Rubric for Assessment of Lifelong Learning, Communication, and Team-work Skills, and Professionalism in the context of Technology Research as Part of a Technology Team

Background: In order to develop students' abilities with respect to lifelong learning, each BS-CSE capstone course has, for some time, required students to explore a new tool, technology, or process and write a three or four page paper on it. However, several of the capstone design course instructors have felt, over the last couple of years, that the requirement of such a paper was too distracting for students since it took too much of their focus away from the capstone design project. Hence they have come up with an alternative approach to achieving this outcome via an activity related to the design project and, as an added bonus, also engaging students in another team activity. The approach is to require groups of several students each to form "technology teams". These teams are "orthogonal" to the project teams; i.e., typically each technology team of, say, 5 students, will consist of one student from each of five different project teams. Each technology team will focus on a particular relevant (to the area of the particular course) topic, for example, "sound production" or "physics of games" (in the case of the capstone course on games); each student in the team will be assigned responsiblity for one aspect of the particular topic and be expected to research that aspect. The team will then put together appropriate resources and/or documentation that summarizes its findings and make a presentation to the entire class, with each student taking the lead for the particular aspect that he/she was responsible for. The document becomes a resource that is available to the entire class and helps address (or provides pointers to resources that may address) questions related to the particular topic that different project teams may encounter in their projects.

Since the activity requires students to research the particular questions they are responsible for and document and present their findings, it helps sharpen their lifelong learning and communication skills. Further, since the research and, especially, creating the document and making the presentation are both team activities, and since the team is distinct from the student's project team thus requiring the student to interact closely with another group of students, the approach contributes to improving students' team skills. Finally, since the topic is directly relevant to the design projects that the various project teams in the course are engaged in, the interaction between the technology team and the class during the presentation is likely to be more engaging and of greater depth. The rubric below has been designed to assess these components.

Rubric: The student's work is evaluated along four dimensions, these having to do respectively with the quality of research the student has performed concerning the aspect he/she is responsible for; the effectiveness of his/her presentation with respect to explaining the particular aspect; how well the student is able to relate it/situate it within the overall topic that his/her team is responsible for; his/her willingness/ability to address questions concerning the aspect from other students during the presentation; and the quality of the documentation (possibly the slides used for the presentation to the class) and how well it presents the key relevant issues/ questions, summarizes the state-of-the-art in addressing the issues, highlights the main tools/techniques/ideas related to the topic, and provides pointers/links to useful resources.

Each of the four dimensions is assigned a score of 1 (corresponds to a rating of "poor/fair") through 5 (corresponds to a rating of "excellent" or "outstanding"), these values representing increasing degrees of achievement in the particular dimension, as described in the table below in the row corresponding to that dimension. The numbers in the last column are the actual scores assigned to the particular student, based on his or her actual performance, along the four dimensions. The overall total score is assigned by simply adding together the scores corresponding to the four dimensions.

Name of person being evaluated: __________________________________________
Course and quarter of evaluation: __________________________________________

Dimension 1 2 3 4 5 Points
assigned

Research/ gathering information Collects minimal information and about just the particular aspect. Collects adequate information about the particular aspect but only minimal information about related aspects and pays little or no attention to how these aspects contribute to the overall topic. Collects all relevant information about the aspect he/she is responsible for and adequate information about relevant aspects; pays some attention to how the various aspects interact and contribute to the topic as a whole. Collects all relevant information about the aspect he/she is responsible for as well as related aspects; does a very good job of exploring how the different aspects interact and contribute to the topic as a whole. Does a superb job of finding and organizing all kinds of information about the particular aspect and related aspects, researching how they interact and support each other, and contribute to and help the development of the topic area as a whole.

