rubrics for oral presentations in college

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.

Rubrics for Oral Presentations

Introduction.

Many instructors require students to give oral presentations, which they evaluate and count in students’ grades. It is important that instructors clarify their goals for these presentations as well as the student learning objectives to which they are related. Embedding the assignment in course goals and learning objectives allows instructors to be clear with students about their expectations and to develop a rubric for evaluating the presentations.

A rubric is a scoring guide that articulates and assesses specific components and expectations for an assignment. Rubrics identify the various criteria relevant to an assignment and then explicitly state the possible levels of achievement along a continuum, so that an effective rubric accurately reflects the expectations of an assignment. Using a rubric to evaluate student performance has advantages for both instructors and students.  Creating Rubrics

Rubrics can be either analytic or holistic. An analytic rubric comprises a set of specific criteria, with each one evaluated separately and receiving a separate score. The template resembles a grid with the criteria listed in the left column and levels of performance listed across the top row, using numbers and/or descriptors. The cells within the center of the rubric contain descriptions of what expected performance looks like for each level of performance.

A holistic rubric consists of a set of descriptors that generate a single, global score for the entire work. The single score is based on raters’ overall perception of the quality of the performance. Often, sentence- or paragraph-length descriptions of different levels of competencies are provided.

When applied to an oral presentation, rubrics should reflect the elements of the presentation that will be evaluated as well as their relative importance. Thus, the instructor must decide whether to include dimensions relevant to both form and content and, if so, which one. Additionally, the instructor must decide how to weight each of the dimensions – are they all equally important, or are some more important than others? Additionally, if the presentation represents a group project, the instructor must decide how to balance grading individual and group contributions.  Evaluating Group Projects

Creating Rubrics

The steps for creating an analytic rubric include the following:

1. Clarify the purpose of the assignment. What learning objectives are associated with the assignment?

2. Look for existing rubrics that can be adopted or adapted for the specific assignment

3. Define the criteria to be evaluated

4. Choose the rating scale to measure levels of performance

5. Write descriptions for each criterion for each performance level of the rating scale

6. Test and revise the rubric

Examples of criteria that have been included in rubrics for evaluation oral presentations include:

• Knowledge of content
• Organization of content
• Presentation of ideas
• Research/sources
• Visual aids/handouts
• Language clarity
• Grammatical correctness
• Time management
• Volume of speech
• Rate/pacing of Speech
• Mannerisms/gestures
• ​​​​​​​Eye contact/audience engagement

Examples of scales/ratings that have been used to rate student performance include:

• Strong, Satisfactory, Weak
• Beginning, Intermediate, High
• Exemplary, Competent, Developing
• Excellent, Competent, Needs Work
• Exceeds Standard, Meets Standard, Approaching Standard, Below Standard
• Exemplary, Proficient, Developing, Novice
• Excellent, Good, Marginal, Unacceptable
• Advanced, Intermediate High, Intermediate, Developing
• Exceptional, Above Average, Sufficient, Minimal, Poor
• Master, Distinguished, Proficient, Intermediate, Novice
• Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Poor, Unacceptable
• Always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never
• Exemplary, Accomplished, Acceptable, Minimally Acceptable, Emerging, Unacceptable

Grading and Performance Rubrics Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Creating and Using Rubrics Carnegie Mellon University Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Using Rubrics Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation

Building a Rubric University of Texas/Austin Faculty Innovation Center

Building a Rubric Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning

Creating and Using Rubrics Yale University Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning

Types of Rubrics DePaul University Teaching Commons

Creating Rubrics University of Texas/Austin Faculty Innovation Center

Examples of Oral Presentation Rubrics

Oral Presentation Rubric Pomona College Teaching and Learning Center

Oral Presentation Evaluation Rubric University of Michigan

Oral Presentation Rubric Roanoke College

Oral Presentation: Scoring Guide Fresno State University Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Presentation Skills Rubric State University of New York/New Paltz School of Business

Oral Presentation Rubric Oregon State University Center for Teaching and Learning

Oral Presentation Rubric Purdue University College of Science

Group Class Presentation Sample Rubric Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School

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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

Oral Presentation Rubric

Select the box which most describes student performance. Alternatively you can "split the indicators" by using the boxes before each indicator to evaluate each item individually.

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Teaching excellence & educational innovation, grading and performance rubrics, what are rubrics.

A rubric is a scoring tool that explicitly represents the performance expectations for an assignment or piece of work. A rubric divides the assigned work into component parts and provides clear descriptions of the characteristics of the work associated with each component, at varying levels of mastery. Rubrics can be used for a wide array of assignments: papers, projects, oral presentations, artistic performances, group projects, etc. Rubrics can be used as scoring or grading guides, to provide formative feedback to support and guide ongoing learning efforts, or both.

