Rubrics as a Tool of Reform

Rubrics as a measure of performance outcomes are nothing new to speech teachers. Evaluation of a clearly defined standard on a scale of descriptive criteria, which is then used to drive instruction, is the norm for the speech classroom. Kind of like with paradigms, the speech community has been quietly using performance rubrics apart from the frenzy of educational reform. However, the use of rubrics as a tool for instructional and institutional reform may be a new use of an old tool. Rubrics, as a tool of analysis, can be drawn from two evaluative perspectives-from the desired performance or from observed performance. Either the ideal or the actual is appropriate for descriptive criteria. Rubrics are intended to measure whether students have learned what we want them to know and can do what we want them to do. Comparative judgments are useful to examine questions of instructional reform. It is useful to start with the ideal, what we would like students to be able to do, and then to examine actual performances. The difference will yield a target for improvement. This article is not really about rubrics, but rather about how by using this tool of classroom reform competitive debate can be examined, putting its ideal against our contemporary practice. A rubric from an ideal of expectations for competitive debate might look like th is :