Standards have been called many things, from learning outcomes to student expectations. Whatever the name, standards are knowledge teachers hope students gain from a period of study. An example of a standard in writing would be, "Student will be able to construct a well-developed paragraph with a single focus and supporting details." The idea behind a standard is to give a student a clear focus for his learning. Richard Stiggins said it best when he stated, "Students can hit any target they can see." If students know what is expected of them, they can then go about demonstrating the mastery of a standard.
Rubrics are the tools that educators use to evaluate a student's performance. A rubric is broke down into columns and rows. The columns define the level to which a student achieved on a particular task, while the rows outline the specific skills or content that a student is being evaluated on. For example, the columns of a rubric may say, "Novice," "Nearing Proficient," "Proficient" or "Advanced," while the rows would list the different content areas, such as conventions, organization, supporting details or presentation. A strong rubric clearly informs the student of his strengths or weaknesses.
Rubrics effectively evaluate a student's performance on a standard by providing a clear picture of what a student can or cannot do. Rubrics can be written to correspond seamlessly with a standards-based report card. In the rows, rubrics could list the individual writing standards for a district, such as using punctuation and grammar correctly in daily writing, while the columns could list the corresponding grades and explanation of a student's proficiency. A student scoring consistently proficient on a writing rubric would then be rated proficient on the writing portion of the report card.
The advantage of standards is that they define what is expected of students. However, if they are not written clearly they be ineffective in assessing a student's true ability. For example, a writing standard may say, "Writes in complete paragraphs," with little or no explanation of what constitutes a complete paragraph. A rubric could explain the extent to which a student was mastering a standard. For example, under the standard for writing a complete paragraph, one of the descriptions may read, "Writes four to five sentences. ..." Rubrics and writing standards can be misleading though because they do not take into account a student's effort and, in some cases, growth. A rubric evaluates an end product without looking at the journey.