Webinar – Better Rubrics, Faster

Better Rubrics, Faster: Webinar Transcript and Prompts

00:00 Introduction and purpose
02:00 AI prompting techniques
06:31 Rubrics overview, common mistake
08:18 Prompts for rubrics
13:00 4 Types of rubrics
13:27 Analytic rubrics (outline)

16:30 Analytic rubrics (table)
18:15 Holistic rubrics
22:27 Dichotomous rubrics
26:51 Improved Dichotomous rubrics
30:24 Behavioral rubrics
30:56 Conclusion, Upcoming events

Download the Webinar Prompts Here

TL;DR

(full transcript and webinar prompts below)

A. Introduction, Purpose, and Goal: AI should help teachers improve learning rather than replace them. The goal is to create effective, fair rubrics quickly so students and educators can focus on growth and learning.

B. How to Prompt AI To Get What You Need: Clear, detailed prompts lead to better AI-generated rubrics. The best prompts include context, purpose, and task instructions—plus optional details like audience or format—to ensure accurate, useful results.

C. Rubrics Overview and a Common Mistake: Many teachers mistakenly build “additive” rubrics that pile on skills per level. “Progressive” rubrics—showing deeper mastery of one skill per category—are more effective and easier for students to understand.

D. Components of Prompts for Rubrics: A strong rubric prompt tells AI who the students are, what they’re learning, and how to structure the rubric (categories, levels, tone). Example: a 5th-grade digestive system rubric with four clear levels in kid-friendly language.

E. Tip: Use a Template: Create a reusable prompt template for generating rubrics quickly. Update details like grade level or topic each time instead of starting from scratch.

F. Rubrics for Student Self-Assessment—Best Practice: Let students assess themselves using the same rubric. Include reflection boxes so they can score their own work and track progress over time.

G. Introduction to 4 Types of Rubrics: Four main rubric types:

Analytic: Multiple categories with levels (outline or table).
Holistic: One overall judgment.
Dichotomous: Yes/No questions showing mastery stages.

Each serves different classroom needs.

H. Improving Dichotomous Rubrics: To fix common confusion, label each “Yes/No” question with the mastery level it represents. If students answer “No,” they stay at their last mastered level—making progress visible and encouraging.

I. Rubrics for Student Behavior: Rubrics can track social skills too. Example: “Respectful Behavior” rubric helps younger students reflect on their behavior through positive, easy-to-understand descriptions.

J. Conclusion and Next Steps: Teachers and Administrators can download templates, get support, and learn more in upcoming sessions.

Full Transcript and Prompts

Hi, I’m David Bowman. I am the owner and lead trainer at EdAINow, and welcome to Better Rubrics, Faster, with AI.

Introduction, Purpose, and Goal

Before we jump into the different rubrics and their uses and how to create them, I want to take just a moment to provide some context and try to answer the question, “Why are we even doing this, and why are we making them free to folks?”

So, let’s pop over very quickly to…here, and let me see if I can fill you in or give you some background on what this is really all about.

At EdAINow, we have a core belief, which is that AI is a tool for transforming education. It’s to make educators better and stronger educators and to help instructional leaders in the school take charge of the learning environment for improvements leading to student achievement and basically to create experiences and new opportunities for students to reach their full potential, both in their academic sense and in their social emotional development.

So that’s really what this is about. We’re going to do some neat stuff with AI, but this is what we’re interested in: ultimately, better teaching and learning so that kids have a chance to succeed. So really, it’s not about the shiny new toy, although it’s a pretty cool toy.

Really, as you as you’re going to see, all of this is framed in the umbrella of Pedagogy, Leadership, and Vision for student success. Frankly, we can use all the tools we want in the world, but good teaching is still good teaching, and good leadership is still good leadership—and that’s what makes the most important change and benefits for students.

So, having said that, let’s take just a moment and talk about prompting and how do we get the AI to do what we want to do.

How to Prompt AI To Get What You Need

We’re going to do this briefly and then we’ll turn our attention to rubrics and see how to apply these principles. So, there’s really three core concepts.

