to use terms that are not subjective, overly negative, or convey judgements (e.g., “Excellent”, “Good”, and “Bad”; Allen and Tanner 2006, Stevens and Levi 2013) and to ensure the terms use the same aspect of language (all nouns, all verbs ending in “-ing”, all adjectives, etc.; Wormeli 2006). Examples of different performance level naming systems include:

• Exemplary, Competent, Not yet competent
• Proficient, Intermediate, Novice
• Strong, Satisfactory, Not yet satisfactory
• Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, Below Expectations
• Proficient, Capable, Adequate, Limited
• Exemplary, Proficient, Acceptable, Unacceptable
• Mastery, Proficient, Apprentice, Novice, Absent

Additionally, the order of the levels needs to be determined with some rubrics designed to increase in proficiency across the levels (lowest, middle, highest performance) and other designed to start with the highest performance level and move toward the lowest (highest, middle, lowest performance).

It is essential to evaluate how well a rubric works for grading and providing feedback to students. If possible, use previous student work to test a rubric to determine how well the rubric functions for grading the assessment prior to giving the rubric to students (Wormeli 2006). After using the rubric in a class, evaluate how well students met the criteria and how easy the rubric was to use in grading (Allen and Tanner 2006). If a specific criterion has low grades associated with it, determine if the language was too subjective or confusing for students. This can be done by asking students to critique the rubric or using a student survey for the overall assessment. Alternatively, the instructor can ask a colleague or instructional designer for their feedback on the rubric. If more than one instructor is using the rubric, determine if all instructors are seeing lower grades on certain criterion. Analyzing the grades can often show where students are failing to understand the content or the assessment format or requirements.

Next, look at how well the rubric reflects the work turned in by the students (Allen and Tanner 2006, Wormeli 2006). Does the grade based on the rubric reflect what the instructor would expect for the student’s assignment? Or does the rubric result in some students receiving a higher or lower grade? If the latter is occurring, determine which aspect of the rubric needs to be “fudged” to obtain the correct grade for the assessment and update the criteria that are problematic. Alternatively, the instructor may find that the rubric is good for all criteria but that some aspects of the assessment are under or over valued in the rubric (Allen and Tanner 2006). For example, if the main learning objective is the content, but 40% of the assessment is on writing skills, the rubric may need to be weighed to allow content criteria to have a stronger influence on the grade over writing criteria.

Finally, analyze how well the rubric worked for grading the assessment overall. If the instructor needed to modify the interpretation of the rubric while grading, then the levels of performance or the number of criteria may need to be edited to better align with the learning objectives and the evidence being shown in the assessment (Allen and Tanner 2006). For example, if only three performance levels exist in the rubric, but the instructor often had to give partial credit on a criterion, then this may indicate that the rubric needs to be expanded to have more levels of performance. If instead, a specific criterion is difficult to grade or distinguish between adjacent performance levels, this may indicate that too much is being assessed in the criterion (and thus should be divided into two or more different criteria) or that the criterion is not well written and needs to be explained with more details. Reflecting on the effectiveness of a rubric should be done each time the rubric is used to ensure it is well-designed and accurately represents student learning.

Rubric Examples & Resources

UNCW College of Arts & Science “ Scoring Rubrics ” contains links to discipline-specific rubrics designed by faculty from many institutions. Most of these rubrics are downloadable Word files that could be edited for use in courses.

Syracuse University “ Examples of Rubrics ” also has rubrics by discipline with some as downloadable Word files that could be edited for use in courses.

University of Illinois – Springfield has pdf files of different types of rubrics on its “ Rubric Examples ” page. These rubrics include many different types of tasks (presenting, participation, critical thinking, etc.) from a variety of institutions

If you are building a rubric in Canvas, the rubric guide in Canvas 101 provides detailed information including video instructions: Using Rubrics: Canvas 101 (unl.edu)

Allen, D. and K. Tanner (2006). Rubrics: Tools for making learning goals and evaluation criteria explicit for both teachers and learners. CBE – Life Sciences Education 5: 197-203.

