professional presentation rubric

PowerPoint Rubric

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Examples of Other Rubrics

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

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Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper

Single-Point Rubric

More examples:

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

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Learning resource types, management communication for undergraduates, rubric: professional presentations.

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Higher Education

How to (Effectively) Use a Presentation Grading Rubric

Almost all higher education courses these days require students to give a presentation, which can be a beast to grade. But there’s a simple tool to keep your evaluations on track. 

Enter: The presentation grading rubric.

With a presentation grading rubric, giving feedback is simple. Rubrics help instructors standardize criteria and provide consistent scoring and feedback for each presenter. 

How can presentation grading rubrics be used effectively? Here are 5 ways to make the most of your rubrics. 

1. Find a Good Customizable Rubric

There’s practically no limit to how rubrics are used, and there are oodles of presentation rubrics on Pinterest and Google Images. But not all rubrics are created equal. 

Professors need to be picky when choosing a presentation rubric for their courses. Rubrics should clearly define the target that students are aiming for and describe performance. 

2. Fine-Tune Your Rubric

Make sure your rubric accurately reflects the expectations you have for your students. It may be helpful to ask a colleague or peer to review your rubric before putting it to use. After using it for an assignment, you could take notes on the rubric’s efficiency as you grade. 

You may need to tweak your rubric to correct common misunderstandings or meet the criteria for a specific assignment. Make adjustments as needed and frequently review your rubric to maximize its effectiveness. 

3. Discuss the Rubric Beforehand

On her blog Write-Out-Loud , Susan Dugdale advises to not keep rubrics a secret. Rubrics should be openly discussed before a presentation is given. Make sure reviewing your rubric with students is listed on your lesson plan.

Set aside time to discuss the criteria with students ahead of presentation day so they know where to focus their efforts. To help students better understand the rubric, play a clip of a presentation and have students use the rubric to grade the video. Go over what grade students gave the presentation and why, based on the rubric’s standards. Then explain how you would grade the presentation as an instructor. This will help your students internalize the rubric as they prepare for their presentations.

4. Use the Rubric Consistently

Rubrics help maintain fairness in grading. When presentation time arrives, use a consistent set of grading criteria across all speakers to keep grading unbiased. 

An effective application for rubrics is to apply a quantitative value to students across a cohort and over multiple presentations. These values show which students made the most progress and where they started out (relative to the rest of their class). Taken together, this data tells the story of how effective or ineffective the feedback has been.

5. Share Your Feedback

If you’re using an electronic system, sharing feedback might be automatic. If you’re using paper, try to give copies to presenters as soon as possible. This will help them incorporate your feedback while everything is still fresh in their minds. 

If you’re looking to use rubrics electronically, check out GoReact, the #1 video platform for skill development. GoReact allows you to capture student presentations on video for feedback, grading, and critique. The software includes a rubric builder that you can apply to recordings of any kind of presentation.

Presenters can receive real-time feedback by live recording directly to GoReact with a webcam or smartphone. Instructors and peers submit feedback during the presentation. Students improve astronomically. 

A presentation grading rubric is a simple way to keep your evaluations on track. Remember to use a customizable rubric, discuss the criteria beforehand, follow a consistent set of grading criteria, make necessary adjustments, and quickly share your feedback.

By following these five steps, both you and your students can reap the benefits that great rubrics have to offer.

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Professional Development Presentation Rubric

Description.

Rubrics are an important tool in standards-based education. While rubrics are most often used in grading student work, they can also be super helpful to students in understanding the performance expectations. When used as formative assessments, students can not only understand the expectations, but also self-assess the quality of their skills and work products.

This collection of rubrics may be adapted or adopted by classroom teachers across clusters and content areas.

Download the resource by selecting it from the related items section below.