You have to know what you want. Think about what the end result is going to be first before you start providing instructions to the AI. what are we aiming for?
And once we define that, provide the AI tools with very specific instructions on what you exactly want it to do and why.
Ultimately, explain like a teacher. When we’re introducing new content to students or a new instructional activity, we’re saying, “Here’s what we’re trying to do. Here’s the reason for it, and here’s how I want you to go about it.” Same thing for the AI tools.

So, every good prompt is three parts and some add-ons:

Context. What does the AI need to know? Think about an intern coming into your school or into the classroom and you’re going to give them some tasks. What does that intern need to know in order to complete the task? That’s context.
Purpose. What are we trying to achieve with this? What’s the end goal?
And then, of course, the task. What do you want the AI to do?

Along with that, we can add a few pieces.

Persona. Persona, we can assign a role to the AI. Basically, if you could ask any type of person to do this task, who would it be? And you tell the AI, you are that person. It helps to build the context and understand how the output should look.
Format. Is there a particular format that the output needs to look?
Sample. Do we have a sample?
Style. And more for writing tasks. Is there a particular style?

So, those are our core elements of a good prompt and getting the AI to do what we want it to do. Now, let’s put it to use.

Sample Weak and Strong Prompt

So, let me show you a quick example here, which we will then run.

Prompt

You are an expert in curriculum and instruction, with a concentration in project-based learning. I want my 4th grade students to understand how to write research reports about their selected topics by using a rubric. Create a rubric with 4 categories and 3 levels of demonstration per category. Add a scoring guide. Prepare this in table format.

You are an expert in curriculum instruction. So, we’ve got a role persona assigned to the AI there. Fourth grade students, write research reports about topics using a rubric. That’s our goal. That’s what we’re trying to get out of this. And then the task: make the rubric for me, very specifically. Four categories, three levels, add a scoring guide, and even something about the format.

Now, when we do all of that, we get a pretty good output.

So, let’s say we didn’t include that. We just give the task only “Create a rubric for a research topic”, right? Which is what this one is about.

If we only give the task and none of the other stuff, we get a response that probably is not going to be very useful to us: rubric from middle school through undergraduate, thesis, background, evidence, research, analysis. You know, decent stuff. But does it actually fit the assignment and the learning outcome for the students? Probably not.

Good stuff in there, but we can improve upon it by strengthening our prompt. So, let’s take a look at the full prompt with all of its different components in it. Let’s see if we get a different response, and, more importantly, a better one. So, there it is right there and…Go.

Clear scoring, four categories, three performance levels.

Now we are getting exactly what we want, and developmentally appropriate for the grade that we included. I use facts from more than one good source organization. There’s my four categories. There’s my scoring guide, and etc., etc., etc. We get a very tailored response that’s appropriate for our purposes when we flesh out the whole prompt. All right.

So that just some things about prompting. Now let’s turn our attention to rubrics because that’s why we’re here.

Rubrics Overview and a Common Mistake

So we all know what rubrics are, right? It’s a list of expectations, levels of development for each of those expectations, just like we saw there.

But I will mention one trap that we often get into. There’s two ways to look at rubrics: additive rubrics and progressive rubrics.

“Additive” means at each level, level one, level two, level three, we’re adding new skills.
“Progressive” means level one, level two, level three, and so forth, where we have a single skill, and it’s becoming increasingly more masterful in its delivery.

So, if we are actually going to create a good rubric, and this is just best practices, we’re not adding skills. We might add categories, but each level doesn’t increase skills.

A very rough example: I used to grade a lot of English papers, and I could say, “Okay. Level one, you wrote five sentences. Level two you had good control of mechanics, spelling, punctuation, grammar and so forth. Level three you used transitions.”

Well, what if a kid used good transitions but didn’t have good mechanics? Where do we put them?

So by the additive approach, it’s kind of a mess, and it doesn’t present or provide an accurate analysis of the student’s work. Instead, we always want the progressive, a single skill which becomes increasingly more sophisticated and masterful over time. And then another category for another skill.

As we look at all of our examples of rubrics, we’re taking that approach right there.

Components of Prompts for Rubrics

All right. Let’s build our first prompt.

There are core things if we’re going to build a good rubric. Core things I think we need to put in every prompt.