Stevens, D. D., and A. J. Levi (2013). Introduction to Rubrics: an assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning. Stylus Publishing, Sterling, VA, USA.

Wolf, K., M. Connelly, and A. Komara (2008). A tale of two rubrics: improving teaching and learning across the content areas through assessment. Journal of Effective Teaching 8: 21-32.

Wormeli, R. (2006). Fair isn’t always equal: assessing and grading in the differentiated classroom. Stenhouse Publishers, Portland, ME, USA.

This page was authored by Michele Larson and last updated September 15, 2022

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Higher Education

How to (Effectively) Use a Presentation Grading Rubric

Almost all higher education courses these days require students to give a presentation, which can be a beast to grade. But there’s a simple tool to keep your evaluations on track. 

Enter: The presentation grading rubric.

With a presentation grading rubric, giving feedback is simple. Rubrics help instructors standardize criteria and provide consistent scoring and feedback for each presenter. 

How can presentation grading rubrics be used effectively? Here are 5 ways to make the most of your rubrics. 

1. Find a Good Customizable Rubric

There’s practically no limit to how rubrics are used, and there are oodles of presentation rubrics on Pinterest and Google Images. But not all rubrics are created equal. 

Professors need to be picky when choosing a presentation rubric for their courses. Rubrics should clearly define the target that students are aiming for and describe performance. 

2. Fine-Tune Your Rubric

Make sure your rubric accurately reflects the expectations you have for your students. It may be helpful to ask a colleague or peer to review your rubric before putting it to use. After using it for an assignment, you could take notes on the rubric’s efficiency as you grade. 

You may need to tweak your rubric to correct common misunderstandings or meet the criteria for a specific assignment. Make adjustments as needed and frequently review your rubric to maximize its effectiveness. 

3. Discuss the Rubric Beforehand

On her blog Write-Out-Loud , Susan Dugdale advises to not keep rubrics a secret. Rubrics should be openly discussed before a presentation is given. Make sure reviewing your rubric with students is listed on your lesson plan.

Set aside time to discuss the criteria with students ahead of presentation day so they know where to focus their efforts. To help students better understand the rubric, play a clip of a presentation and have students use the rubric to grade the video. Go over what grade students gave the presentation and why, based on the rubric’s standards. Then explain how you would grade the presentation as an instructor. This will help your students internalize the rubric as they prepare for their presentations.

4. Use the Rubric Consistently

Rubrics help maintain fairness in grading. When presentation time arrives, use a consistent set of grading criteria across all speakers to keep grading unbiased. 

An effective application for rubrics is to apply a quantitative value to students across a cohort and over multiple presentations. These values show which students made the most progress and where they started out (relative to the rest of their class). Taken together, this data tells the story of how effective or ineffective the feedback has been.

5. Share Your Feedback

If you’re using an electronic system, sharing feedback might be automatic. If you’re using paper, try to give copies to presenters as soon as possible. This will help them incorporate your feedback while everything is still fresh in their minds. 

If you’re looking to use rubrics electronically, check out GoReact, the #1 video platform for skill development. GoReact allows you to capture student presentations on video for feedback, grading, and critique. The software includes a rubric builder that you can apply to recordings of any kind of presentation.

Presenters can receive real-time feedback by live recording directly to GoReact with a webcam or smartphone. Instructors and peers submit feedback during the presentation. Students improve astronomically. 

A presentation grading rubric is a simple way to keep your evaluations on track. Remember to use a customizable rubric, discuss the criteria beforehand, follow a consistent set of grading criteria, make necessary adjustments, and quickly share your feedback.

By following these five steps, both you and your students can reap the benefits that great rubrics have to offer.

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How to Use Rubrics

A rubric is a document that describes the criteria by which students’ assignments are graded. Rubrics can be helpful for:

• Making grading faster and more consistent (reducing potential bias). 
• Communicating your expectations for an assignment to students before they begin. 

Moreover, for assignments whose criteria are more subjective, the process of creating a rubric and articulating what it looks like to succeed at an assignment provides an opportunity to check for alignment with the intended learning outcomes and modify the assignment prompt, as needed.

