Creating Rubrics with AI
I prefer Claude for this task : ) - but feel free to use your favorite AI platform!
SOURCE: Freepik.com
START WITH A PROMPT
When drafting the prompt, include as many specifics regarding your output expectations as possible; the details associated with a creating a grading rubric for a history course are bolded in the example below.
SUGGESTED MODEL: Claude 3.7 Sonnet or Haiku (I had more success with Claude than with ChatGPT - but feel free to use your preferred AI platform).
PROMPT: You are community college History professor with 20 years fulltime teaching experience. You want to be more objective in your approaches to grading by utilizing rubrics to assess student writing. Writing is a critical skill freshman and sophomores need to develop. Create an holistic grading rubric to evaluate research papers. The rubric needs to have 5 criteria reflecting quality writing such as thesis statement clarity, organization, the use of evidence, etc. Please include 5 performance standards associated with the traditional A-F grading scale. Include all of these elements within one rubric. Thanks!
CREATING A RUBRIC: FIRST STEPS
Claude’s chat window will display a standard text-based response (left), while its “Artifacts” window (right) will display visual of what the text would appear like in document form.
At this stage, you can refine your prompt, ask follow up questions, or copy the material.
When are are ready to copy the AI output, simply cutting and pasting the text, however, may not be what you are interested in since it will lack the formatting of a traditional rubric. How can you make the AI output usable?
GENERATING A CSV FILE
Once you are satisfied with the AI-generated content, write another prompt!
PROMPT: Can you translate this into a CSV file and explain to me how to open that file in Excel? Thanks!
APPROACH #1: Once the AI converts the text into the correct format:
In the Artifacts window, click on the action arrow [v] associated with the Copy button and select “Download as txt”
Open the AI-generated .TXT file and save it with a .CSV extension (e.g., “essay-grading_rubric.csv”)
Open the Excel program > click on File > Open > find the CSV file
The content of the CSV file will populate the new spreadsheet, but it will require formatting (Image 1)
Once the rubric is formatted to perfection! > save it with the preferred Excel extension
Image 1 Unformatted content from a CSV file opened for the first time in Excel
Image 2 Rubric content from a CSV file formatted by the user in Excel
If you are not using Claude:
Once your platform has created TXT-format-friendly content
Open a text editor, such as Notepad (on a Windows laptop, type “Notepad” into the “Type here to search” box to access the program)
Paste the formatted text onto the page and save the file with a .CSV extension (e.g., “essay-grading_rubric.csv”)
Open the Excel program > click on File > Open > find the CSV file
The content of the CSV file will populate the new spreadsheet, but it will require formatting (Image 1)
Once the rubric is formatted to perfection! > save it with the preferred Excel extension
APPROACH #2:
Save the TXT-format-friendly content as a TXT file (e.g., History_grading_rubric.txt)
Open Microsoft Excel > find and open the TXT file
In the “Text Import Wizard” make sure that "Delimited” is set to “Characters such as commas or tabs separate each field” > click “Next”
Make sure that “Delimiters” is set to “Comma” > click “Next”
Review how you would like the data in each column to transfer via “Column data format” > the most flexible approach is “General”
Each column can be individually adapted for transfer
Clicking on a column makes it the active space (the column background turns black)
Once the choices have been made, click “Finish”
Image 3 The second column is “active” and “Column data format” changes can be applied to this content