Advantages of Using Rubrics

Using a rubric provides several advantages to both instructors and students. Grading according to an explicit and descriptive set of criteria that is designed to reflect the weighted importance of the objectives of the assignment helps ensure that the instructor’s grading standards don’t change over time. Grading consistency is difficult to maintain over time because of fatigue, shifting standards based on prior experience, or intrusion of other criteria. Furthermore, rubrics can reduce the time spent grading by reducing uncertainty and by allowing instructors to refer to the rubric description associated with a score rather than having to write long comments. Finally, grading rubrics are invaluable in large courses that have multiple graders (other instructors, teaching assistants, etc.) because they can help ensure consistency across graders and reduce the systematic bias that can be introduced between graders.

Used more formatively, rubrics can help instructors get a clearer picture of the strengths and weaknesses of their class. By recording the component scores and tallying up the number of students scoring below an acceptable level on each component, instructors can identify those skills or concepts that need more instructional time and student effort.

Grading rubrics are also valuable to students. A rubric can help instructors communicate to students the specific requirements and acceptable performance standards of an assignment. When rubrics are given to students with the assignment description, they can help students monitor and assess their progress as they work toward clearly indicated goals. When assignments are scored and returned with the rubric, students can more easily recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their work and direct their efforts accordingly.

Examples of Rubrics

Here are links to a diverse set of rubrics designed by Carnegie Mellon faculty and faculty at other institutions. Although your particular field of study and type of assessment activity may not be represented currently, viewing a rubric that is designed for a similar activity may provide you with ideas on how to divide your task into components and how to describe the varying levels of mastery.

Paper Assignments

• Example 1: Philosophy Paper This rubric was designed for student papers in a range of philosophy courses, CMU.
• Example 2: Psychology Assignment Short, concept application homework assignment in cognitive psychology, CMU.
• Example 3: Anthropology Writing Assignments This rubric was designed for a series of short writing assignments in anthropology, CMU.
• Example 4: History Research Paper . This rubric was designed for essays and research papers in history, CMU.
• Example 1: Capstone Project in Design This rubric describes the components and standard of performance from the research phase to the final presentation for a senior capstone project in the School of Design, CMU.
• Example 2: Engineering Design Project This rubric describes performance standards on three aspects of a team project: Research and Design, Communication, and Team Work.

Oral Presentations

• Example 1: Oral Exam This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing performance on an oral exam in an upper-division history course, CMU.
• Example 2: Oral Communication
• Example 3: Group Presentations This rubric describes a set of components and standards for assessing group presentations in a history course, CMU.

Class Participation/Contributions

• Example 1: Discussion Class This rubric assesses the quality of student contributions to class discussions. This is appropriate for an undergraduate-level course, CMU.
• Example 2: Advanced Seminar This rubric is designed for assessing discussion performance in an advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar. 

VALUE Rubrics - Oral Communication

The VALUE rubrics were developed by teams of faculty experts representing colleges and universities across the United States through a process that examined many existing campus rubrics and related documents for each learning outcome and incorporated additional feedback from faculty. The rubrics articulate fundamental criteria for each learning outcome, with performance descriptors demonstrating progressively more sophisticated levels of attainment. The rubrics are intended for institutional-level use in evaluating and discussing student learning, not for grading. The core expectations articulated in all 16 of the VALUE rubrics can and should be translated into the language of individual campuses, disciplines, and even courses. The utility of the VALUE rubrics is to position learning at all undergraduate levels within a basic framework of expectations such that evidence of learning can by shared nationally through a common dialog and understanding of student success.

The Oral Communication VALUE Rubric is available for free download in Word and PDF formats.

Preview the Oral Communication VALUE Rubric:

Cornell Hospitality Pitch Deck Competition Official Rules and Guidelines

The Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration sponsors the Cornell Hospitality1 Pitch Deck Competition. This competition is an experiential learning opportunity for student entrepreneurs contemplating, starting, or operating an early-stage venture who are looking to improve their pitching skills with the potential to earn seed funding for their venture.

Students register for the competition in early fall and submit their pitch decks in October for review by a team of industry judges. Four finalists will be selected to present in November to a panel of industry judges. The winning team will be awarded a prize of $3,000, second place will be awarded a prize of $1,500, and the third place team will be awarded a prize of $500. **All prizes subject to tax withholding as required by IRS regulations.