Context and Goal. The first is context and goal. Who are the students? What’s the content? What’s the assignment? What do we want the kids to get out of it? And I put some samples in there. (Fifth, science, etc., etc., etc.) So, that’s part one.
Purpose. Then, what is the reason for this task? Why do we want the AI to produce this thing for us? (Guide students, provide objective tool for assessment.)
Task. The next piece that we need to put into our prompts for creating good rubrics is, of course, the task itself and very specific. (Rubric for categories for performance levels.)

And as you’re working on rubrics yourself, you’re going to put in all of your own details for each of these pieces. The components are likely the same, but the pieces will be different.

Other information. And anything else that we need, format it as a handout, include labels for these things and so forth.

And when we’ve got that, we’re going to get a pretty good rubric.

Prompt

My 5th grade students are studying digestive system. The assignment is to label and describe components of the system. I want them to understand how parts of the digestive system work together. I will use the rubric to guide students as they complete their assignment and provide objective tool for grading assignments consistently. Create a rubric with 4 categories: labels, descriptions, interactions (how each part affects other parts), writing mechanics. Add 4 performance levels for each category. Use student-friendly language.

So, we’ve got topic, label, and description. That’s what the kids are doing: grading and so forth. Four categories, and I mentioned what the category should be. Labels, description, interactions, and mechanics because they’re doing this with writing. Add four performance levels for each. Student-friendly language.

Let’s take a look and see how that actually works. And then I’ll give you a clue on how we can make this a little easier to replicate so you don’t have to write everything every time.

Let’s turn back over to here. Let’s get a new discussion, and let’s try it out with all of these pieces.

All right, here’s our student friendly language, etc., etc., etc. And we’ve got everything we need, which is very cool. Levels 1, 2, 3, 4. I might ask it to start with level one and then move up to four. Labels, description, interactions. I got my scoring guide. And do we want a self-assessment version. (Yeah, that’d be pretty neat, actually, but some other time.)

Tip: Use a Template

Now, following the strategy of trying to make life a little easier for everybody, just that mindset, my recommendation is make a template. So, for example, I have a template, and it looks like this right here. It’s got the different components, and all I would need to do is fill in the details, copy it, and paste it in. And a template like this makes it easy to replicate the process. So, highly recommended use a template.

Rubrics for Student Self-Assessment–Best Practice

All right. And I’m going to add something to this because thinking about the concepts of rubrics and what are best practices for creating and using rubrics. A place for students to use it and to assess themselves while they’re doing the assignment is a really great idea.

We’re going to add that to our prompt over here because, you know, the rubric is not going to be “Just turn it in, and I will use this rubric to grade it for you.” It’s really instructional more than anything else. It’s a great formative assessment for the teachers: “Are the kids getting it?” And for the students: “Am I doing what’s expected?”

That’s the question. So, we want them to have access to this while they’re doing their assignment, which means we need a place for students to reflect and score themselves on this rubric.

All I have to do is just add that as a follow-up.

Prompt

Include student self-assessment boxes (for example, “I think my work should score ___ in this category”)

And there we go. I think my work should be a [blank] and then fill in the box.

We want kids to do this long before they ever turn it in to us. And there’s all this stuff done there. And you want a space for teacher comments? We might do that also.

All right. So, that’s a quick and dirty approach to creating a good rubric. But there are actually four different types of rubrics.

Introduction to 4 Types of Rubrics

What we’ve been looking at is called an “analytic rubric” where we are taking skills or concepts. We’re analyzing them by various levels of progression. We’ve been doing type two, which is the table format, but there are other ways to do it. And I’m really excited that we’re going to get to dichotomous rubrics. Those are probably my overall most favorite.

Type 1 and 2: Analytic Rubrics

So, what does a type one look like? Category levels. Next, category level. So, it looks very much like the table format more than anything else, It’s a matter of structure. So, if we want this type, which makes a pretty good handout actually, or maybe we put it into a syllabus, or we turn it in to whoever’s looking at our lesson plans or something. If we want this type, it’s pretty simple. So, here’s the same stuff.

