Creating Rubrics that Work for You

4. Assessment

“I’m an expert in my content, but I don’t have a background in communication or public speaking. I just don’t feel qualified to assess student presentations.” Does this sound like you or someone you know? Have no fear! Rubrics are here! Rubrics define what is expected and what will be assessed. Rubrics show our students that there is:

A standard for good public speaking in our fields
An expectation or a goal that you have set regarding their mastery of an oral communication skill
An incentive for mastering this skill--it will be weighed appropriately and reflected in your learning outcomes.

An effective rubric indicates that you will evaluate according to specified criteria, making grading and ranking simpler, more transparent, and fairer. In other words, rubrics make what would be a subjective assessment process a more objective one. Crafting a thoughtful presentation rubric will make your job as a grader easier and help your students understand—and rise to—your expectations. In this module we will explore

Designing rubrics to empower your students to meet your learning outcomes.
Starting with sample rubric templates to use verbatim or to inspire new ideas!
Creating effective peer observation experiences.
Advice on creating rubrics from UT faculty.

Setting the Bar High (and Clearly): Empowering Your Students to Meet Your Learning Outcomes

It is important to tie rubric weight to your oral communication learning outcomes to show students that you value their development. Whether your learning outcome is for students to be able to synthesize research or demonstrate effective verbal and non-verbal communication skills, the rubric you create should weigh those skills appropriately.

Let's think of an example, shared with us by a Signature Course faculty member. An instructor in the College of Liberal Arts assigns a research paper to her students.

First, she identifies her goals: She would like to help her students learn how to talk about their research in a succinct and accessible way.
Second, she creates an assignment that aligns with her goals: She asks her students to prepare a 3-minute presentation on their research project and asks them to imagine presenting their research to a layperson audience.
Third, she thinks about what evidence students need to demonstrate in their presentation that would clearly show they have understood and effectively spoken about their research in a succinct and accessible way. For example, since one of her learning goals is for students to demonstrate audience accessibility, she can encourage students to use analogies, limit jargon, define terms, and make more abstract ideas concrete through the use of analogies.
Fourth, she develops a rating scale. Rating scales can include either numerical or descriptive labels. Usually, a rating scale consists of an even number of performance levels. If an odd number is used, the middle level tends to become a catch-all category.
Finally, she defines the performance quality of the ideal assessment for each criteria, one at a time. She begins with the highest level of the scale to define top quality performance.

It is important to note that your rubric will likely contain more than just your oral competency expectations. For example, the instructor above is interested in the students’ demonstration of knowledge of class content. Additionally, the three-minute time limit is important to her, so she adds “time” to her rubric, weighing it appropriately to incentivize students adhering to the time constraint, and consequently those who are learning to be succinct.

For more information on how to get started thinking about your rubric, download the Faculty Innovation Center’s guide to rubrics Download download the Faculty Innovation Center’s guide to rubrics

Canvas Tips

Give Your Students the Opportunity to Get Comfortable with Your Rubric

Some of your students may struggle to understand your expectations, even when they are given a rubric. One thing that you can do to help your students understand how to interpret your rubric is to review it with them, and give them opportunities to practice using it. Dr. Adria Battaglia, an educational consultant in the Faculty Innovation Center, breaks down interpreting a rubric with her communication students like this:

"I teach in the communication studies discipline. When I introduce my assignment details and rubric Download my assignment details and rubric

to my students for their informative speech presentation, I use what I call the ‘pen activity.’ This activity is something you can do with your students to gauge their understanding of your standards and expectations, and to empower them to be critical, constructive evaluators of their own and others’ work. It takes about 10-15 minutes of class time, creates space for a really productive conversation about expectations, and makes what I think can often feel like a subjective assessment (evaluating someone’s performance) into a more objective one...at least in the sense that we’re building and agreeing to community standards.

Then I give my students a handout detailing the performance quality Download a handout detailing the performance quality

for A, B, C, D, and F speeches. I ask them, “Do these sound clear to you? Let’s see if we have consensus by applying these criteria to something simple . . . like, passing a pen.” I have a volunteer come up and pose as the instructor of the class. I tell the volunteer to ask me (the student in this hypothetical situation) to hand them a pen. They say, “Please hand me the pen.” I hand them the pen. I ask the students, “What grade do you think this assignment would get?” The correct answer (yes, there is one!) is, “C.” Why? Because I did exactly what was asked. If we were to apply this to the speech assignment, that would mean citing the correct number of citations, having the 5 parts of an introduction and 4 parts of a conclusion, speaking extemporaneously, etc.

We repeat the skit. The students asks me to hand them a pen. This time, I do a little dance, and hand them a pen. When I ask the students to grade me, sometimes I’ll get “F” for my not-so-great dance moves, but the correct answer here is a “B.” I did what I was supposed to do, and I tried something creative—perhaps with my visual aids or my presentation style.

