problem solving rubric middle school

• Our Mission

Resources for Using Rubrics in the Middle Grades

Looking for help with rubrics? With a focus on the middle grades, we’ve compiled tips, sample rubrics, and resources to help you design and implement rubrics for assessment.

Designing and Using Rubrics

This article from Edutopia’s Assessment Professional Development Guide explains the benefits of using rubrics, describes different types of rubrics, and offers tips on getting started.

Blogger Andrew Miller shares his experiences and suggestions for creating and using rubrics that will make students' -- and teachers' -- lives much easier.

Math teacher Lauren Hobbs describes factors to take into account in designing rubrics and the benefits of having students work together to do a mid-project rubric review, a strategy that can be useful for students in all grades.

In this book chapter, Susan M. Brookhart breaks down what rubrics can be used to assess, the advantages and disadvantages of different types of rubrics, and why rubrics are important. Tracey Muise’s review of Brookhart’s book on MiddleWeb includes specific takeaways for teachers of the middle grades.

Grant Wiggins discusses the ins and outs of creating quality rubrics and suggests that while bad rubrics shut down creativity, good rubrics have the potential to free up student creativity and initiative.

Jennifer Gonzalez has put together an illustrated guide to several different rubric types. For each type, she explains the basic structure, looks at the pros and cons, and offers a blank template that can be downloaded and customized.

Sample Rubrics from Schools that Work

Though originally used as part of an arts-integrated lesson for 8th-grade mathematics , this rubric could also be adapted for other grades and subjects. For more about arts integration at Bates Middle School , check out Edutopia's Schools that Work package on “ Transformation Through Art Integration .”

The School of the Future in New York develops and uses its own assessment techniques, including unannounced assessments in order to measure student learning at regular intervals. For more insight into how this school uses authentic assessment to provide a window into student learning, check out the video on authentic assessment for humanities , featuring teacher Sarah Kaufmann’s 6th-grade class, and the video on authentic assessment for algebra , featuring teacher Ben Mook’s 7th-grade class.

This Socratic Seminar Rubric from KIPP King High School includes standards of performance for inner circle and outer circle participants. For more about how KIPP King encourages the development of critical-thinking skills, see Edutopia's coverage in " The KIPP King Collegiate High School Story ." Also, check out this resource from MiddleWeb, “ Socratic Seminars in the Middle ” for advice about how to implement Socratic Seminars at the middle school level.

These rubrics, from an 8th-grade English class at YES Prep North Central , include criteria for evaluating different aspects of a student self-guided project on To Kill a Mockingbird . For more about this school and their mission to send every student to college, check out Edutopia's Schools that Work coverage in “ College Bound Culture in Houston .”

Rubric Tips, Tricks, and Strategies

Though many of these tips, tricks, and strategies come from sources that mention high school contexts, the methods discussed are also relevant to middle school classrooms and teachers.

Guest blogger Michelle Lampinen describes how she reverse-engineered a rubric for student assessment that includes links and QR codes.

Are you struggling to get through all of your grading? In the featured video, Jennifer Gonzalez explains how to use rubric codes to speed up the process of providing students with written feedback.

Teacher Dave Orphal describes his experiences involving his students in the creation of their grading rubric -- the process, the results, and his reflections on the experience.

Jay Atwood has created a helpful walkthrough of Goobric , a Chrome extension that can be used in conjunction with Doctopus to facilitate the process of scoring student work with rubrics and sharing feedback via Google Drive .

Teacher Self-Evaluation With Rubrics

Blogger and middle school teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron describes how she uses rubrics to help her determine whether or not her assessments are meaningful for students.

Teacher Mary Tarashuk explains how she conducts self-evaluation using rubrics; to take a look at the rubrics she discusses, download " Teacher Evaluation Rubrics ," from The Marshall Memo .

This list, developed by Expeditionary Learning and used at King Middle School , defines six areas of focus teachers can use to self-rate when planning project-based learning. For more about project-based learning at King Middle School and other schools, check out “ Project-Based Learning in Maine ” from Edutopia’s Schools that Work.

Additional Resources

The Buck Institute for Education has a library of rubrics that can be used to assess project-based learning; they even have a rubric for rubrics that can help you avoid common pitfalls when creating rubrics.

This post describes a series of rubrics inspired by Carol Dweck's research on growth mindsets , created by Jon Bender, a former middle school teacher. Take a look at his two status and progress rubrics , intended to help students measure personal learning progress and growth. The New Tech Network , a nonprofit that works with schools and districts to help reform learning through project-based learning, has also developed a middle school rubric for measuring student growth .

Kathy Schrock has compiled a large number of links to rubrics that work for various types of assignments and projects; she also includes links to information about rubrics and rubric creation tools.