Aside: And I will mention this as we look at rubric types. I’m going to keep reusing the same example. We always talk about rubrics with social studies, and oral presentations, and writing assignments, and so forth. I thought: We can use rubrics for all sorts of content. Let’s try band.

So, we’re going to be looking at the examples all around band students, music students. They’re going to do a little solo performance. And what we’re looking for is the quality of their production, the sound production. Are they playing their instrument well? Basically. Okay. So, 10th grade band solo outcome mastery of sound production.

Prompt

Student information: 10th grade band students

Student assignment: perform a brief solo to demonstrate skill playing an instrument

Learning outcome: improve mastery of sound production

Purpose: self-assessment, 9-weeks assessment

Specific task: Create a rubric with 5 categories (tone quality, intonation, articulation, breath control, expressiveness), include 4 proficiency levels per category.

Additional instructions: Create this as an analytic rubric in outline format. Include scoring guide with 40 points and equal points per category.

We’re going to use it for self-assessment in nine weeks. And here’s the task: rubric, five categories, and I’ve listed them, four proficiency levels, created as an analytic rubric and a table format, outline format, excuse me, this is Type 1, scoring guide, 50 points, equal for each one.

All right, so when we do that, (and I think I better get new discussion for this) we’re going to get a pretty nice, tailored rubric, analytic rubric in outline format, to help the kids monitor themselves as they are learning to gain control of their musical instruments.

And there it is. Easy, easy peasy. What each level looks like, and so on.

Now, one thing we’re going to see when we get to dichotomous rubrics, we use them a little differently, but for each of these types of rubrics, for the analytic rubrics in particular, we’re kind of going backwards.

We’re starting with perfect performance. “Can they do this? No. Can they do this? Yes.” Therefore, they are at the Proficient level. So we keep taking away from the highest level until we reach the level the student is able to accomplish.

Let’s say we want to change this now from an outline format to a table format. Well, very simply, we just have to change one thing. And if you look at instructions, “Create this as an analytic rubric in table format” and everything else remains the same. So it’s easy to change models with AI and not have to start over from scratch.

All I’m going to do is I’m going to come up here to my prompt. I’m going to edit it. And I’m going to change this part right here, analytic rubric and outline to analytic rubric and table format.

Prompt

Student information: 10th grade band students

Student assignment: perform a brief solo to demonstrate skill playing an instrument

Learning outcome: improve mastery of sound production

Purpose: self-assessment, 9-weeks assessment

Specific task: Create a rubric with 5 categories (tone quality, intonation, articulation, breath control, expressiveness), include 4 proficiency levels per category.

Additional instructions: Create this as an analytic rubric in table format. Include scoring guide with 40 points and equal points per category.

Aside: You know, I’ll just take it all out there. Hang on. Let’s make it easy on ourselves. Um, an outline format. All right. Let me just grab it again. I don’t know what’s going on here.

So, there’s that. And I’m simply going to say in table format. And this will give us the second type of analytic rubric…and send. And off we go.

We’ve taken the same content, we fleshed it out, we put it into a table format. Everything else is the same. Now, so that’s the second type.

Type 3: Holistic Rubrics

The third type of rubric is what we call a holistic rubric. The analytic rubrics are great if we want to dig in deeply on individual skills, demonstrable skills, and show a progression of them. But sometimes that’s more than what we want to do.

If we’re thinking about the overall goal of the assignment, mastery of sound being produced from our musical instruments, maybe we don’t want to subdivide in all the individual groups. We want to know what is the overall quality of the work that the students produce.

And so for that, we’re going to look at more of a holistic rubric.

Now there is a trap here. These are prone to more subjective, inconsistent application, so if you’re going to do something like this, do them all at once. If you’re going to use this kind of assessment, work through them with the students so they understand what the purpose is and what we’re trying to do.

Because, as you see, for each of these, we’ve got all those areas. We’ve got breath control and expressiveness and articulation and tone and all that mixed up together, and we’re providing an overall judgment of the overall final content, the overall final demonstration. But it can be very good for providing feedback to students.

But we do have to be careful about the issue of subjectivity here and inconsistency.

I wouldn’t use this if I’m actually grading students, but I would use this if I’m helping to provide some feedback, some formative feedback as students are progressing.

