Last week Professor Mace, Gabbie, Jen, and I worked through each other's assessments. We each attempted to solve and answer each of the questions on all of the assessments. We discussed how there can be multiple ways of answering just one question. It all depends on the wording of the question and how the students each interpret the questions. This week we decided to create our own rubric to be able to grade the assessments fairly and efficiently.

I was not really sure where to start with creating my own rubric. I knew I needed a grading scale so I chose the numbers 4-0 to categorize and predict the answers that the students would give for each question. I could have used words to describe each of the categories but I feel as though numbers were a better choice because I was able to describe what answers would be accepted under each number. I started with 4 and worked my way down to 0 for each of the four questions.

Category 4 and 0 were the easiest to write descriptions for because they are both the extreme ends of the spectrum. Category 4 is the highest score that the students can receive for each question. Category 0 is the lowest score students can receive for each question. The middle categories had to be the hardest to create. The descriptions had to be very specific and broken down so that students received points for answering certain aspects of the question correctly but lost points for other aspects of the questions that were answered incorrectly.

I had to be fair when determining if the student got the overall answer incorrect but all the mathematical work was shown correctly or the explanation showed that the student had the correct answer but wrote the final answer incorrectly. The students could have made a small mistake but with the work shown it would make it easier to be able to determine whether the students understood the concept or just made a small mistake. It also makes it easier to grade and allows me to give the student as many points as they earned based on their mathematical work and/or explanations.