The section contains an overview and general information on assessment – philosophical foundations, generic purposes, and overview of the assessment methods.
For sample rubrics of some common assessment, please click here.
Graphic available here
The student-centered, assessment as learning/assessment for learning paradigm – employing a variety of techniques to collect evidence of learning.
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) - The Vanderbilt University
Summative assessment focuses on measuring what students know and don’t know. The main purposes of summative assessment are for grading and to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum, programme, and school as an accountability measure. Standardized tests are one of the most popular summative assessment methods.
Formative assessment, on the other hand, is a part of the instructional process. Its main focus is to provide feedback to students to enhance their learning. Formative assessment provides information and evidences about learning and teaching that intrigues reflection on, adjustments and improvements of the instruction. Students’ active engagement in the assessment is one of the distinguished features of the formative assessment. There are a variety of effective formative assessment techniques.
What is the difference between formative and summative assessment? (Carnegie Mellon University)
Norm-referenced assessments measure students’ performance by comparing them using the normal grade distribution (i.e., disperse average student scores along a bell curve, with some students performing very well, most performing average, and a few performing poorly). Examples of norm-reference assessments are GRE, ACT, SAT, etc.
Criterion-referenced assessments measure students’ performance against learning outcomes or performance criteria rather than another student.
Criterion Referenced Assessment (University of Tasmania)
Assessment Grading Standards (University of Hong Kong)
The assessment rubric is an authentic assessment tool that evaluates students’ performance against a full range of criteria rather than a single score.
Using Assessment Rubrics (UNSW)
Assessment rubrics (The University of Edinburgh)
Assessment Rubrics (The University of Baltimore)
Rubrics (Kent State University)
Creating and Using Rubrics for Assessment (UW-STOUT)
Rubrics: Useful Assessment Tools (University of Waterloo)
Rubrics for multi-disciplines –
Example rubrics (Charles Sturt University)
Assessment Guides, Templates, and Rubrics (University of Louisville)
Rubric Gallery - public rubrics
Rubrics for Essay Questions and Journal Writing –
Multi-discipline rubric bank and rubric templates –
Sample Laboratory Report Rubrics (University of Michigan)
Commenting on and Grading Student Writing (Colorado State University)
Rubric for evaluating (Department of Computer Science, East Carolina University)
Math Rubrics (PDF)
Lab Report Rubric (UNCW) (.doc)
Biology Work Term Report Rubric (Department of Biology, University of Waterloo)
Using Rubrics to Teach and Evaluate Writing in Biology (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Grading Rubrics: Examples of Rubric Creation (Berkeley Graduate Division)
Physics 310 – Essay Scoring Rubric (Illinois State University)
Open-ended problem analysis (Coding Rubric) (University of Minnesota)