Why rubrics?

Rubrics are best for assignments or projects that require evaluation on multiple dimensions. Creating a rubric makes the instructor’s standards explicit to both students and other teaching staff for the class, showing students how to meet expectations.

Additionally, the more comprehensive a rubric is, the more it allows for grading to be streamlined—students will get informative feedback about their performance from the rubric, even if they don’t have as many individualized comments. Grading can be more standardized and efficient across graders.

Finally, rubrics allow for reflection, as the instructor has to think about their standards and outcomes for the students. Using rubrics can help with self-directed learning in students as well, especially if rubrics are used to review students’ own work or their peers’, or if students are involved in creating the rubric.

How to design a rubric

1. consider the desired learning outcomes.

What learning outcomes is this assignment reinforcing and assessing? If the learning outcome seems “fuzzy,” iterate on the outcome by thinking about the expected student work product. This may help you more clearly articulate the learning outcome in a way that is measurable.  

2. Define criteria

What does a successful assignment submission look like? As described by Allen and Tanner (2006), it can help develop an initial list of categories that the student should demonstrate proficiency in by completing the assignment. These categories should correlate with the intended learning outcomes you identified in Step 1, although they may be more granular in some cases. For example, if the task assesses students’ ability to formulate an effective communication strategy, what components of their communication strategy will you be looking for? Talking with colleagues or looking at existing rubrics for similar tasks may give you ideas for categories to consider for evaluation.

If you have assigned this task to students before and have samples of student work, it can help create a qualitative observation guide. This is described in Linda Suskie’s book Assessing Student Learning , where she suggests thinking about what made you decide to give one assignment an A and another a C, as well as taking notes when grading assignments and looking for common patterns. The often repeated themes that you comment on may show what your goals and expectations for students are. An example of an observation guide used to take notes on predetermined areas of an assignment is shown here .

In summary, consider the following list of questions when defining criteria for a rubric (O’Reilly and Cyr, 2006):

• What do you want students to learn from the task?
• How will students demonstrate that they have learned?
• What knowledge, skills, and behaviors are required for the task?
• What steps are required for the task?
• What are the characteristics of the final product?

After developing an initial list of criteria, prioritize the most important skills you want to target and eliminate unessential criteria or combine similar skills into one group. Most rubrics have between 3 and 8 criteria. Rubrics that are too lengthy make it difficult to grade and challenging for students to understand the key skills they need to achieve for the given assignment. 

3. Create the rating scale

According to Suskie, you will want at least 3 performance levels: for adequate and inadequate performance, at the minimum, and an exemplary level to motivate students to strive for even better work. Rubrics often contain 5 levels, with an additional level between adequate and exemplary and a level between adequate and inadequate. Usually, no more than 5 levels are needed, as having too many rating levels can make it hard to consistently distinguish which rating to give an assignment (such as between a 6 or 7 out of 10). Suskie also suggests labeling each level with names to clarify which level represents the minimum acceptable performance. Labels will vary by assignment and subject, but some examples are: 

• Exceeds standard, meets standard, approaching standard, below standard
• Complete evidence, partial evidence, minimal evidence, no evidence

4. Fill in descriptors

Fill in descriptors for each criterion at each performance level. Expand on the list of criteria you developed in Step 2. Begin to write full descriptions, thinking about what an exemplary example would look like for students to strive towards. Avoid vague terms like “good” and make sure to use explicit, concrete terms to describe what would make a criterion good. For instance, a criterion called “organization and structure” would be more descriptive than “writing quality.” Describe measurable behavior and use parallel language for clarity; the wording for each criterion should be very similar, except for the degree to which standards are met. For example, in a sample rubric from Chapter 9 of Suskie’s book, the criterion of “persuasiveness” has the following descriptors:

• Well Done (5): Motivating questions and advance organizers convey the main idea. Information is accurate.
• Satisfactory (3-4): Includes persuasive information.
• Needs Improvement (1-2): Include persuasive information with few facts.
• Incomplete (0): Information is incomplete, out of date, or incorrect.