1 “Hospitality business” for the purpose of this competition is purposefully broadly defined and includes businesses providing support services to the hospitality industry (e.g., businesses such as Micros Systems that provide software and hardware to restaurant and lodging businesses).

Entering and Important 2023 Deadlines:

Thursday, september 21, 2023 by 11:59 p.m. est.

• Register Team to compete via Reviewr

Tuesday, October 3, 2023, 7-8 p.m. EST

• Virtual Instruction Session with Prof. Quagliata via Zoom

Friday, October 13, 2023 by Noon EST

• Submit Reading Pitch Deck via Reviewr

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

• Four finalists selected and invited to participate in Pitch Deck Final Presentation

Sunday, November 5, 2023 by 5 p.m. EST

• Finalists to submit Presentation Pitch Deck via Reviewr

Tuesday, November 7, 2023 at 5 p.m. EST

• Pitch Deck Final Presentations to panel of judges (in front of audience)
• Winners announced and prizes awarded (at reception following the event)

Team Eligibility Criteria

• Teams consisting of no more than two full-time Cornell University undergraduate and/or graduate students are eligible. At least one the member of each team must be a Nolan School of Hotel Administration student.
• Students must be in good academic standing (i.e., GPA not less than 2.0).
• Students may be members of only one team.
• For finalists to be eligible to win, all team members must be present for the final presentations.
• Teams are encouraged to seek advice and counsel from successful entrepreneurs, professionals, and experts, but teams must present only their own work product.

The Cornell University Honor Code applies to all aspects of the Competition

  Requirements for the Business Idea

• The objective of the Pitch Deck Competition is to provide an experiential learning opportunity to student entrepreneurs looking to practice pitching a hospitality business idea. As such, most ideas entered in the Competition will be ideas for new independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. Generally excluded are the following: buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and spin-outs from existing corporations. Licensing technologies from universities or research labs is allowed, assuming they have not been commercialized previously.
• Ideas should be drawn from the hospitality sector. For the purpose of this Competition, “hospitality” is purposefully broadly defined and includes businesses providing support services to the hospitality industry (e.g., businesses such as Micros Systems that provide software and hardware to restaurant and lodging businesses).
• The hospitality business ideas pitched may be for both for-profit and non-profit ventures.

  Other Requirements

• All author(s) of the pitch decks must agree that the work they are submitting is their original work. The author(s) will retain all rights to the pitch decks regarding its use at all times prior to and following the Competition.
• By participating in the Competition, author(s) give the Competition organizers the right to post the pitch decks and/or videos on a password protected website in order for reviewers/judges to access the items, post comments, and assign numerical scores to the submitted items based on an established rubric.
• Finalists are required to sign a waiver allowing the Pillsbury Institute the express right to photography, videotape, record, live-stream, and otherwise disseminate their Pitch Deck Presentation, and all finalist author(s) will be asked to sign a photo/video release form allowing Cornell University to use the Pitch Deck Presentation recording and Pitch Deck Presentation materials within the University for faculty, staff, students, and the Pillsbury Institute for educational purposes. In addition, final presentation videotapes may be posted on the Nolan School of Hotel Administration website for public consumption.
• Finalists are required to sign a money allocation agreement prior to the Pitch Deck Final Presentation. The agreement is meant to prevent any possible disagreements regarding division of money amongst team members after the competition winners are announced.
• Non-confidentiality: Some aspects of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media, which may include radio, television and the Internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that could possibly enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged, or presented in these sessions. Due to the nature of the competition, we are not able to ask judges, reviewers, staff, or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements. However, the Pillsbury Institute will make every effort to limit distribution of pitch decks presented at the competition. We cannot guarantee that other individuals will not obtain access to electronic or hard copies of the pitch deck. The Pitch Deck Final Presentation, whether in person or virtual, will be open to the public and will be recorded.  Attendance by media personnel is expected and final presentations will be posted on the Nolan School of Hotel Administration website for public consumption.
• Copyrights & Permissions: If a team uses copyrighted materials and/or images from a third-party in their presentation or business plan, they must obtain permission and authorization in advance from the owners to use this material.

Pitch Deck Competition Guidelines

  Building a pitch deck is one of the best ways to grab your audience’s attention and answer key questions about your business idea. Pitch decks help people to understand, care about, and take action. Two of the most common types of pitch decks are reading decks and presentation decks. Reading decks are documents that can be read and understood without the author present. Presentation decks serve as visual support for an entrepreneur’s presentation. This competition provides students the opportunity to experience creating both types of pitch decks.

