Constructing Rubrics for Open-ended Activities
Rita Caso and Ann Kenimer, Texas A&M University
Susan Haag, Arizona State University

PowerPoint Presentation

Abstract
Engineering faculty members frequently employ open-ended activities in their classes and curricula. While these activities are rich educational experiences for students, they can be cumbersome to evaluate. Rubrics provide a structure for evaluating student work on complex projects. When well constructed, rubrics provide relatively consistent evaluation results across time and across different reviewers. This additional consistency facilitates the use of student work on open-ended projects as part of programmatic and course assessment and evaluation. This workshop explores application of rubrics to open-ended assessment, including various types of rubrics, characteristics of well-constructed rubrics, rubric use, and common problems and solutions. This interactive workshop features group activities in which participants evaluate, use, and develop rubrics.

Learning Objectives
The objectives for this workshop are for participants to

• Understand what rubrics are and how they can be used for open-ended activities
• Understand the qualities of a well-constructed rubric
• Gain experience in developing a rubric for assessing open-ended activities.