How do you use rubrics in your classroom? Are there other types of resources you'd like to see, or do you know of other useful resources? Please share your feedback in the comments.

K-12 Internet Resource Center

A totally free index of Internet resources for the K-12 Community.

General Scoring Rubric For Open-Ended Questions

Here is an example rubric, in this case a general scoring rubric for open-ended questions…

Sort papers first into three stacks:

• good responses (5 or 6 points),
• adequate responses (3 or 4 points), and
• inadequate responses (1 or 2 points).

Each of those three stacks then can be re-sorted into 2 stacks…

• Good Responses:
• * Exemplary=6 points Gives a complete response with a clear, coherent, unambiguous, and elegant explanation; includes a clear and simplified diagram; communicates effectively to the identified audience. shows understanding of the open-ended problem’s..ideas and processes; identifies all the important elements of the problem; may include examples and counterexamples; provides strong supporting arguments.
• * Competent=5 points Gives a fairly complete response with reasonably clear explanations; may include an appropriate diagram; communicates effectively to the identified audience; shows understanding of the problem’s..ideas and processes; identifies the most important elements of the problem; presents solid supporting arguments.
• Adequate Responses:
• * Satisfaction=4 but minor flaws Completes the problem satisfactorily but the explanation may be muddled; argumentation may be incomplete; diagram may be inapropriate or unclear; understands the underlying…ideas and uses them effectively.
• * Nearly satisfactory=3 but serious flaws Begins the problem apropriately but may fail to complete or may omit significant parts of the problem; may fail to show full understanding of ideas and processes; may make major computational errors; may misuse or fail to use correct terms; response may reflect an inappropriate strategy for solving the problem.
• Inadequate Responses:
• * Begins but fails to complete problem=2 Explanation is not understandable; diagram may be unclear; shows no understanding of the problem situation; may make major computational errors;
• * Unable to begin effectively=1 Words do not reflect the problem; drawings misrepresent the problem situation copies parts of the problem but without attempting a solution; fails to indicate which information is appropriate to problem.
• * No attempt=0.

[ Originally published in Assessment of Authentic Performance in School Mathematics (p. 159) edited by Richard Lesh and Susan J. Lamon, 1992 ISBN 0-87168-5 ] 

Just one more step to access this resource!

Get your free sample task today.

Ready to explore Exemplars rich performance tasks? Sign up for your free sample now.

Math Rubrics

Exemplars math material includes standards-based rubrics that define what work meets a standard and allows teachers (and students) to distinguish between different levels of performance.

Our math rubrics have four levels of performance: Novice , Apprentice , Practitioner (meets the standard), and Expert .

Exemplars uses two types of rubrics: 

• Standards-Based Assessment Rubrics  are used by teachers to assess student work in Math
• Student Rubrics  are used by learners in self- and peer-assessment.

Assessment Rubrics

Student rubrics, standards-based math rubric.

This rubric was updated in 2014 to reflect more current standards. It supports NCTM Process Standards and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice .

Classic 5-Criteria Math Rubric

This rubric was developed to reflect the revised NCTM standards.

Classic 3-Criteria Math Rubric

This rubric was used from 1993 to 2001 to assess student performance. It is based on the original NCTM standards. Many schools and districts using Exemplars earlier material continue to use this rubric to assess student performance.

Pre K–K Rubric

This rubric was developed to assess younger students' performance. It is based on recommendations from NCTM and the preschool standards developed at the Conference on Standards for Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Mathematics Education.

Jigsaw Rubric

This rubric uses pieces of a jigsaw puzzle as symbols. It is appropriate to use with younger students who may not be able to follow the words in another rubric.

Thermometer Rubric

This rubric is appropriate to use with older children. They can self-assess by drawing a line on the thermometer. The teacher can also assess by making a mark on the same rubric.

• Try for free

Scoring Rubric: Problem-Solution

Featured High School Resources

Related Resources

Collaboration Rubric

Examples of Other Rubrics

All Formats

Resource types, all resource types.