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• Five Paragraph Essay
• IMRaD (Science)
• Indirect Method (Bad News)
• Inverted Pyramid (News)
• Martini Glass
• Narrative Format
• Rogerian Method
• Toulmin Method
• Apostrophes
• Exclamation Marks (Points)
• Parentheses
• Periods (Full Stops)
• Question Marks
• Quotation Marks
• Plain Language
• APPEALS: ETHOS, PATHOS, LOGOS
• CLUSTER ANALYSIS
• FANTASY-THEME
• GENERIC CRITICISM
• IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM
• NEO-ARISTOTELIAN
• O.P.T.I.C. (VISUAL ANALSYIS)
• S.O.A.P.S.T.O.N.E. (WRITTEN ANALYSIS)
• S.P.A.C.E.C.A.T. (RHETORICAL ANALYSIS)
• BRANCHES OF ORATORY
• FIGURES OF SPEECH
• FIVE CANONS
• LOGICAL FALLACIES
• Information Design Rules
• Arrangement

Organization

• Negative Space
• Iconography
• Photography
• Which Chart Should I Use?
• “P” is for PREPARE
• "O" is for OPEN
• "W" is for WEAVE
• “E” is for ENGAGE
• PRESENTATION EVALUTION RUBRIC
• POWERPOINT DESIGN
• ADVENTURE APPEAL
• BRAND APPEAL
• ENDORSEMENT APPEAL
• HUMOR APPEAL
• LESS-THAN-PERFECT APPEAL
• MASCULINE & FEMININE APPEAL
• MUSIC APPEAL
• PERSONAL/EMOTIONAL APPEAL
• PLAIN APPEAL
• PLAY-ON-WORDS APPEAL
• RATIONAL APPEAL
• ROMANCE APPEAL
• SCARCITY APPEAL
• SNOB APPEAL
• SOCIAL APPEAL
• STATISTICS APPEAL
• YOUTH APPEAL
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Giving Effective Presentations: 50 Things to Consider (with evaluation rubric)

Effective presentations require that you put a good deal of thought into how your audience will react to every component of your presentation. While an engaging personality or an intriguing subject matter will help, you can make any topic work well if you follow several key guidelines, divided into nine areas: Audience Adaptation ; Opening ; Organization ; Content & Ethos ; Storytelling ; Visual Display ; Delivery ; Team Interplay ; and Conclusion .

Review this evaluation checklist to make sure you’ve covered all the important areas for giving an effective presentation. Descriptions of each of the 50 components are listed below.

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Audience Adaptation

Adapting to your audience is, above all else, the most important thing you must consider. Make sure you think about what they care about (not what you find interesting), what they’ll expect to hear, what they don’t already understand (and what they do), and so forth. If you don’t know your audience before going into a presentation, research them. Ask questions. The more you know about them, the better you can prepare for them.

Use appropriate tone:  Just like you speak differently with your friends than you likely do with your mother, you’ll want to change the way you speak to one audience over another. Ask yourself: What level of formality is appropriate? Should I attempt humor? (In most cases, unless you  know  you’re funny, you may want to avoid attempting to be in order to steer clear of awkwardness if a joke doesn’t go well.) Will my audience be relaxed, tense, or bored? How can I adapt to that?

Use appropriate jargon & acronyms:  Every audience will have a certain level of understanding of your subject matter prior to seeing you present. It’s critically important that you understand what specific terms they know and don’t know so that you don’t use words or acronyms that are confusing to them. If you use industry-specific jargon or acronyms, make sure your audience knows them in advance. If they don’t, define the terms for them.

Make topic relevant to audience:  Make sure that your audience will care about your topic. Sometimes you’ll present information to your boss because he asked you to. In this case, the topic will probably automatically be relevant. But in other cases, your audience may be there because they have to be for work, or they may be there to learn more information but may not fully understand what they’re about to learn. Make sure, regardless of what the situation is, that you tailor the message to the audience’s situation and make them care about the topic.

Knowledge of subject matter appropriate for audience:  Present depth of knowledge at the level your audience can understand. If you’re a chemistry professor speaking about nutrition to pharmaceutical researchers, your depth of explanation will be quite different than if you’re speaking to college freshmen about nutrition. Two things are important here: if your audience knows a lot about your topic going in, don’t patronize or bore them by telling them things they already know. If they don’t know much about the topic, be clear and detailed to make sure they’re on the same page as you and start from a common ground they can relate to.

