presentation rubric

presentation rubric

The Importance of a Well-Designed Presentation Rubric

1. Understanding the Purpose of a Presentation Rubric

If a teacher is disappointed with the quality of presentations it is likely that there has been a misjudgment on the teacher’s behalf about the level of difficulty in creating a good presentation and/or the student’s understanding of what constitutes a good presentation. This is where the rubric can be most useful. By consulting the student’s knowledge of what makes a good presentation, a teacher can construct a list of specific criteria under the four general categories of planning, making, delivery and review. A this value must be placed on the rubric reflecting the teacher’s demonstration of the high priority he/she places on the assignment. Each criteria must be described in detail relative to different levels of performance. i.e. what presentation planning looks like at 50%, 60%, 70% and so on. This will not only be useful for to the student to understand the difference between good and poor performance but it will enable the teacher, assessing large numbers of assignments, to give more objective marks with the criteria already specified. Finally the rubric should be trialed for a self-assessment and/or peer assessment task in which the students use the criteria to mark a piece of work (maybe a videoed presentation by the teacher) and compare the marks they would have given to those of the teacher. Any disparities can be discussed to good effect.

Understanding the assignment and what is expected is the first step in effectively completing any task. Presenting is a skill that is important in many professions as well as an effective way of communicating in a learning situation. The ability to present verbally is something that is often stated as an expected graduate outcome and yet in many courses there is very little specific instruction to students on how to present effectively.

When used effectively, a well-designed presentation rubric provides specific and clear guidelines that enable students to understand the requirements of an assignment and how their work will be assessed. It can also assist the teacher to design an effective assignment, assess student work with objectivity and in a timely manner, provide constructive feedback, and reduce student questions about what is expected and how their work will be assessed. This is assuming that the presentation rubric is co-created with the students who will also use it for self-assessment and peer-assessment.

2. Key Elements to Include in a Presentation Rubric

The targeted and specific nature of a well-designed rubric is what makes it a wonderful tool. Unfortunately, rubrics are often created in an ad hoc manner right before they are used. The handout, “Using Rubrics,” by Adrianne Johnstone on the Centre for Teaching Excellence website at the University of Waterloo, describes the importance of creating a rubric before the assignment is given to students. She writes, “Planning a rubric takes time and foresight. It is a predictive analytic tool that looks ahead to the end product or performance” (n.d., para. 5). This is particularly true for presentation rubrics. John Lassar and Janice Mertes’ article, “Applied Behavioral Science: Why Johnny Can’t Present,” describes the importance of setting expectations for a presentation. They suggest “requiring the team to submit a written version of the oral presentation ahead of time, followed by in-depth feedback and coaching on their performance before any public presentation is allowed” (2007, p. 12). Lassar and Mertes are talking about expectations. High-quality presentations are a challenging and time-consuming process. Because of this, students need a clear idea of what their instructor expects. A well-designed presentation rubric creates and communicates clear expectations for the assigned presentation.

3. Designing Clear and Measurable Criteria

There are six primary steps in devising and creating a clear, effective rubric: Step 1: Define the performance. Step 2: Determine the criteria. Step 3: Describe the performance levels. Step 4: Assign the weights or points. Step 5: Review the rubric. Step 6: Use the rubric. First, the presenter must carefully think about what he/she is going to evaluate. What is it he is looking to get out of this assignment? What are the directions and learning goals? What is the purpose of the task the students are doing? For example, the students may be giving a PowerPoint presentation on a country they have researched. The teacher may have the learning goal that the student will speak clearly and loudly to the audience, emphasizing insightful information. An effective way to define this type of performance is for the teacher to make an audio or video recording of a student who the teacher feels has performed at different levels of quality. Another approach is to work with other teachers to create holistic agreement on levels of quality performance. This could be done through discussion, independent writing, and then group comparison. The important thing is that whatever approach is taken, the teacher needs to be able to provide examples that are representative of different performance levels.

4. Implementing and Using the Rubric Effectively

After you have developed your rubric, the next step is to have your students understand what the rubric is and how it is used. One way to do this is to develop tasks where students practice self-assessment and peer assessment using the rubric. When students first use a rubric, they are often more interested in their grade than in the feedback they receive. To gain a more complete understanding of the criteria, the self-assessment should use the same task and criteria to generate a grade. This can be followed by a comparison of the grade given by the student and the teacher, which leads to a discussion of the similarities and differences in the grades and the reasoning behind them. Self-assessment is an important component in developing student metacognition on their learning and is an excellent way to help students take more responsibility for their learning. Similarly, peer assessment can be beneficial in the same ways, helping students to practice giving feedback to each other, identifying strengths and weaknesses in the task, and using the rubric to improve the task. With practice, the use of self-assessment and peer assessment can lead to students using the rubric on their own as a guide to improve a task before it is submitted for a grade. Another important task in learning how to use a rubric is to use exemplars. Providing students with examples of work at various levels on the rubric can help them understand what the criteria looks like in a real task. Then students can compare these examples with the rubric and assess why the work was given each particular grade. This can lead to further discussion and sometimes changing the criteria to better fit the task. Finally, integrating the rubric into the task is perhaps the most important way to have students use the rubric. The teacher should have the students refer to the rubric constantly during the completion of the task to make sure they are focusing on the criteria. Making an assignment where students must hand in the rubric with the task will ensure that many students will give more concern to the feedback of the rubric.

5. Evaluating and Providing Constructive Feedback

For feedback to be constructive, students must receive detailed, clear, accurate information about their performance from a variety of sources using a variety of methods. Some of these can include written, oral, and self-assessment. Gathering evaluation information from different points of view such as friends, family, peers, teachers, or self-judgment through video taping the presentation can help students see their presentation in a different light. Discuss what will happen or what they should do next with their presentation. This is helpful when the evaluation is focused on their future performance and isn’t just a ‘grader’ where the student discards the results after getting or receiving a grade. Self-evaluation and feedback not only can encourage intrinsic interest in learning, it helps the student take on responsibility for their own learning and become aware of thinking for self-regulation (Wiliam, 2011). Here, feedback from an assessment guides the student on what is good about their work and what they can do to improve. This not only can improve the quality of a task, it provides the student with information that can transfer to other tasks. A good rubric will match the feedback with the learning intentions and success criteria. Success criteria can be formed into a series of statements and are a very effective framework for self-assessment, peer-assessment, and for evaluating feedback. Providing descriptive rather than judgmental feedback that can show what a task looks like along a quality continuum can prevent the decision on what is a good grade. But the most efficient way of evaluating feedback is by highlighting any action that is to follow. All information gained can provide a ‘feed-forward’ approach to any future tasks and assignments. Any consequential improvements after feedback sponsored by a rubric can send a feeling of achievement and confidence to the student.