Three Ways to Incorporate Academics into CTE Performance Rubrics

CTE teachers effectively use analytical rubrics to assess student performance in various projects and work. These rubrics can be a checklist but often are organized in a table made up of several rows and columns.  The rows define the various criteria, and multiple columns define various performance levels from beginning to exceptional. Each cell of the table describes the performance at each performance level.

There are three different ways to use these rubrics when assessing and providing feedback on academic-related skills of thinking and communication. The first method is to have an entire rubric devoted to some aspect of academic skills. This first illustration shows a separate rubric for reading and writing in an automotive situation. This rubric could be used for specific projects or evaluating student writing over a longer period of time.

The second illustration incorporates one or two additional criteria in the horizontal rows, which focus on particular criteria related to an aspect of mathematics, language arts, or science. This illustration shows an example of adding criteria of mathematical applications to a student project on constructing roof rafters in a construction CTE program.

The third option is to create a specific column or performance level devoted to academic skills. This could be some aspects of higher-level thinking or problem-solving related to the student's work. In this illustration, a greenhouse, vegetable planting project has all of the criteria related to technical aspects of the student performance. The first two performance levels move from knowing the right procedures to actually performing the right procedures, and the third column relates to the higher thinking skills and problem-solving that the student demonstrated. This is an opportunity to give students feedback in applying their academic skills within the student project

There are many different ways to incorporate the integration of academics, and this illustrates just three different options and ways that CTE teachers can apply performance rubrics.

Richard Jones 12-5-24