• Rating Count
• Price (Ascending)
• Price (Descending)
• Most Recent

Free math rubrics

CSI Math Mysteries BUNDLE: Use Math to Solve! Google Classroom Distance Learning

Math Curriculum For 4th Grade, 5th Grade, and 6th Grade Print and Digital

Daily Math Word Problems (Bell ringers) for First Semester

Real World Project |Brownies| Digital Escape Room Math 5th Grade + Printables

Free 1st Grade Word Problems--Progress Monitoring

Greatest Common Factor (GCF) and Least Common Multiple (LCM) Task

Math Problem Solving Rubric: Standards for Mathematical Practice

Classroom Participation Rubric

Rubric: Math Class Work, Activities, Group/Partner Work

Centers/ Work Area Self Assessment Rubric

Teacher Rubric Sticky Notes Templates FREEBIE

Hamburger Helper! The Burger Rubric to Help Students Understand Grades or Score

FREE! 2nd & 3rd Grade One Page Math Skills Fluency Test

Weekly Checklist Behavior & Classwork - Growth Mindset/Classroom Management

Fraction Word Problem Project

• Word Document File

Gallery Walk Peer Feedback Rubric

Math Notebook Cover, Section Dividers, and Rubric for Math Journals

"Selfie" Math Self-Assessment

Decimal Art

EDITABLE Progress Report FREEBIE

Math Scrapbook Project

Bar Graphing - Skittles Candy

Designs for Aquatank - Performance Task/Project for Volume and Surface Area

FREE! 4th and 5th Grade One Page Math Skills Fluency Test

FREE Math Problem Solving Rubric and Math Frame

Student Self Assessment Rubric Posters

System Of Equations Project (With Relevant Student Problems)

Problem Solving Rubric Freebie

Find Math resources | TPT

Importance of learning math skills.

It's no secret that mathematics is one of the foundational subjects that students need to learn. Math forms the basis for so many other subjects — like science, engineering, and technology — and because of that, it's essential that students develop strong math skills starting from a very young age.

Benefits of learning math

Learning math has many benefits. It helps students:

• Begin to develop problem-solving, logical reasoning, and critical-thinking skills
• Grow their understanding of numbers and basic operations
• Understand how math is used in real-life situations

By ensuring that students have a solid foundation, teachers can help set them up for future success.

Discover printable and digital math resources

Math resources are an integral part of effective math education. On TPT, math resources come in various forms: from worksheets and full-year curricula to manipulatives and educational games. They can be used to enhance learning, assess student’s mastery of math concepts, and engage students in meaningful learning. By incorporating math resources from TPT into your teaching toolbox, you can create a rich learning experience that strengthens students’ understanding of math concepts and encourages a positive attitude toward math.

If you’re a teacher or parent looking for printable and digital math worksheets, TPT has an extensive collection of math resources across topics and grade levels. No matter what math topic your students are working on — whether you’re teaching numbers to kindergarteners or algebra to 9th graders — TPT has resources designed to help with any math learning need.

With a little encouragement and plenty of resources, TPT resources can make teaching and learning math so much easier. Plus, you can expand students’ knowledge even further by exploring TPT science resources, which are frequently paired with math lessons.

Frequently asked questions about math resources

What types of math lessons are available on tpt.

There are many different types of math resources sold by Sellers on TPT. Some popular math lessons include geometry, mental math, algebra, fractions, place value, measurement, and decimals.

How do I find math lessons on TPT?

Educators can save time preparing math lessons with resources created by experienced teachers. Simply start a search for math resources on the TPT marketplace, and filter by grade level, price, and/or resource type to find materials that've been proven to work in classrooms like yours. No matter what you’re teaching, there are plenty of math lessons and activities sold by Sellers on TPT that are tailored to meet your students' skill levels.

How do I support students struggling with math?

If your student or child is struggling with a specific math concept, you can provide extra support and resources such as math worksheets. Sometimes, visual aids like charts, graphs, and manipulatives can help children understand abstract concepts better.

How can I make math fun?

Students learn best when they're engaged! Sprinkle a little fun into your math lessons by using educational games, videos, puzzles, and real-life scenarios. If your class seems to find math boring or uninteresting, you can also try connecting lessons to their interests or hobbies. Encourage them to ask questions and explore mathematical concepts in different ways.

• We're hiring
• Help & FAQ
• Privacy policy
• Student privacy
• Terms of service
• Tell us what you think

Iredell Free News

Always Local. Always Free.

• News & Features
• Non-Profits
• Perspectives
• Iredell Health System
• Nicholson Funeral Home
• Payne Chiropractic
• Piedmont Healthcare
• Randy Marion Chevrolet of Statesville
• Randy Marion Ford-Lincoln of Statesville
• Statesville Jewelry & Loan

Troutman Middle begins path to earning N.C. STEM School of Distinction designation

BY DEBBIE PAGE

Troutman Middle School teachers walked into a surprise party Tuesday to celebrate the journey to becoming an NC STEM School of Distinction.

Debra Lester, STEM coordinator for Iredell-Statesville Schools, assured the staff that they are already doing much of what is required to achieve the status. With some tweaks and adjustments, the faculty will be well on their way, she said.

Lester first asked teachers to talk for a few moments about what they thought STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education involves, asking them what it looks like, how teachers’ and students’ roles change, what types of materials are used, and what classes are included in this view of learning.

After a small group discussion, Lester said that STEM is really about “highly engaging instructional practices, which emphasize critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, innovation, and preparing students for future careers.”