Your opening is key to engaging your audience right from the beginning. If you bore them up front, you may have lost them for good.

Start with Strong attention-grabber:  Attention grabbers can come in may forms. Some of the most common include telling stories; sharing fascinating quotes; giving alarming or surprising statistics; asking your audience a question; telling a joke (but only if it’s both relevant  and  funny); creating an imaginary scenario (“imagine you’re stuck on an island…”); surprising your audience; or giving a demonstration or object lesson. Regardless of what you choose, make it relevant, make it pithy, and make it work for your audience. Do the attention-grabber well, and you’ll be on pace to keep you audience engaged the entire time.

Make Your Topic Clear:  There should be no question in your audience’s mind, even just a couple minutes into it, where you are headed with the presentation. State your topic, address the issues, and make it relevant.

Make Your Topic Interesting:  Interest comes with relevancy and what we call “exigency.” Make your audience care by letting them know how your topic affects them. Give the facts, stories, anecdotes, issues, etc. that will intrigue and interest them.

Forecast a clear direction for presentation:  At the end of your opening, tell the audience what to expect. What are you going to cover? Create a clear road map so that they know what to expect and so that they know where you’re at in the middle of the presentation.

Organization is key to keeping your audience fully engaged for the entire presentation. As soon as you veer off track somewhere, you begin to lose the attention of your audience.

Follow the Road Map:  In your introduction, you gave your audience the road map. Now be sure that you follow it in the order that you said you would. Stick to the plan from start to finish.

Include Frequent Transitions & Signposts:  Transitions are statements that connect a previous section or idea of your presentation to the next section or idea. Use words and phrases that link the two so that there is a clear connection between ideas and so that audiences can sense a progression. A “signpost” is a kind of transition. It’s a word or phrase that reminds the audience where you are in the presentation. You might connect a dot, remind the audience where you are, or let them know what’s coming next.

Progress towards Finish:  Just like in any good movie, there needs to be a sort of plot building at all times. You’ll want to always be building towards a finish, with each piece of your presentation moving you towards some kind of conclusion. Remember that all good communications should have a beginning, middle, and end. Be sure that each component of the middle progresses towards a clear and meaningful end.

Provide Summary(ies) of Main Points:  If your presentation goes beyond 10 or 15 minutes, it may be helpful to occasionally remind your audience what’s been said. Help your audience understand, at every step along the way, what is happening and what the information or data means.

Connect Loose Dots:  If you begin a story or anecdote, be sure to tell the ending at some point. If you provide interesting data, make sure you let the audience know what it means. If you’re leading towards a recommendation, be sure that the recommendation is based on research or evidence you just suggested. Don’t leave your audience hanging in any capacity.

Content & Ethos

Ethos refers to your credibility. In order for an audience to fully appreciate and follow your arguments and positions, you must show that you are knowledgeable of the subject matter and that the information you are presenting is founded on something that your audience can agree is good supporting evidence.

Use Only Persuasive Argumentation:  Avoid presenting an argument with gaps or holes. You may wish to study the  logical fallacies for more insight on where arguments can go wrong. When you make a statement, make sure you qualify it and provide appropriate support.

Conduct Sound Research:  As you know and understand your audience, you should know what they will consider valuable and worthwhile research for your type of presentation. Generally speaking, you want to build your argument based on a variety of sources. You might provide case studies, survey data, secondary research (information from books, journals, etc.), observations, testimonials, expert endorsement, or something else. Regardless, you must convince your audience that you’ve done your due diligence.

Include Only Relevant Material:  While this may seem obvious, don’t present material that isn’t directly relevant to your key points. Don’t get distracted and stick to your organizational plan. Make sure all content has a purpose and that it leads towards that strong conclusion.

Provide Convincing Analyses and Conclusions:  Show your audience how much you know about the subject matter by giving them clear, logical analyses of your data and draw conclusions that come directly from your data. Avoid drawing conclusions that come from personal opinion, but rather focus on what your research and data suggest.

