Course Design: Instructions, Rubrics and Evaluations
Rubrics, instructions, feedback, and evaluations all assist with our student’s mastery of content, when designed intentionally and consistently.
Laura Aboyan currently serves as the director of Curriculum Management and Assessment & Accreditation. She has previously worked at the University of South Carolina as an assessment Coordinator and at Drexel University as an Admissions Coordinator. Additionally, she has frequently worked as an Adjunct Instructor at various universities.
Patricia (Patty) Terry currently serves Temple University as the Associate Director of Curriculum Management & Assessment @ Accreditation at the Fox School of Business. She previously worked at the University of Pennsylvania Health System as the Undergraduate Medication Evaluation Coordinator.
If you have any questions you would like to have asked, or if you would like to be a part of the podcast in a later episode, please email andrew.coletti@temple.edu.
Relevant Articles
- Schedule a session with the Curriculum Management and Assessment Accreditation team to review your course!
Show Transcript
Audio Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Andrew ColettiHello and welcome to this episode
of The T in Teaching.
This Episode Is Focused Onbest practices for professors
In Regard To Providinginstructions, rubrics,
and feedback to students.
In This Episode, Ourhost Sarah McCarthy
Interviewed LauraAboyan and Patty Terry.
Dr. Laura Aboyancurrently serves
As The Director Of CurriculumManagement and Assessment
And Accreditation As Wellas an Adjunct Instructor
In The Department OfManagement, as well
as the Department of Marketing.
She Joined TheFox School in 2015
After Previously Working Inassessment and accreditation
At The Universityof South Carolina.
She Earned Her Doctorate Inhigher education from Temple
in 2021.
Patty Terry Currentlyserves Temple University
As The Associate Directorof Curriculum Management
And Assessment For TheFox School of Business.
She Previously Worked At TheUniversity of Pennsylvania
Health System As TheUndergraduate Medication
Evaluation Coordinator.
Thank You For Listening,and please enjoy.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Sarah MccarthyHello, and welcome back
To The Next Episodein The T in Teaching.
I'm Sarah Mccarthy,and we have two guests
From Curriculum ManagementAssessment and Accreditation.
I Will Let You Bothintroduce yourselves.
Laura AboyanThanks, Sarah.
I'm Laura Aboyan.
I'm The Director Of TheCurriculum Management
Assessment AndAccreditation team.
Patty TerryI'm Patricia Terry, and I'm
The Associate Directorof the Curriculum
Management and Assessment team.
Sarah MccarthyThank you both so much for joining us today.
Could You Just Tell Me A Littlebit more about your department?
Laura AboyanSo Curriculum Management Assessment
and Accreditation is what we do.
And Really, It'sjust a fancy way
Of Saying Quality Assurance Forall of our academic programs
at the Fox School.
Sarah MccarthyAwesome.
Well, Thank You Bothfor coming today,
Excited To Give Our Faculty Someoverview on rubrics, feedback,
any advice you guys can offer.
But We Will Dive Rightinto the first question,
and either of you could start.
What Advice Or Feedbackfor useful instructions,
Creating Rubrics, Settingclear expectations--
Where Would You Havefaculty start with that?
Laura AboyanThat's a great question,
And I Think You Mentionedit in the question.
Use a rubric.
If You're Doing Some Kindof project-based assignment,
A Rubric Is Going To Reallyhelp you focus in on that.
And The Key To Designing Thatreally useful rubric for both
You And Your Students Toavoid some of those questions
Is To First Identify Theobjectives of the assignment.
What Is It That You Wantyour students' completed work
to show you?
You Can Tie These Toyour learning objectives.
Mostly, You Want To Try And Keepit to about 5 or 6 categories
Otherwise It Getsa little unwieldy.
So These Should Representthe most critical knowledge
And Skills That Arerequired for the assignment.
Remember That Each Trait Youuse, it should be measurable,
and it should be unique.
If You Find Yourselfstruggling to exactly define
What It Looks Like Atvarious levels of mastery,
It Might Not Be A Criticalcomponent of the assignment.
Or Alternatively, If Youfind yourself looking
At Two Traits That Aresimilar but represent
Different Levelsof application, you
Want To Go With The Onethat's a little higher level.
The Lower-levelskill or knowledge
Is Generally An Inherent Partof that higher-level skill.
Patty TerryAnd I would add to that making
Sure That You Give Students Aclear idea and clear guidance.