Effectiveness of presentation Audience cannot understand much beyond the basic ideas underlying the aspect in question; cannot understand the relation of the aspect to the overall topic; nor get any feel for how the aspect may impact their own projects. The audience can understand the basic ideas as well as many of the key details of the aspect in question and gets a feel for how it fits with the overall topic and its relation to the other aspects of the topic. The audience gets a good understanding of the particular aspect and how it relates with the other aspects of the topic; also gets some feel for the kinds of problems related to the topic as a whole and the aspect in particular that they might encounter in their own projects. The audience gets a very good understanding of the aspect and its relation to other aspects of the topic; as well as the situations in their own projects in which the topic might pose challenges and how they might address them. The audience gets an excellent understanding of the aspect and its subtleties, its relation to other aspects of the topic; as well as the situations in their own projects in which the topic might pose challenges and a very good feel for how the problems might be addressed or avoided.
Contribution to team Seems to have no interest in the presentations by the other members of the technology team; occasionally makes unhelpful remarks during presentations by the other members about aspects they are responsible for. Mainly focused on his/her aspect; responds when asked a direct question about the relation of his/her aspect to the overall topic or another aspect, but otherwise does not attempt to help other team members address audience questions. Good team player. Is interested in the presentations by the other team members; makes a definite effort to ensure the success of the team by occasionally identifying the relation between the aspect being discussed and other aspects of the topic. Very good team player; makes consistent attempts to help ensure the success of the team's presentation both in helping address audience questions throughout the team's presentation as well as helping other team members Superb team player. Goes out of his/her way to help the rest of the team in any way possible to address audience questions relating the aspect under discussion to the topic as a whole and other aspects, to potential problems and issues that may arise in capstone projects, etc., but doing all this as unobtrusively as possible.
Quality of documentation Minimally useful document that simply lists the basic facts related to the particular aspect; no attempt made to relate it to other aspects of the topic; minimal/no pointers to useful resources. Reasonably complete documentation of the particular aspect and some useful pointers to resources concerning the aspect; no real attempt to relate it to documentation concerning the other aspects or the topic as a whole. Good documentation of the particular aspect, tying it to the other related aspects and to the topic as a whole; many useful pointers to resources concerning the aspect in particular as well as the topic as a whole along with some guidance on the quality of the resources and how useful they might be for the project teams. Very good documentation of the particular aspect as well as the entire topic; useful pointers to outside resources and relevant tools along with meaningful evaluation of their relative usefulness; useful pointers to relevant case-studies and related systems. Extremely useful and usable documentation of the particular aspect, as well as the topic as a whole; helps to tie together the key issues involving this aspect with those of the other aspects; anticipates questions that are likely to arise in practice (in the projects) and provides useful tips on addressing them, provides pointers to useful tools, techniques, and relevant literature along with careful evaluations.

Total:

Dimension	1	2	3	4	5	Points assigned
Research/ gathering information	Collects minimal information and about just the particular aspect.	Collects adequate information about the particular aspect but only minimal information about related aspects and pays little or no attention to how these aspects contribute to the overall topic.	Collects all relevant information about the aspect he/she is responsible for and adequate information about relevant aspects; pays some attention to how the various aspects interact and contribute to the topic as a whole.	Collects all relevant information about the aspect he/she is responsible for as well as related aspects; does a very good job of exploring how the different aspects interact and contribute to the topic as a whole.	Does a superb job of finding and organizing all kinds of information about the particular aspect and related aspects, researching how they interact and support each other, and contribute to and help the development of the topic area as a whole.
Effectiveness of presentation	Audience cannot understand much beyond the basic ideas underlying the aspect in question; cannot understand the relation of the aspect to the overall topic; nor get any feel for how the aspect may impact their own projects.	The audience can understand the basic ideas as well as many of the key details of the aspect in question and gets a feel for how it fits with the overall topic and its relation to the other aspects of the topic.	The audience gets a good understanding of the particular aspect and how it relates with the other aspects of the topic; also gets some feel for the kinds of problems related to the topic as a whole and the aspect in particular that they might encounter in their own projects.	The audience gets a very good understanding of the aspect and its relation to other aspects of the topic; as well as the situations in their own projects in which the topic might pose challenges and how they might address them.	The audience gets an excellent understanding of the aspect and its subtleties, its relation to other aspects of the topic; as well as the situations in their own projects in which the topic might pose challenges and a very good feel for how the problems might be addressed or avoided.
Contribution to team	Seems to have no interest in the presentations by the other members of the technology team; occasionally makes unhelpful remarks during presentations by the other members about aspects they are responsible for.	Mainly focused on his/her aspect; responds when asked a direct question about the relation of his/her aspect to the overall topic or another aspect, but otherwise does not attempt to help other team members address audience questions.	Good team player. Is interested in the presentations by the other team members; makes a definite effort to ensure the success of the team by occasionally identifying the relation between the aspect being discussed and other aspects of the topic.	Very good team player; makes consistent attempts to help ensure the success of the team's presentation both in helping address audience questions throughout the team's presentation as well as helping other team members	Superb team player. Goes out of his/her way to help the rest of the team in any way possible to address audience questions relating the aspect under discussion to the topic as a whole and other aspects, to potential problems and issues that may arise in capstone projects, etc., but doing all this as unobtrusively as possible.
Quality of documentation	Minimally useful document that simply lists the basic facts related to the particular aspect; no attempt made to relate it to other aspects of the topic; minimal/no pointers to useful resources.	Reasonably complete documentation of the particular aspect and some useful pointers to resources concerning the aspect; no real attempt to relate it to documentation concerning the other aspects or the topic as a whole.	Good documentation of the particular aspect, tying it to the other related aspects and to the topic as a whole; many useful pointers to resources concerning the aspect in particular as well as the topic as a whole along with some guidance on the quality of the resources and how useful they might be for the project teams.	Very good documentation of the particular aspect as well as the entire topic; useful pointers to outside resources and relevant tools along with meaningful evaluation of their relative usefulness; useful pointers to relevant case-studies and related systems.	Extremely useful and usable documentation of the particular aspect, as well as the topic as a whole; helps to tie together the key issues involving this aspect with those of the other aspects; anticipates questions that are likely to arise in practice (in the projects) and provides useful tips on addressing them, provides pointers to useful tools, techniques, and relevant literature along with careful evaluations.
Total:

Evaluator's name: __________________________________________
Date of evaluation: __________________________________________