Pertinent Data and Evidence:  Be sure that all of you data and evidence is directly related to your overall message. Don’t pull in facts simply because you find them interesting. Again, all content needs to build or progress towards something. Don’t get sidetracked with tangentially related data.

Storytelling

All good presentations–no matter for business, school, clubs, or church–are better when stories are told. Human beings have a natural inclination for stories. People want to know how stories end. Make stories work for your presentation by describing people (characters), situations (settings), problems, climaxes, and resolutions. All presentations should have at least one story, but you may incorporate many more.

Read: How to Organize a Paper: The Narrative Format

Tell Stories with Purpose:  Don’t tell stories just to tell stories, but make connections between what you are telling your audience with a real example.

Tell Realistic Stories:  You don’t want your audience to think you made the story up or that it’s exaggerated. Provide enough appropriate detail so that your audience can believe what you’re telling them is not only true, but its possible, likely, or directly relevant to them.

Tell Stories with   Cl early Described Characters:  Make sure your audience knows who the people are and why they matter to the story.

Be Sure to Have a Conflict:  Stories don’t need to be complicated or extraordinary to be good. But they should have a conflict (which leads to the purpose for telling the story.) There must always be some issue that needs to be resolved.

Don’t Forget the Resolution:  When you start a story of any kind, make sure that you let your audience know how it turned out.

Tell Only Relevant Stories:  Avoid getting sidetracked or on a tangent. All stories should have a clear purpose and should lead the audience towards your conclusions and arguments.

Perhaps the single greatest complaint in the history of presentations is that PowerPoint slides have too much text. Use your slide deck platform to create visually stunning, supportive visuals. Visuals should always complement (not distract or supersede) a presentation’s message. But images are almost always better than text when on the screen.

Be Simple:  Make slide designs simple. As Leonardo da Vinci famously said: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. White background with black text is a great choice. Avoid fancy or distracting backgrounds or other visual noise. Keep the design simple, giving focus to the key elements.

Be Clear:  Be sure that your images or graphics have a clear purpose. If you’re showing data in chart or graph, explain the graph. Don’t talk about something else while hoping your audience will read all the numbers and draw conclusions. Point them to what they should learn from the graph.

Use Minimal (if any) Text:  People don’t remember text very well and they don’t remember what they hear very well…unless there’s a picture attached to what they hear. Use pictures to supplement and enhance what you are saying. Avoid as much text as is possible. Oftentimes, it’s better on a slide to not use any text at all–just give the audience a picture that supports what you are saying.

Only Use Relevant of Images:  While this may seem obvious, may novice presenters like to include clipart or other non-essential images simply to “pretty up” the presentation. Inserting images just to insert images is not only distracting, it’s tacky. Make all images worthwhile to your audience. If there is absolutely nothing interesting to show your audience when talking about something (that would be rare), use a blank slide. But don’t put in louse images.

Create Effective Charts, Graphs, and Animations:  Make sure the graphs are readable for everyone in the audience. Use large text and clearly understandable colors, sizes, and so forth. Always be sure to talk about visualized data on the screen. Don’t expect your audience to have the patience (especially while you are speaking about something else) to read or interpret the data on their own.

Make Visuals Readable:  Whatever your visual is, be sure it’s big enough for your audience to interpret it without trouble. No small data points, no pixelated graphics or photos, no tiny lines on graphs.

Color Scheme:  Keep colors simple and minimal. Use black text in most cases on a white background. Make sure contrast is always high. Be careful of yellows and oranges as they are often hard to read and they don’t project well on a screen.

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iRubric: Professional Presentation Evaluation rubric

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Oral Presentation Example Rubric

Oral Presentation Example Rubric Outcome: Students will graduate with the ability to give professional presentations. Work Product: Oral presentation

Rubric is a modification of one presented by: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (1998).  Oral presentation rubric . Retrieved October 23, 2008 from  http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/pdfRubrics/oralassess.PDF

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Presentation rubric: improving faculty professional presentations

Affiliation.