These sample descriptors generally have the same sentence structure that provides consistent language across performance levels and shows the degree to which each standard is met.

5. Test your rubric

Test your rubric using a range of student work to see if the rubric is realistic. You may also consider leaving room for aspects of the assignment, such as effort, originality, and creativity, to encourage students to go beyond the rubric. If there will be multiple instructors grading, it is important to calibrate the scoring by having all graders use the rubric to grade a selected set of student work and then discuss any differences in the scores. This process helps develop consistency in grading and making the grading more valid and reliable.

Types of Rubrics

If you would like to dive deeper into rubric terminology, this section is dedicated to discussing some of the different types of rubrics. However, regardless of the type of rubric you use, it’s still most important to focus first on your learning goals and think about how the rubric will help clarify students’ expectations and measure student progress towards those learning goals.

Depending on the nature of the assignment, rubrics can come in several varieties (Suskie, 2009):

Checklist Rubric

This is the simplest kind of rubric, which lists specific features or aspects of the assignment which may be present or absent. A checklist rubric does not involve the creation of a rating scale with descriptors. See example from 18.821 project-based math class .

Rating Scale Rubric

This is like a checklist rubric, but instead of merely noting the presence or absence of a feature or aspect of the assignment, the grader also rates quality (often on a graded or Likert-style scale). See example from 6.811 assistive technology class .

Descriptive Rubric

A descriptive rubric is like a rating scale, but including descriptions of what performing to a certain level on each scale looks like. Descriptive rubrics are particularly useful in communicating instructors’ expectations of performance to students and in creating consistency with multiple graders on an assignment. This kind of rubric is probably what most people think of when they imagine a rubric. See example from 15.279 communications class .

Holistic Scoring Guide

Unlike the first 3 types of rubrics, a holistic scoring guide describes performance at different levels (e.g., A-level performance, B-level performance) holistically without analyzing the assignment into several different scales. This kind of rubric is particularly useful when there are many assignments to grade and a moderate to a high degree of subjectivity in the assessment of quality. It can be difficult to have consistency across scores, and holistic scoring guides are most helpful when making decisions quickly rather than providing detailed feedback to students. See example from 11.229 advanced writing seminar .

The kind of rubric that is most appropriate will depend on the assignment in question.

Implementation tips

Rubrics are also available to use for Canvas assignments. See this resource from Boston College for more details and guides from Canvas Instructure.

Allen, D., & Tanner, K. (2006). Rubrics: Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and Learners. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 5 (3), 197-203. doi:10.1187/cbe.06-06-0168

Cherie Miot Abbanat. 11.229 Advanced Writing Seminar. Spring 2004. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

Haynes Miller, Nat Stapleton, Saul Glasman, and Susan Ruff. 18.821 Project Laboratory in Mathematics. Spring 2013. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

Lori Breslow, and Terence Heagney. 15.279 Management Communication for Undergraduates. Fall 2012. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

O’Reilly, L., & Cyr, T. (2006). Creating a Rubric: An Online Tutorial for Faculty. Retrieved from https://www.ucdenver.edu/faculty_staff/faculty/center-for-faculty-development/Documents/Tutorials/Rubrics/index.htm

Suskie, L. (2009). Using a scoring guide or rubric to plan and evaluate an assessment. In Assessing student learning: A common sense guide (2nd edition, pp. 137-154 ) . Jossey-Bass.

William Li, Grace Teo, and Robert Miller. 6.811 Principles and Practice of Assistive Technology. Fall 2014. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare, https://ocw.mit.edu . License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA .

Rubrics for Oral Presentations

Introduction.

Many instructors require students to give oral presentations, which they evaluate and count in students’ grades. It is important that instructors clarify their goals for these presentations as well as the student learning objectives to which they are related. Embedding the assignment in course goals and learning objectives allows instructors to be clear with students about their expectations and to develop a rubric for evaluating the presentations.

