Carnegie Mellon University

Eberly Center

Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Instructor: Jeria Quesenberry
Course: 67-250: Information Systems Milieux, Information Systems Program, College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Assessment: Grading Rubric for a Group Project

Purpose:

I had assigned group projects before, but I struggled to give detailed feedback and often realized that students had not included components that I had expected. My goal was to clarify my expectations for student performance and to develop a rubric that I could use to grade the projects. I was especially interested in providing detailed feedback to students about their projects’ strengths and areas for improvement.

Implementation:

I created rubrics for each component of the group project, which included a group project proposal, a systems analysis and design deliverable, an application demonstration, a presentation, and an individual reflection essay. The students receive these rubrics with the assignment guidelines for the group project, and I score these components using the rubrics.

Results:

Using the rubrics allows me to evaluate the projects more quickly and concisely, which in turn makes it easier to provide timely feedback to the students. Using these rubrics also helps my students because they know my expectations for each component of the project.

Comments:

Creating the rubrics was time-consuming, but they are worth the effort. I give more productive feedback, and my students are more confident knowing the performance criteria in advance. I have also learned that rubrics are dynamic documents. I have revised the original rubrics that I developed, and I expect to continue refining them.

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