• 1 Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing, Samford University, Birmingham, AL.
• PMID: 24188441
• DOI: 10.1111/nuf.12043

Purpose: This article describes the content of a presentation evaluation rubric for use in the development and improvement in faculty performance to enhance learning.

Conclusions: Lectures or professional presentations require skills that can be learned through the use of evidence-based practices for all forms of public speaking.

Practice implications: A core competency of nursing faculty is to serve as a role model in skilled oral communication. The use of an evaluation presentation rubric can increase faculty competency in this area.

Keywords: Best practice; education; evidence-based; professional issue; quality.

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Oral Presentation Rubric

About this printout

This rubric is designed to be used for any oral presentation. Students are scored in three categories—delivery, content, and audience awareness.

Teaching with this printout

More ideas to try, related resources.

Oral presentation and speaking are important skills for students to master, especially in the intermediate grades. This oral presentation rubric is designed to fit any topic or subject area. The rubric allows teachers to assess students in several key areas of oral presentation. Students are scored on a scale of 1–4 in three major areas. The first area is Delivery, which includes eye contact, and voice inflection. The second area, Content/Organization, scores students based on their knowledge and understanding of the topic being presented and the overall organization of their presentation. The third area, Enthusiasm/Audience Awareness, assesses students based on their enthusiasm toward the topic and how well they came across to their intended audience. Give students the oral presentation rubric ahead of time so that they know and understand what they will be scored on. Discuss each of the major areas and how they relate to oral presentation.

• After students have completed their oral presentations, ask them to do a self-assessment with the same rubric and hold a conference with them to compare their self-assessment with your own assessment.
• Provide students with several examples of oral presentations before they plan and execute their own presentation. Ask students to evaluate and assess the exemplar presentations using the same rubric.
• Students can do a peer evaluation of oral presentations using this rubric. Students meet in partners or small groups to give each other feedback and explain their scoring.
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Research Presentation Rubric

The format of research presentations can vary across and within disciplines. Use this rubric (PDF) to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. This resource focuses on research presentations but may be useful beyond. 

Creating an Oral Presentation Rubric

In-class activity.

This activity helps students clarify the oral presentation genre; do this after distributing an assignment–in this case, a standard individual oral presentation near the end of the semester which allows students to practice public speaking while also providing a means of workshopping their final paper argument. Together, the class will determine the criteria by which their presentations should–and should not–be assessed.

Guide to Oral/Signed Communication in Writing Classrooms

To collaboratively determine the requirements for students’ oral presentations; to clarify the audience’s expectations of this genre

rhetorical situation; genre; metacognition; oral communication; rubric; assessment; collaboration

• Ask students to free-write and think about these questions: What makes a good oral presentation? Think of examples of oral presentations that you’ve seen, one “bad” and one “good.” They can be from any genre–for example, a course lecture, a museum talk, a presentation you have given, even a video. Jot down specific strengths and weaknesses.
• Facilitate a full-class discussion to list the important characteristics of an oral presentation. Group things together. For example, students may say “speaking clearly” as a strength; elicit specifics (intonation, pace, etc.) and encourage them to elaborate.
• Clarify to students that the more they add to the list, the more information they have in regards to expectations on the oral presentation rubric. If they do not add enough, or specific enough, items, they won’t know what to aim for or how they will be assessed.
• Review the list on the board and ask students to decide what they think are the most important parts of their oral presentations, ranking their top three components.
• Create a second list to the side of the board, called “Let it slide,” asking students what, as a class, they should “let slide” in the oral presentations. Guide and elaborate, choosing whether to reject, accept, or compromise on the students’ proposals.
• Distribute the two lists to students as-is as a checklist-style rubric or flesh the primary list out into a full analytic rubric .

Here’s an example of one possible rubric created from this activity; here’s another example of an oral presentation rubric that assesses only the delivery of the speech/presentation, and which can be used by classmates to evaluate each other.

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Types of Rubrics

What type of rubric should i use.

There are two well-known and commonly used types of rubrics, Analytic and Holistic, and two lesser-known types of rubrics, Scoring Guide and Single-Point.