A rubric is a scoring guide that articulates and assesses specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics identify the various criteria relevant to an assignment and then explicitly state the possible levels of achievement along a continuum, so that an effective rubric accurately reflects the expectations of an assignment. Using a rubric to evaluate student performance has advantages for both instructors and students.  Creating Rubrics

Rubrics can be either analytic or holistic. An analytic rubric comprises a set of specific criteria, with each one evaluated separately and receiving a separate score. The template resembles a grid with the criteria listed in the left column and levels of performance listed across the top row, using numbers and/or descriptors. The cells within the center of the rubric contain descriptions of what expected performance looks like for each level of performance.

A holistic rubric consists of a set of descriptors that generate a single, global score for the entire work. The single score is based on raters’ overall perception of the quality of the performance. Often, sentence- or paragraph-length descriptions of different levels of competencies are provided.

When applied to an oral presentation, rubrics should reflect the elements of the presentation that will be evaluated as well as their relative importance. Thus, the instructor must decide whether to include dimensions relevant to both form and content and, if so, which one. Additionally, the instructor must decide how to weight each of the dimensions – are they all equally important, or are some more important than others? Additionally, if the presentation represents a group project, the instructor must decide how to balance grading individual and group contributions.  Evaluating Group Projects

Creating Rubrics

The steps for creating an analytic rubric include the following:

1. Clarify the purpose of the assignment. What learning objectives are associated with the assignment?

2. Look for existing rubrics that can be adopted or adapted for the specific assignment

3. Define the criteria to be evaluated

4. Choose the rating scale to measure levels of performance

5. Write descriptions for each criterion for each performance level of the rating scale

6. Test and revise the rubric

Examples of criteria that have been included in rubrics for evaluation oral presentations include:

• Knowledge of content
• Organization of content
• Presentation of ideas
• Research/sources
• Visual aids/handouts
• Language clarity
• Grammatical correctness
• Time management
• Volume of speech
• Rate/pacing of Speech
• Mannerisms/gestures
• ​​​​​​​Eye contact/audience engagement

Examples of scales/ratings that have been used to rate student performance include:

• Strong, Satisfactory, Weak
• Beginning, Intermediate, High
• Exemplary, Competent, Developing
• Excellent, Competent, Needs Work
• Exceeds Standard, Meets Standard, Approaching Standard, Below Standard
• Exemplary, Proficient, Developing, Novice
• Excellent, Good, Marginal, Unacceptable
• Advanced, Intermediate High, Intermediate, Developing
• Exceptional, Above Average, Sufficient, Minimal, Poor
• Master, Distinguished, Proficient, Intermediate, Novice
• Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Poor, Unacceptable
• Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never
• Exemplary, Accomplished, Acceptable, Minimally Acceptable, Emerging, Unacceptable

Grading and Performance Rubrics Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Creating and Using Rubrics Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Using Rubrics Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation

Rubrics DePaul University Teaching Commons

Building a Rubric University of Texas/Austin Faculty Innovation Center

Building a Rubric Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning

Rubric Development University of West Florida Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment

Creating and Using Rubrics Yale University Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Designing Grading Rubrics ​​​​​​​ Brown University Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Examples of Oral Presentation Rubrics

Oral Presentation Rubric Pomona College Teaching and Learning Center

Oral Presentation Evaluation Rubric University of Michigan

Oral Presentation Rubric Roanoke College

Oral Presentation: Scoring Guide Fresno State University Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Presentation Skills Rubric State University of New York/New Paltz School of Business

Oral Presentation Rubric Oregon State University Center for Teaching and Learning

Oral Presentation Rubric Purdue University College of Science

Group Class Presentation Sample Rubric Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School

ESL Presentation Rubric

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In-class presentations are a great way to encourage a number of English communicative skills in a realistic task that provides students not only help with their English skills but prepares them in a broader way for future education and work situations. Grading these presentations can be tricky, as there are many elements such as key presentation phrases beyond simple grammar and structure, pronunciation and so on that make a good presentation. This ESL presentation rubric can help you provide valuable feedback to your students and has been created with English learners in mind. Skills included in this rubric include  stress and intonation , appropriate linking language, body language , fluency, as well as standard grammar structures.

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