We repeat the skit. I do the dance, I hand the volunteer student a pen, and then I hand them a highlighter, pencil, and colored pen. This is representative of an “A” in my class because I really focus on diversifying the evidence and examples used, so the multiple pens become a way for me to express this idea of having a variety of support material.

For the record, a “D” speech is where I drop the pen instead of handing it to the volunteer student. An “F” speech is where I simply refuse (and we discuss how a “refusal” could be plagiarism, too—refusing to engage in the work yourself).

Finally, I show my students an example speech. I break the class down into sections, where each section is focused on a particular element of the rubric (the introduction, body language, support material, etc.). We watch a sample speech and then discuss the rubric together. I often use videos of my own previous students who have given me permission to show their speeches, and then I can give my current students their sample written work, too. If you don’t have this kind of material from previous classes, consider showing them something from online. I love Belmont’s Speech Lab Links to an external site. for basic informative and persuasive speeches.

Get Started with These Sample Rubrics for Different Types of Presentations

Recall that your oral communication assignment was designed to help you assess the extent to which your students met your learning outcomes. As you construct your rubric, consider how you will connect your oral communication learning outcomes to the rubric.

There are myriad ways to assess your students’ mastery of your learning outcomes. In the table below, you will find ten oral competency assignments. Click on the presentation types below to identify delivery criteria considerations for your rubrics as well as rubric templates. Adding weight to specific presentation skills will encourage your students to rise to your expectations.

Impromptu

3-Minute Thesis

Elevator Pitch

Pecha Kucha

Sales Pitch

Informative

Speech

Persuasive

Speech

Debate

Panel

Presentation

with Q&A

Ted Talk

Features created with Design Tools (Links to an external site.) by Cidi Labs

Create Effective Peer Observation Experiences

Asking your students to observe each other and provide feedback is an excellent way for them to learn content and public speaking strategies from one another. Peer observations can occur in a number of ways:

In class utilizing the rubric you have created for the final presentation
In class or a computer lab using a truncated rubric

Outside of class, where students can watch a peer’s recorded presentation from a shared UT Box folder

Peer observations are most helpful for students when everyone understands the rubric being used. The benefit of using the Colleague Feedback Form Download Colleague Feedback Form

from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Speaking Center is that it’s design is simple and provides a framework for the observer to offer objective critique—as an observer, they either saw or heard the items on the rubric or they did not. The praise sandwich technique also encourages the observer to give critique that highlights both the presenter’s strengths as well as aspects of the presentation that inhibit the audience from understanding the presenter’s intended message.

For a deeper dive into three main types of feedback and ways to get your students comfortable with giving and receiving feedback check out Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well Links to an external site. by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen (2014).

Best Practices: Faculty Voices

What kind of rubric do you use for your oral competency assignment? Watch the videos below to learn from UT faculty the best practices for creating rubrics designed to evaluate oral competency skills. You can also download the rubrics for each faculty member by clicking on the link beneath each of their videos.

Dr. Keri Stephens (Associate Professor of Communication Studies)

“The key here is, to give them enough details that [the students] know what you’re looking for, but give yourself enough flexibility in the grading so that it doesn’t ever feel too harsh or like it’s going to hurt their confidence.” Dr. Stephens uses a strategically vague rubric for delivery skills, but emphasizes a natural speaking style to encourage students to speak extemporaneously, rather than trying to memorize everything. Weighing a natural, conversational style of speaking empowers students to focus on sharing their content and letting go of perfectionist tendencies. Explore two of Dr. Stephen's rubrics: Elevator Pitch Assignment Rubric Download Elevator Pitch Assignment Rubric

and Final Sales Team Presentation Download Final Sales Team Presentation (rubric included in her assignment details).

Dr. Holli Temple (Clinical Assistant Professor in the Health Outcomes & Pharmacy Practice Division)

While there are many things one could assess in oral competency, Dr. Temple focuses on voice projection, eye contact, and nonverbal distractions. Download Dr. Temple’s rubric Download Download Dr. Temple’s rubric

to inspire your own!

Dr. Gwen Stovall (Assistant Professor of Practice, College of Natural Sciences)

Dr. Gwen Stovall uses a rubric to help students understand expectations about content and technical speaking skills. Dr. Stovall provides students with the rubric from the very beginning of the course. She provides students with an opportunity to review the rubric together, and to actively think about what may need to be added or edited. Additionally, the students use the rubric to evaluate previous sample presentations as well as each other’s presentations in peer review. Check out Dr. Stovall's rubric Download Dr. Stovall's rubric

Interested in a one-one consultation with an expert to review your communication assignment, rubric, or activities? Looking for a workshop on teaching oral competency? How about a Public Speaking 101 workshop for your students? Visit the Sanger Public Speaking Center webpage Links to an external site.or send a message to: slc.speaking@austin.utexas.edu. Our team looks forward to empowering you and your students!