Evaluation & Grading

There are several different forms of rubrics for evaluating oral communication skills.

One document, the Microsoft Word document, lays out the criteria in a table format. The spreadsheet is a working grading rubric that calculates grades. The rubric is designed to think of “points” in terms of Ripon College’s letter grade ranges. (With an 8.5, for example, corresponding to an 85 percent in that category, or roughly a solid “B.”)

Please note that the categories are weighted. For example, eye contact is 2 percent, but argumentation is 15 percent. It’s important to explain that to students (it even may provide an opportunity to teach them about weighted grades, how to calculate different weights, etc.) because many of the grading rubrics with which they already might be familiar have weighted everything equally. Although maintaining eye contact with one’s audience is certainly important, having sound, well-developed arguments is far more important to our curricular goals. If you change any weights of the categories, be sure to change the corresponding formulas, or the grades will be calculated incorrectly.

Tip: Keep the original as a template and make a copy for as many students as you need. Here’s a quick video tutorial link (Note: clicking the link will take you to a YouTube page, and you leave this website).