The Rubric That Killed the Project

By Dr. Salika Lawrence

I have a confession: I LOVE rubrics! Do you also like rubrics? You can admit it if you do.

I use rubrics a lot. I like them because the act of creating a rubric helps me to think through my goals and more importantly envision the outcome I want to see from a specific assignment or task. It is actually fun and creative to see how the assessment tool unfolds. This process has a lot in common with design thinking. When I use a rubric, I can visualize everything I know about the students and the lesson content. I can then strategize about the kinds of resources and scaffolding that can help them achieve their goals.

Rubrics actually help me consider all the different possible outcomes of my lesson, and help me to meet my goals. We know that students think differently and that there are many different ways to get to the same outcome. We don’t want students to feel restricted in their thinking and creativity. We want them to be problem-solvers.

Here comes the rub. Rubrics often do restrict students. It hurts a bit to say that rubrics – one of the tools I really like using to help demystify outcomes and to help increase engagement and participation among my students – can limit students’ thinking, creativity, problem-solving, and curiosity.

Consider this. Let’s say that I craft a detailed rubric for our inquiry showcase—categories, point values, color-coded expectations. It is beautiful. It doesn’t seem like something that would kill students’ creativity. 

But here’s how it will probably go: instead of exploring new ideas, students will use the rubric for box-checking. They might spend more time asking, “Is this what you want?” than following their curiosity. By trying to create a tool to support students and scaffold their learning with a rubric, I’d turned an open-ended project into a checklist.

How might I create a looser structure next time? Maybe I could ask my students: “What are you curious about? How will you explore it? What will you create to show us what you learned?” Yes, in this instance, the students’ projects will be uneven—but they will definitely be more authentic. More importantly, the thinking will be deeper, and the students will be in full control of their thinking process and their learning throughout the experience. Students will go beyond expectations because they are invested in the outcome.

I’ve learned that scaffolds should guide, not limit. Inquiry isn’t about doing everything the same way—it’s about finding new ways into learning.