Differentiated Rubrics

As teachers we are constantly differentiating our assignments and projects. It is something that we must do in an effort to reach all of our students and make sure that they are all learning. With this differentiation comes different projects and presentations for the same lesson. This creates the problem of how do we grade these students with their different forms of assignments. This problem can make some teachers want to give up on differentiation or make them dread the grading. I know that for this assignment I racked my brain for days trying to think, how do I cover every aspect of the different types of learning in one rubric? It seemed impossible, for each of these learners and their assignments to be covered in one rubric. I decided to focus on a rubric that would be used for a presentation. My rubric covers Content, Mechanics, Presentation, and Use of Time. The Presentation portion was where I was struggling to meet all the needs of the different learners. What I decided to do was to look at the presentation as a whole, did the presentation present the information in a comprehensive way? By looking at the presentation as a whole and looking at how well the chosen presentation presented the information of their topic, I could forgo looking at each type of presentation individually. This made it so the students could present their information in a way that they were most comfortable and excited about, without me having to create different rubrics for the different types of products they would produce. While this rubric may seem a little basic, it would do well for any type of differentiated assessment assignment. It allows us as teachers to see how well the students understood and mastered the content, how they took that content and created a work that suited them and showed their understanding, as well as looking at how they spent their time, and the mechanics of their work. This rubric is also easily adapted for a more in depth project where more aspects may be added to it, but is also great for just an assessment of a lesson assignment. I do not know if this is the best rubric for differentiation, but I know that what makes it good is its accessibility for teachers. This is a user friendly rubric that can be used for any type of assignment in the classroom, differentiated or not.

Category	4	3	2	1
Content	Student shows full understanding of topic and expertly identifies information that is important to their topic.	Student shows a good understanding of topic and identifies some of the important information of their topic.	Student shows some understanding of topic and identifies a few of the important details of their topic.	Student showed little or no understanding of topic and identifies little or no details important details of their topic.
Mechanics	No misspelling or grammatical errors present.	Three or fewer spelling and/or grammatical errors present.	Four spelling and/or grammatical errors present.	More than four spelling and /or grammatical errors present.
Presentation (Differentiated: Oral presentation, recorded song, multimedia presentation, speech, essay, etc.)	Students presentation expertly presents their topic in the form they have chosen.	Student presentation adequately presents their topic in the form they have chosen.	Student presentation does not adequately present their topic in the form they have chosen.	Student presentation does not present their topic in a comprehensive way.
Use of Time	Class time was used wisely. Student was on task and used time at home when necessary.	Class time was used wisely. Student was mostly on task, could have put in a little more time at home.	Class time was not used wisely. Student was found off track and only put in a small amount of time or effort at home.	Class time was not used wisely. Student was frequently off track and did not put in the work at home.