So, holistic rubric. Let’s grab one.

And there’s that one.

Aside: And I think I better start this in a new discussion thread, so it’s not drawing from all the levels and all the stuff that we’ve already done. ChatGPT will cross reference conversations, but it will certainly look up in a discussion and say what did we do before? Let’s build on it. Well, in this case, we don’t want to. Let’s start fresh and new chat. Okay, there we go.

Prompt

Student information: 10th grade band students

Student assignment: practice then perform a brief solo to demonstrate skill playing an instrument

Learning outcome: improve quality of sound production

Purpose: self-assessment, 9-weeks assessment

Create this as a holistic rubric to provide feedback of the student’s performance. Refer to tone, articulation, breath control, expressiveness

Let’s take a look at holistic rubrics now. Much of the stuff at the top is the same. The instructions are a little bit different. Holistic rubric refer to these different areas here, and…go.

So holistic: instrument solo, purpose self assessment, and now we’ve got some narrative discussion representing each level of proficiency here, from bottom up to exemplary, and we’ve got some point values, and so on.

But, like I mentioned, I don’t think I would actually do points with this one simply because it is subjective and it’s more generalized.

So, if a student is at the proficient level, we’re looking at a variety of things. What’s the area that needs to be improved, and this isn’t going to pinpoint that, but it will give some good overall feedback.

All right, so that is holistic rubrics and scoring guide.

And one thing I really love about this: it’s actually drawing from credible sources. In this case, the National Association for Musical Education. It’s drawing from that to build those levels of performance and what they actually look like.

“Do you want a reflection section?” Yeah, that’d be great. Some other time.

Type 4: Dichotomous Rubrics

The last one that we have to look at is probably my favorite, to be honest. And that is what we call the “dichotomous rubric”. And frankly, it’s not well known, but I think it’s really powerful for all the same reasons: for assessment, and for guiding, and formative, and providing feedback, and all of these things. And it’s pretty easy to use, which is doubly cool.

So, what does it actually look like?

It’s basically a decision tree. It’s a “yes/no” decision tree.

Typical Rubrics: Deficit Approach. With the other types of rubrics, they are all… they’re kind of all a deficit approach. Start at the highest level and then work your way down until you get to the place where students can demonstrate the skills.
Dichotomous Rubrics: Progressive Approach. This one is more of a vertical, or a progressive approach. Start at the lowest level and “Can the student do it?”

With the other rubrics, the student is not doing this, the student is not doing that, doesn’t do this, and on the way up it’s sometimes and it builds up. But this one “Is the student doing something” not “Are they not doing it” but are they in fact doing it, and it creates a decision tree:

Does the student produce clear and consistent tone? Yes. Then we go to the next question. If not, we call the student “Beginning” and there’s a little description. So we proceed.
Does the student demonstrate control? Yes. We can go to the next question.
Is the articulation appropriate? Yes.
And so forth.

However, this can be a little tricky to explain to folks. It looks very simple, but it can be a little tricky. And one of the reasons is the level that the student is rated at (beginning, emerging, and so forth) is not what they’re performing at. It’s the level that they’re working on.

For example, if the student, if we say that the second one, “Does the student demonstrate control of articulation?” No. Well, the student is at level two: “Emerging”.

Typical Rubrics. Whereas all the other rubrics, and what we typically do when we’re assessing kids, we say, “You are at this level, representing the highest level that you have mastered.”
Dichotomous Rubrics (standard). With a dichotomous rubric, it’s different. “You are at this level because these are the skills that you’re working on now. Not what you’ve mastered previously, but what you’re currently doing.”

And that makes it a little tricky to use. So, we need to fix this in order to align this approach with how we typically think about proficiency levels.

It’s not too hard to do, but we need we’re going to need to add some rules. But let’s start with that, and then I’ll show you how we can modify it.

Prompt

Student information: 10th grade band students

Student assignment: practice then perform a brief solo to demonstrate skill playing an instrument

Learning outcome: improve mastery of sound production

Purpose: self-assessment, 9-weeks assessment

Specific task: Create a progressive dichotomous rubric to gauge sound articulation, with 6 proficiency levels. Format as a text-based flow chart.

