Quinlan, Audrey M. A Complete Guide to Rubrics: Assessment Made Easy for Teachers, K-College. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2006. Print.
Chapter 9: Rubrics for Online Activities
Chapter 8 deals with using rubrics for computer products, so I didn’t think that was too relevant to my discussions. However, Chapter 9 looks at many ways an instructor can and should use rubrics for online activities. At first, I thought this really wouldn’t be any different from using rubrics in any other assignments, but Quinlan gives some excellent examples and rationale for creating rubrics for online assignments. Partly because students use the internet so much and because they are often advanced in their skills—even beyond the instructor’s technology skills, students may find rubrics help guide them in their use of technology (147-48).
Quinlan spends the first part of the chapter talking about digital plagiarism and gives some examples of simple rubrics that can be used to teach students ethical rules and guide their use of source material online. Then she gives some great example of using rubrics to assess the information on the internet, to evaluate sources. I will definitely use these ideas in my comp II classes. Interestingly, most of her examples are rubrics that teachers can use to assess technology (how an instructor can evaluate a website, for example, and see if it’s appropriate for the grade level, assignment, etc.). However, I can see using these kinds of simple rubrics to have students evaluate their online sources too.
Quinlan then gives some examples of how to use rubrics to assess chat rooms, threaded discussions, and even blogs. Great examples and ideas! I like the way she is using rubrics to help teachers evaluate and improve their own resources and lessons. She does give some good examples, too, of how to use these to assess student works too—like criteria for blogging. I would like to create something like this for my journal assignment in creative writing—where students can use a blog or handwritten or typed journal. Often students flounder a bit on how to complete this assignment. A rubric might help.