The first round of the competition requires students to prepare a Reading Pitch Deck. Submissions are due by Noon EST on October 13, 2023 . Please submit via Reviewr and name your file using the following format: ReadingDeck_TeamName.pdf

Four teams will be selected to compete as Finalists. Teams will be notified of whether they are invited to advance in the Competition by October 24, 2023 .

Finalist will submit a Presentation Pitch Deck prior the Pitch Deck Competition Finals on Sunday, November 5, 2023 by 5:00 p.m. EST .

Reading Pitch Deck Guidelines

Decks must be limited to 11 slides. Participants should determine how best to communicate their business idea. Do not embed links, include text in the notes field, or include appendices. Teams that do not follow these rules will be disqualified.

  Presentation Pitch Deck Guidelines

Presentation Pitch Decks are limited to 11 slides and up to 5 Q&A slides. Each invited team is required to submit a Presentation Pitch Deck and may choose to submit an updated Reading Deck no later than Sunday, November 5, 2023 by 5:00 p.m. EST .

The Reading Pitch Deck can be in PDF form, but the Presentation Pitch Deck should be in PowerPoint. Electronic copies should be submitted via Reviewr and should be named according to the following format:

• FinalReadingDeck_TeamName.pdf
• PresentationDeck_TeamName.ppt

Any team that does not submit their materials by this date will be disqualified.

Oral Presentation Guidelines

  The Final Presentations will be delivered to a panel of judges in front of a live audience. The teams in the Final Presentations will have 10 minutes to present their hospitality business idea followed by a 5-minute question and answer session from the panel of judges. Teams can assume that the judges have read their Reading Pitch Decks. Once a team has finished its presentation, it may observe both the presentation and Q&A session of the teams that follow it. Teams may NOT observe other presentations until after they have made their own presentations. The order of presentation will be determined randomly.

Detailed scheduling for the Final Presentations will be provided to the teams later in the Competition. The Final Presentation Pitch Deck will be loaded onto a USB to be used during the Final Presentation. Teams may also demonstrate a prototype of their product during the Final Presentation (including a food sample if that is the product). They may NOT bring other materials for the judges such as handouts, etc. Teams are NOT REQUIRED to use materials in the Final Presentation.

The results of the competition will be announced during a reception immediately following the Pitch Deck Final Presentations.

Judges and Judging Criteria

  Judges for the competition will be comprised of faculty, alumni, investment professionals, venture capital and private equity investors, and entrepreneurs.

Judges will score the teams’ deliverables using their judgment with respect to specific competition criteria, as summarized below. The teams receiving the highest collective scores on the Reading Pitch Deck will advance to the Final Round. The winner of the Competition will be determined by the Final Presentation judges’ ranking of the teams. These rankings will be based on the judges’ assessment of both the Reading Pitch Deck and the Final Presentation (including Presentation Pitch Deck). The competition is intended to simulate the real-world process of entrepreneurs soliciting start-up funds from early-stage investors. Thus, the winning team will be the one whose deck and presentation clearly communicates an innovative hospitality business.

Competition criteria that the judges will consider in their assessments include but are not limited to:

The decisions of the judges in each round of the Competition are final. Judges may alter prize amounts. If no submissions are deemed worthy, no financial awards will be made.

Advisor Guidelines

Advisors are available to teams through the Pillsbury Institute’s Entrepreneur in Residence program.  Teams must provide all advisors with the competition’s advisor guidelines (i.e., the “dos and don’ts”).  Teams must also report the names of their advisors when submitting deliverables.

  Do’s: Activities that are Encouraged

• Do respond to questions and concerns from teams.
• Do read and give constructive feedback on each aspect of the Reading Pitch Deck.
• Do suggest other resources or individuals with whom teams can consult.
• Do identify weaknesses in the hospitality business idea that may concern investors and suggest ways of dealing with these concerns.
• Do listen to and provide critical feedback on teams’ Pitch Deck Presentations.
• Do keep the Pitch Deck confidential except if asked to distribute it by the team.

Don’ts: Activities that are Discouraged

• Don’t write or re-write any part of the Reading or Presentation Pitch Deck. These documents should be the work product of team members only.
• Don’t substantially steer the development of the hospitality business idea or take leadership of the team.
• Don’t, if advising more than one team, discuss information about or your advisory activities for one team with the other team.
• Don’t discuss the team’s work with individuals involved in judging the Competition.
• Don’t distribute the Reading or Presentation Pitch Deck to others without permission of the team or use the information or hospitality business ideas in it for purposes other than acting as an advisor in the Competition.

Questions about rules and guidelines can be directed to Andrew Quagliata, [email protected] .