10th grade band, etc. Create a progressive dichotomous rubric to gauge sound articulation. Six proficiency levels. Format it as a text-based flowchart.

We’ll start there and then we will improve upon it. (So this is prompt 4D… and copy.)

But I’ll tell you, it will give us a chance to show a very, very useful technique when we’re working with our Ais, and that is rules. All right.

So there’s that. And here we go.

Self assessment. And there’s our decision tree, etc., etc., do they do it? So, it’s kind of what we just looked at here.

And then, finally, if level four is “Yes–level four”, then that’s the level they are at. Well, no. They are not doing [level 5 skills]. So, therefore, they are at level five. See? and that’s where it’s a trap.

It’s like, they’re not this: level four. They’re not doing these things [at level 5]. Therefore, they are at level five, which is the level they’re currently working on, as opposed to the level that they have mastered. Let’s fix that.

And some more stuff down there.

Improved Dichotomous Rubrics

Okay. It’s not too hard to fix it, actually, but we need to add some rules for the development of this rubric. We’re going to add to other information that it needs.

Prompt (modification)

Rubric rules: If a student gets a “no” for any new criteria, then the student’s rank is the prior level mastered.

If the first criterion is “no”, the rating is “introducing”. For example:

Level 1, Beginning: no = Introducing, yes = “[level] mastered; continue to next question.”

Level 2, Developing: no = Beginning, yes = “[level] mastered; continue to next question.”

For each question, add the name of the level.

So, rules are if a student gets a “No”, then the student’s rank is the prior level mastered. Right? So, if they bottom out at level five, they’re not doing it, then we call them “level four”. But what do you do for the very first one? We need a “level zero”, so if they can’t even do the first thing, the rating is “Introducing”.

And then I give a little description of how it works.

So Level one is “beginning”. If they can’t even do that, then they’re “Introducing” or whatever we want to call level zero. But if they’re a yes for that, then that level has been mastered. They have mastered level one. And we continue to level two.

Now here, this is the “Developing” level. If they’re a “No”, they are back here. They have mastered the prior level, level one, “Beginning”. So, it’s going to represent the highest level mastered as opposed to the level they’re working on.

And if they’re a “Yes”, say we mastered it.

And for each question, give the name so we have a cross reference.

I could just add it to the original prompt, but here I’m just going to add it down here. “Modify using these rules.” And I’ll just put that in there instead. This is going to fix the problem with the dichotomous rubric and align it with what we generally do in education. And, frankly, make it a lot easier to understand, as well.

So, does the student produce sound? No. Call them “Introducing”, which means they haven’t yet developed articulation. Clarity, control? Yes? “Beginning” level is mastered. Continue to developing.
Level two is “Developing”. If they can’t meet the criterion, then they are the prior level: “Beginning”. But if “Yes”, then “Developing” is mastered. Continue to the next question.
And on and on down.

So it makes a nice, forward-moving progression of skills.

Not: we’re going to take away because you’re not good enough for five, you’re not good enough for four, you’re not good enough for three.
Instead: we’re going to build from the most basic level and then progress those skills to higher and higher degrees of proficiency until we get to the point where the student is unable to master any or demonstrate any higher levels.

So it makes it very easy and intuitive to use, and, frankly, it’s just a lot more affirming for the student. It says, “Okay, you’ve got some stuff that you can actually do” instead of pointing out all the stuff you can’t do. We’ve pointed out the stuff that you can do, which currently is putting you at this proficiency level.

And “Exemplary”. If they can’t do that then they’re back in “Advanced” but “Yes: Exemplary level mastered”.

So that is my favorite kind of rubric. All right, what else? So, we fixed it there.

Rubrics for Student Behavior

Now one very last thing in the moment we’ve got.

Let’s not forget we can also use rubrics for behavioral aspects, for helping students master their own behavior, their social emotional behaviors, because that’s a part of what we teach them, too.

Prompt

I need a rubric for 2nd grade students to understand respectful behavior towards other students. Include 5 levels of descriptors. Use kid-friendly language.

