Developing grading rubrics/assessment criteria for multimedia assignments

Introduction

Multimedia assignments can involve a wide range of formats, including digital posters, podcasts, timelines, visualizations, digital/online exhibitions, websites, blogs, presentations, and video. These assignments have the potential to give students opportunities to communicate ideas and make arguments in new ways. Digital projects also lend themselves well to group work and can give students the chance to use background knowledge and skills. At the same time, these assignments can be challenging to grade, especially if you have not attempted these types of assignments before.

Thankfully, many of the good habits in designing more traditional assignments also apply to the creation of digital assignments and can make the process of grading students’ work much easier. Establishing and clearly communicating learning goals, for example, can reassure students that they are being graded on their understanding of the course material and their ability to convey that understanding as opposed to their artistic or creative abilities and aptitude with digital tools. Establishing a clear drafting, review, and revision process, similar to more traditional writing assignments, can not only lead to better outcomes, but can also provide more consistent and systematic criteria for assessment.

Many of these multimedia or digital assignments, however, are by their nature more intimately tied to the medium. These assignments have the potential to provide faculty opportunities to set learning objectives pertaining to both content and form, to the choice of medium as well as the message, and to make students aware of the relationship between the two. As new forms of media afford new ways to craft arguments, multimedia assignments can provide opportunities to reflect upon these affordances and to assess student work based both on the message and on the skill and creativity with which they used the medium.

Considerations for Assignment Design

  • Based on the goals of the assignment, select a few tools that students may use to complete the assignment. Allowing students too much freedom in choosing their medium can make grading more difficult and can confuse the message that you are trying to convey with the final product. If some students are producing video documentaries, for example, and others are creating websites, will you be able to develop grading criteria that will evaluate different media evenly? Within each assignment type (mapping, timeline, podcast, website, etc), you will find several different tools that offer slightly different affordances. You can always consult with McGraw Center staff to learn more about digital tools commonly used for course assignments.
     
  • Students may not know how long a multimedia project might take, or how best to manage their time working on it. Scaffolding the project by creating multiple due dates to review progress can clarify expectations and help students effectively structure their efforts to produce their best work.
     
  • Consider having students produce a written reflection of the entire assignment process. This can give you an additional gradable item as well as inform your design of future multimedia assignments. If you have created a group assignment, students might also appreciate the opportunity to outline and explain their personal contributions to their group’s work.

Considerations for Assessing the Assignment

  • Establishing grading criteria should be an early step in creating a multimedia assignment. What do you hope students will gain by having completed this assignment? Is it important that students consider the unique aspects of their chosen medium? Clarifying your learning goals for multimedia assignments well as more traditional types of assignments can help you determine what you’d like to prioritize in assessment. Decide what is important to you in this assignment: the process of developing the project, the teamwork involved, the final product or presentation of the final product, academic rigor, or all of these things. From this, you can determine the amount of weight to give to each area in your grading.
     
  • Assessment can also take into account how students use the medium to tell their story or make their argument. For instance, if students are incorporating audio clips from an interview into a podcast assignment, will you grade them on how engaging the clips are to the listener or how clearly you can hear the audio (aspects related to the podcast form) in addition to how well the clips reflect an understanding of course themes (an aspect related to content)?
     
  • Even if you are more interested in the academic content than in the technical proficiency of student work, it’s a good idea to include some assessment of the quality of their execution of the project. This can incentivize students to channel their efforts into learning to use the new tools as opposed to perceiving them as extraneous to the “real” assignment.
     
  • Don't assume that your students have the necessary expertise or experience with digital tools because they are 'digital natives'; most students have more experience consuming media than creating it. It is important to make sure students develop the new skills they need to complete the assignment as part of the course. This could take the form of an in-class workshop, low-stakes practice assignments, or tutorials/asynchronous content that is incorporated into class time. As an example: if you expect that the podcasts that your students submit are free from distortion or excessive noise, you should dedicate class time to teaching recording skills.
     
  • As consumers of media students can have valuable insights into how digital assignments should be assessed. Consider including students in a discussion of how they think their projects should be graded.

Developing Rubrics

  • Set clear goals by creating a concrete rubric that outlines criteria for grading. You can find some basic examples of rubrics below. A rubric will make it much easier to assess the quality of student work based on systematic and consistent criteria. You might even consider distributing your rubric to students at the outset so that they have a clear understanding of your expectations.
     
  • Decompose the process into the various phases of planning, production, and presentation, then grade students based on their effort in each. Weight different aspects of the assignment corresponding to different aspects of the process, including different responsibilities within a group project.
     
  • In group projects, students often delegate portions of the project. Determine whether everyone will get the same grade or whether their performance will be graded individually. If you choose to grade students collectively as a group, consider how you will handle situations in which students do not contribute enough to the project.
     

Sample Podcasting Assignment Rubric

Sample Blogging Assignment Rubric
 

References

[Updated February 2021]