And I Know One Of The Thingsthat we'll touch on probably
Shortly Is That It'simportant to have
Just Clear, Conciselanguage in your directions,
But Also To Rememberinternational and English
As Second Language Students Tomake sure that you're not using
Kind Of American Colloquialismand other kind of slang
That They May Notunderstand or you
May Have A Generalreference to, but they
Wouldn't Have-- So Just Makingsure that you are making
It Plain And Simplefor the students
To Understand Kindof where you want
them to go with the assignment.
Laura AboyanYeah and just one more thing
That I Would Add On To That,like Patty said, you want
Your Language To Be Clearand concrete and really
student-friendly.
Sometimes, As Faculty, We Getlocked into the theoretical
or the more academic speak.
But You'll Be Able To Avoidquestions from your students
If You Choose Those Simple,concrete, less academic,
and less theoretical words.
It Also Helps If You Canuse parallel language
Across Your Rubricscale so that--
And Across Anyrubrics you're using
Because That Will Set Theexpectation for your students.
They'll Become Familiarwith your style,
with your expectation.
And It Will Minimizesome of those questions.
You're Never Going To Eliminatethe questions entirely.
So These Are Just Some Generaltips that can help you.
Patty Terry[LAUGHS]
Laura AboyanBut really, the key
Is To Make Surethat your rubric is
Going To Reflect What Is Inyour assignment instructions.
They're companion documents.
Think about them that way.
So If You Can Buildit in to your class,
go over the rubric in class.
Give The Studentsthe opportunity
To Ask Those Questionswhile you're there.
It'll Go A Longway to eliminating
Maybe A Large Volume Of Emailsasking the same thing over
and over again.
And You Can Alsomake a short video
Going Over Your Assignmentinstructions and rubrics
So That Your Students Canrefer back to it as they
complete their assignment.
Sarah MccarthyThat's a great advice, especially the video.
I like that a lot.
We have Zoom.
We Have All Thesetools at our disposal.
We Should Absolutelybe using them.
So When It Comes To Students,like what they need and want,
Do You Guys Have Anyfeedback on you know
clarifying within the rubrics?
Or I Love How Yousaid the parallel,
And It's The Companion Documentto the assignment description.
Do You Guys Haveany advice for--
Like From The Studentside, what they really like
To See In The Instructions,the rubrics, or even
Feedback On Their Assignmentsafter completing it?
Patty TerrySo I would say--
I'm Currently Agraduate student,
And I Know It'ssuper helpful for me
when I receive timely feedback.
Sarah MccarthyYes.
Patty TerrySo that's one thing that's a little bit important
Is To Make Sure ThatI'm not waiting weeks
Or Towards The End Of Thesemester to get the feedback,
Because It's Frustratingwhen you get that feedback
And You Realize That There Arethings that you either missed,
Or You Could Have Usedassistance and done it
In Real Time And Possibly Had Abetter grade or a better grasp
On The Concepts Thathappened in the course.
So If There's One ThingI could say about--
On The Student Sideof what is helpful,
It's Getting Feedbackthat's timely.
Laura AboyanI would be inclined to agree.
That's What Mystudents have told me.
And Also, I Found That Themore timely the feedback,
The Less Likely They Areto make the same mistakes
in subsequent assignments.
My Students Havealso told me they
Prefer Morepersonalized feedback.
So The More Personalized, Thebetter, is what I would say.
And Make Sure Thatit's constructive
So That Your Students Have Theopportunity to learn from it.
This Is Where A Rubriccan be super helpful
Because It Gives You A Startingpoint for your feedback.
You Already Know Whatyou're looking for,
And You're Able To Buildon that and point out
Specific Thingsand specific areas
Where Your Studentscan maybe improve.
They Know What'sexpected because they've
Looked At The Rubric, And Thenthat rubric points to places
Where They Could Dobetter or maybe even
places where they've excelled.
It's Important Not Just Todo the constructive feedback,
But To Also Point Out Thingsthat they've done well,
Even Something As Simple As Likeincluding grammar on a rubric.
I Teach A Writingcourse, so I tend
To Fall Back On Thecommunication examples
If That Doesn't Fitwhat you're doing,
Just Try And Apply Itto what works for you.
But If Your Student Has Alot of run-on sentences,
For Example, You Canrate them accordingly,
However Your Grammar Tree Isstructured on your rubric.
And Then You Can Leave Anote on their actual work
In 1 Or 2 Places That Say, Hey,maybe you should combine these,
Or Maybe You Should Breakthis up into smaller portions,
showing them how to fix it.
You Don't Necessarily Haveto do it for every instance,
But Give Them That Examplethey can follow and tell them
to keep looking through it.