So I’ve got a sample of a prompt up there. There’s actually a whole video, a 10-minute video, on our YouTube channel specifically about that. You might want to go take a look, and then we can always turn it into an infographic as well.

Conclusion

There you go. Better Rubrics, Faster.

There is a prompt download. We’re going to put it in the next newsletter. If you’re a subscriber, you can grab a copy of the prompts, and even a link to this video here.

Couple of things coming up.

In November, the webinar is about AI cheating. This isn’t so much a “how-to” and look at prompts, and that kind of stuff. It’s more about what do we have to do in the schools to define cheating, to make sure that students aren’t using the AIs to cheat, but instead are using it as a part of the learning process.
Then, in December, we’re going to look at principal and school leadership responsibilities, specifically how do we customize those observation forms for individual teachers and their needs.

So there you go: Better Rubrics, Faster with AI.

Again, I’m David Bowman. You can email us if you’re looking for some support for your staff or your teachers on how to use AI effectively within learning as a part of an effective pedagogy.

Feel free to send us an email. We’d love to talk about how we can work together on that.

And that is that is the end of our webinar.

So, I just wanted to say a very quick thank you for watching this. I hope you found it useful, and best wishes, and take care to all of you.

Transcript Outline

Outline of Video Transcript: “Better Rubrics, Faster—with AI”

Introduction, Purpose, and Goal
1. Context for “Better Rubrics, Faster, with AI”
  - AI as a tool to transform education
  - Focus on pedagogy, leadership, and student success
  - Not chasing “shiny toys,” but better teaching and learning
2. Why rubrics and why free
  - Support educators and instructional leaders
  - Create opportunities for academic and social-emotional growth
How to Prompt AI To Get What You Need
1. Three core concepts
  - Know the desired end result
  - Give specific instructions and rationale
  - Explain like a teacher
2. Essential prompt parts
  - Context
  - Purpose
  - Task
3. Helpful add-ons
  - Persona
  - Format
  - Sample
  - Style
4. Weak vs. strong prompt example
  - Task-only prompts yield generic outputs
  - Full prompts produce tailored, developmentally appropriate rubrics
Rubrics Overview and a Common Mistake
1. Two rubric models
  - Additive: adds new skills at each level (problematic)
  - Progressive: increases mastery of one skill per category (preferred)
2. Best-practice implication
  - Keep levels progressive within a single skill
  - Use separate categories for different skills
Components of Prompts for Rubrics
1. Context and goal
  - Who are the students and what is the assignment?
  - What outcomes are expected?
2. Purpose
  - Guide students and support objective assessment
3. Task
  - Specify categories, levels, language, and format
4. Other information
  - Handout needs, labels, scoring guides
5. Worked example (5th grade digestive system)
  - Four categories; four performance levels; student-friendly language
Tip: Use a Template
1. Template strategy
  - Create a reusable prompt scaffold
  - Fill in details per assignment
Rubrics for Student Self-Assessment—Best Practice
1. Include reflection and self-scoring
  - Add “I think my work should score ___” boxes
  - Use during work, not only at submission
Introduction to 4 Types of Rubrics
1. Analytic (Type 1: outline; Type 2: table)
  - Band solo example with five categories and four levels
  - Easy format switching between outline and table
2. Holistic (Type 3)
  - Overall quality judgment across dimensions
  - Useful for feedback; caution on subjectivity
3. Dichotomous (Type 4)
  - Yes/No decision tree; progressive checks
  - Initial pitfall: level reflects “work on” vs. “mastered”
Improving Dichotomous Rubrics
1. Rules to align with mastered levels
  - If “No” on a criterion, rate at prior mastered level
  - Introduce “Level 0: Introducing” when first criterion is “No”
  - Label each question with level names
2. Outcome
  - Forward-moving progression recognizing highest level mastered
  - More intuitive and affirming for students
Rubrics for Student Behavior
1. Example: Respectful behavior (2nd grade)
  - Five levels with kid-friendly descriptors
  - Applicable to social-emotional learning
Conclusion and Next Steps
1. Resources and outreach
  - Prompt download via newsletter
  - Contact for staff support and training
2. Upcoming topics
  - November: AI cheating—policy and practice
  - December: Leadership observation forms customization