Analytic Rubric

multiple levels of performance scales used that focus on one criterion at a time

Analytic rubrics (also known as developmental rubrics) provide a list of all assignment criteria with detailed descriptions based on performance level of the criteria. The grader evaluates each criteria and sums up the points for all criteria when assigning an overall grade.

Analytic Rubrics are useful for formative assessment as they provide detailed feedback to students, one criteria at a time, allowing students to see how well they performed on specific aspects of the assignment. This will help students improve their work. They may also be used for summative feedback on students’ progress through a course or program. Analytic rubrics are often used when content or assignments are scaffolded, to give students some feedback on their learning progress before their final assignment.

Holistic Rubric

one performance scale used that applies all criteria at the same time thereby focusing on the level of quality; typically includes detailed comments

Holistic Rubrics provide detailed performance level descriptions for all criteria, simultaneously. They give an overall big picture of the student’s work, with a focus on that they can do. There are typically 4 levels in a scale. The grader uses the description in whole when assessing the degree to which a student’s submitted work meets the criteria, and a single score is assigned. Some rubrics include a space for a general statement on the work as a whole. Specific feedback on elements is not provided. Holistic rubrics sometimes follow upon previous feedback given on one aspect of a student’s work. Weighting of criteria is not typically employed.

They are more useful than analytic rubrics for summative assessments where only the grade is pertinent. Choosing one score can be challenging when you are considering multiple criteria at one time.

Holistic rubrics “describe the work by applying all the criteria at the same time and enabling an overall judgment about the quality of the work.” (Brookhart, S. M., 2013, p. 6).

Scoring Guide Rubric

one level describing the highest level of performance to which students should strive; include criteria, points and comments

Scoring Guide rubric’s criteria have one level each. The criterion can be weighted by including a percentage denoting its value towards the overall grade of the work being assessed. They also have columns for comments and points. The points indicate the degree to which a criterion is met (equivalent to how much credit the earn); for example, if a student, in answering an essay question, addresses all aspects of the question fully they would get full credit, partial credit for providing some or most parts, and zero for answering all parts incorrectly or not at all. So, if a student addressed most aspects of a question they would get 2/3 or 4/5 of the value of each criterion towards their grade on that question.

They are more expedient than free style assessment as the criteria and description of exemplary work is pre-identified. Grading strong work takes little time as fewer comments are needed. While grading weaker work may take longer as more details about how the work missed the mark or could be improved would need to be provided.

Some uses include low-stakes, formative assessments (not always entered in gradebook) like assessing participation in discussions. Other uses include assessments that have a single response, contract grading or situations where a PASS/FAIL is all that’s needed. A challenge with scoring guides is that their focus tends to be on how much of a submission met the mark (quantity) rather than how well it was done. This may very well be appropriate in some situations. Detailed feedback is not typically provided. When it is, a comments field is included to explain to students how they did or did not meet the criterion.

Single-Point Rubrics

a list of criteria with two levels to indicate its presence or absence; space to note strengths and concerns; one grade may be provided for the work as a whole

Single-point rubrics, also known as checklists, identify the success criteria for grading an assessment. Each criteria is presented in its own row. The criteria column is flanked on either side with space to provide specific feedback relating to any concerns (notes for what needs improvement) or strengths (notes on how the work exceeded expectations) observed in the work while grading. These two levels denote evidence of the criteria as present or not. They often use a concerns/strengths, Yes/No, Present/Not Present or Achieved/Not Achieved model for their two levels. Points (grades) are determined by tallying all the criteria that were denoted as present. Weighting of criteria is uncommon.

These rubrics are easy and quick to analyze. They are often used in performance evaluations (processes) and in peer evaluations. The grading tends to be fairly consistent over multiple uses. However, depending on how they are designed, single-point rubrics may require more detailed feedback from the instructor to indicate any concerns or strengths noted in observing the assessment item.

Resource created by: Jane C. and Denise C.

Originally Published: August 4, 2023

Last Updated: July 16, 2024

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