And Then, If Youcan, if you find,
As You're Going Throughthings, that there's
Common Things That Yourstudents are struggling with,
bring them into the classroom.
Review them generally.
Provide Some Kindof activity where
They Can Work On Improvingthat particular skill.
Do You Have Anythingyou wanted to add?
Patty TerryI'll piggyback off what
Laura Said About Thefeedback is really
Only Helpful If You Haveguidance to figure out
where you made mistakes.
I Know, For Me, It's Veryfrustrating to get back
That You Got A 4 Out Of 5,and you have no idea where
You Missed Or Whatthe problems were,
so you can't course correct.
So I Think It'simportant to make sure
That, When You'regiving that feedback,
You Don't Necessarilyhave to go line by line,
But Giving The Studentan overall idea
If They've Kind Of Met Theobjectives of the assignment
Or They Haven'tand where they need
To Bolster Up Or Get Assistanceif they're really struggling.
Laura AboyanYeah and I think the important thing
To Keep In Mind, Too, Isthat this doesn't just
hold true for rubrics.
The Same Thing Istrue of exams, right?
If The Students Don't Knowwhat they got wrong on an exam,
And They Don't Know Whatthe correct answer is,
How Are They Ever Going To Beable to master that concept?
How Are They Going Tobe able to build on it
Later In Yourcourse or even later
in their own academic journey?
So Make Sure You're Tellingthem where they need to improve
and so they can understand why.
Sarah MccarthyAbsolutely.
Yeah, And I Lovethat you brought up
bringing it into the classroom.
If One Student's Makingthe mistake multiple times,
other students probably are.
Bring That In Soeveryone can kind of
benefit from that lesson.
That's great.
Patty TerryAnd the student realizes
They're Not Theonly person that's
Struggling With Thatconcept or that struggling with that concept or that [INAUDIBLE]..
Sarah MccarthyYeah, they don't feel singled out
or like it's just me.
That's-- yeah, great points.
I Love That Youbrought up exams.
That Segues Perfectlyinto my next question.
When Evaluating Students,are they really grasping
These Concepts, Are Theyready to graduate or move on
From This Class, Are Examsalways the way to go?
Laura AboyanI think it largely depends on the subject
Matter And Thelevel of the course
and also the size of the course.
Determining What Assessmentis going to be the best one
takes a little work, right?
And You Really Have To Startthinking through what you want
your students to be able to do.
If Your Goal Is To Havethem apply their knowledge,
Are You Necessarily Goingto be able to gauge that
from performance on an exam?
Or Would Some Kind Of Projector presentation-based assignment
Really Showcase Theirlearning better,
Whether That's Anindividual project or even
A Small Group Or Pairedpresentation or project.
Sometimes Not Usingexams as the default
Also Kind Of Helpsmotivate the students,
Especially If Youcan design a project
Where They're Able Tochoose a topic that they're
interested in.
And We've Got A Coupleof really great examples
Of This Happening In Ourundergraduate program.
I'll talk about one.
Then You Want To Talkabout the other, Patty?
Patty TerrySure.
Laura AboyanFor example, our business communication class,
Which, Full Disclosure, I'mcurrently teaching-- so again,
came straight to mind--
Their Big Culminatingassignment is
to create a business proposal.
They Go Through The Entireproposal process, development
Process, From Choosing A Topicthat's important to them,
Convincing Their Audiencethere is a problem,
and offering a solution.
And There Have Beena couple of times
That We Can Pointto where proposals
From This Particular Coursehave actually gone on
to be expanded and implemented.
Our Center For Ethics,Diversity, and Workplace
Culture, For Example, Hostedan event about a year, year
And A Half Ago CalledVoices of Pride
That Came Out Ofa student proposal
In An Honors Businesscommunication section.
Last Year, TheNational Association
Of Black Accountants Hosteda conference at Temple.
And That Came Out Of Aproposal in one of my business
communication sections.
The Students Are Moreinclined to put in the effort
Because It's Somethingthat they feel connected to
And That Is Reallyimportant to them.
Patty TerryAnd one of our new courses in our redesigned
Curriculum Is Ba 1103,which is a new course that
Was Designed With Jeff Boles,who is the chair of the Legal
Studies Department.
And Their Assessment, Theyuse a podcast assignment
Where Students Are Tocreate a podcast discussing
An Ethical Issue And Kind Ofcome up with their own script
and record it.
And students have been--
The Feedback, Anecdotally, Hasbeen really, really positive.
Students Like That Is Kindof a different assignment.
It's Not Your Typical Kindof fill out this paper exam.
