How to make a presentation rubric
- Give the rubric a title, such as the name of the task or the unit, so students can tell which talk it belongs to.
- Choose 3, 4 or 5 levels. The top level is worth the most points, and the names of the levels can be changed to the words your school uses.
- Keep the criteria that matter for this task and remove the rest. Add a preset such as pace or visual aids, or write your own, for example a criterion for answering questions or using key vocabulary.
- Open each criterion to read or change what each level looks like. Describe what you will see and hear, not just “good” or “poor”, so a student can tell what to do to move up a level.
- Set the number of copies and print. Each rubric gets its own page with a name and date line, a score box for every criterion and room for comments.
What to put in an oral presentation rubric
A good rubric marks what the task is really about and leaves out the rest. Most speaking tasks look at two sides: what the student says and how they say it. Content and structure cover the first. Eye contact, voice, pace and the use of notes cover the second. Time is worth its own row when sticking to a limit is part of the skill you are teaching.
Five or six criteria are plenty. With more, you spend the talk filling in boxes instead of listening, and students cannot hold all of them in mind while they prepare. If a skill is new, such as using cue cards instead of reading a script, give it its own row so it gets noticed and practised.
Write each level so it describes something you can see or hear during the talk. “Looks up often but sometimes reads for long stretches” tells a student far more than “satisfactory eye contact”. The presets are written this way, and you can change any of the words.
Using the rubric before, during and after the talk
Share the rubric when you set the task, not on the day. Students who know how they will be marked prepare for it: they time their talk, cut long sentences down to key words and practise looking up. A class discussion of what a top-level talk looks like, with a short example, helps even more.
During the talks, keep one printed rubric for each student on a clipboard, or use Presentation day on a class page to score on screen. Mark as you listen and write one short comment while it is fresh: one thing that went well and one thing to try next time.
Afterwards, give each student their rubric or feedback slip. Ask them to read it and set one goal for their next talk. Peer assessment works well too: give listeners a rubric with only two or three criteria so they can still listen properly.
Presentation day on your class page
If you run a class on EasyPalmCards, open the class and press Presentation day. It shuffles a fair speaking order from the students who joined, times each speaker against your limit, and scores each talk with the rubric you made here. At the end you can copy everyone’s scores into a spreadsheet, print a score sheet or print a feedback slip for each student. The scores stay on your device and are never shown to students. About classes for teachers.
Help students speak from cue cards
Students who read a full script rarely look up, and their voice goes flat. Cue cards with a few key words on each card fix both. Students can paste their talk into the editor, split it into cards, print them and rehearse with the timer, so on the day they speak to the audience instead of to the page. Make cue cards.
Privacy
The rubric you build stays in this browser on this device. It is not sent to EasyPalmCards or anyone else, and you do not need an account. Printing happens in your browser, so nothing about your class is uploaded.
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