To introduce the problem-based learning STEM schools aspire to, Lester asked teachers to engage in a “tea party” learning strategy. Each participant had to pick up a tea cup cut-out with a seemingly word random word on the back.

Teachers were then instructed to “socialize,” seeking to connect their word to another’s in a way that might make sense, while refraining from “speeding, crashing, drive-by, or stopping” during the interaction period.

Teachers milled about the room, gathering in small groups, sharing words, and trying to make some sense of how they were interconnected. After a period of interaction, Dr. Lester asked the teachers to return to their seats and discuss what they had experienced with their table mates and discover any new connections.

Next, Lester showed a short TED Ed video on Van Gogh’s psychotic break that led to his “Starry Night” masterpiece and its intriguing connection to brain science, making patterns of meaning, turbulent flow in fluid dynamics, and the amazing connections to the art of Van Gogh and other Impressionists.

All of the teachers’ words were part of this short video, blending art, science, technology, and math to explain the difficult physics concepts of movement, fluidity, and light. Suddenly, the random words were interconnected through the video and made sense.

Lester pointed out that as their word appeared in the video, they all displayed a flash of understanding through a nod or facial expression. Using such a simple concept as random words to spark students’ curiosity, problem-solving, and interest before introducing a concept gets them more deeply involved in their learning.

Worksheets and videos are still used in STEM but in intentional and purposeful ways that engage students, as the simple words on cards and a short video – all free – demonstrated in the mini lesson. Nothing has to be fancy or expensive to be effective and engaging in STEM education, Lester added.

Principal Rebecca Wilbur praised her staff’s hard work this year, saying she was so proud of the big gains their students achieved on recent i-Ready tests, already meeting their math goal for the year and reading scores leaping 12 percent in the green area.

With all this success, Wilbur is positive about the faculty’s ability and dedication to move forward with the STEM program. Next year will be a transition year to shift to STEM (and art) style problem-based learning. The following year the school will submit an application and provide evidence of the school’s STEM approaches to leading and learning.

Teachers can get ahead this summer and get their minds going with a project-based learning text that Wilbur has purchased for each faculty member to spark ideas about how to modify their lessons and content and look for cross-curricular lesson ideas to achieve a more STEM approach to teaching and learning.

Wilbur said that STEM will “allow our students and our teachers to be hands-on, engaged, all day long, and in order to improve the learning in our school, we need to have more engagement and have the kids really connected to all areas of the curriculum.”

Wilbur’s goal is for teachers to add elements of STEM-style learning regardless of their content area.

“We want the teachers to be able to partner, work together, to make lessons that cross curricular areas so that our enhancement teachers can see what they are learning in our academic areas and our academic areas can work together with them so students can see the connections between science and math, between social studies and English Language Arts and work as a team to do that.”

Lester said this type of education will be valuable for Troutman Middle School because “the data shows that STEM Schools of Distinction have had significant increases in their test scores and in levels of engagement and lowered instances of behavior problems.”

Lester also had the teachers look at one just page of the extensive 11-page STEM School of Distinction rubric so that they could see that they already do so much of the highest “model” level performance on many of the measured areas.

The rubric measures student opportunities to design learning, work in teams, connect to the real world, use digital technology, and participate in STEM organizations. Classroom environments are graded on the integration of content with STEM, using varied learning approaches, offering multiple assignment types, and collaborating with other teachers.

The school must have a professional learning focus with a specific delivery format and structure, physical space for projects, strategic staffing to enhance STEM learning, and offer a variety of STEM courses.

The STEM school must also reach out to STEM school networks to enhance student learning opportunities and share ideas and approaches, create an active STEM Business Advisory Council to support the program, and set up a communication strategy to share information widely in both the school and community about STEM education and activities.

Next year Troutman Middle School will be more focused on problem-based learning, creating cross curricular projects, teaching in more of a team approach, and working more collaboratively, perhaps in different professional learning community configurations.

“The collaborative piece is such a huge component of it, so we’ve got to get them talking to each other to share ideas and share the workload,” said Lester.

They will also get familiar with the rubric and implement those strategies more intentionally in a STEM approach and practice data collection to prepare for actual application to the STEM School of Distinction process and the collection of data and artifacts to earn the honor in the 2025-2026 school year.

After becoming a STEM School of Distinction, a school can reapply for another three-year term in its third year to avoid its status expiring.

Share this:

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Learning Goals

• Use this rubric to assess your problem solving skills.

Problem Solving Rubric—High School

No Alignments yet.

Cite this work

We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

Mathematical Problem-Solving Contest 2024

Video item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

Download options, in collections.

Uploaded by John Hauser on May 4, 2024

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)