But They're Stilldemonstrating what they've
learned in that modality.
So It's Been Reallypositive to see
That There Are Different Waysto assess learning outside
Of Just Giving Them Amultiple-choice exam
Or High-stakesexams, which we know
From The Science Tellsus doesn't really
work in demonstrating learning.
It Causes More Anxiety Forstudents to do those things.
So The Importance Ofmaking sure that, when
We're Talking About Assessmentor evaluating student learning,
Is We're Givingthem an opportunity
to demonstrate certain things.
And A Lot Of Times,exams may not
Give Them The Opportunityif it's the only way
that we're looking at it.
And So I Would Suggestthat, especially
For More Quantitativecourses that
Tend To Lean On Exams To Alsothink about not making them
As High Stakes Andthen also offering
Other Ways For Studentsto demonstrate learning,
So Other Homework Assignments Orwritten assignments or in-class
Assignments So That Studentsdon't feel the pressure
To Just Have To Dowell on one exam
To Do Well Or Show Whatthey've learned in the course.
Laura AboyanYeah, I would be inclined to agree with that.
We Know We're Never Going To Beable to scrap exams entirely.
They Are Important,depending on discipline,
Depending On Class Size,depending on level of course,
subject matter.
We know that.
But The Same Way Youwould design a rubric,
You Want To Be Thoughtfuland deliberate in how
you're designing your exam.
Think About If You'reasking questions
That Are Really Reflectiveof the way you've
Presented Concepts Inclass or in homework.
Or Are You Focusing On Reallythe most important takeaways
from your course?
Or Are You Just Askingquestions for the sake
of asking questions.
Like Patty Was Saying, Considerthe length of your exam.
How Many Questionsdo you really,
Really Need To Ensurethat the students have
mastered the material.
If You're Asking Multiplequestions about the same topic,
why?
Is It Because Thattopic is directly
Part Of The Courselearning objectives?
Because It's The Most Oneof the most important things
They're Going To Takeaway from your course?
Or Is It Something Alittle more tangential
That Maybe Doesn't Needsuch a heavy emphasis on it
on an assessment?
Much Like With Yourrubrics, you want the exams
To Be Focused On Themost important parts
of your courses.
And The Questions Shouldbe reflective of the topics
That The Students Have Had Thechance to investigate and apply
In Other Waysthroughout the semester.
Sarah Mccarthy:This is wonderful.
So I'm Just Going To--my final question--
As Jeff Boles Did With The1103 new course design,
If Faculty Want To Comeand redesign their exams
Or See Other Modes To Assesstheir students-- like you said
That Podcastassignment, different.
The students were engaged in it.
That's what we want to do.
Can Faculty Just Reachout to you guys, stop by?
Laura AboyanAbsolutely.
We Love The Opportunityto collaborate--
Sarah Mccarthy[LAUGHS]
Laura Aboyan--if we can and help wherever we're able.
Either One Of Us Canhelp across any program,
Although We Each Have Our Ownareas that we tend to focus on
just for ease of workload.
Patty Is Your Go-to Forall things undergraduates.
Whether That's A Core Courseor a course in the major,
she is here to help with that.
We Kind Of Split Ourspecialized master's programs.
But Then Anything With TheMBA or the doctoral programs,
I can certainly take on.
Patty TerryOur responsibilities here
Is To Really Consult Andwork with the faculty
To Deliver A Wonderful,solid educational program.
So Where The Facultyare the content experts,
were the educational experts.
We're The Expertsin the delivery.
So What We Wantto do is find ways
To Help Facultydeliver in a way that
Is Palatable Forthe students, and it
Helps Them Actuallylearn the concepts
that they're trying to relay.
So The Important Thing,I think, to remember
Is That We're Here Towork with the faculty,
Not Tell Them How To Teach, Butwork with them on making sure
That They're Doing The Teachingin the most effective manner.
Sarah MccarthyAbsolutely.
Laura AboyanSo they can just send either one of us an email
or stop by our offices.
We're Both Here A Fewdays a week in person,
And We're Located Inthe dean's office.
So anybody, please come on by.
We love company.
Sarah MccarthyAbsolutely.
Well, Thank You Bothfor coming today.
This Is-- I'm Sure Thefaculty-- this is very helpful
As We Get Into Thesemester, we start
Thinking About Ourcourses, anything we
might need to change or update.
These Are Wonderfulsuggestions and feedback
for the faculty to consider.
So Thank You Both So Muchfor joining us today.
Patty TerryThank you.
Laura AboyanThanks for having us.
Patty TerryThank you for having us.
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