plan a trip project rubric

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Pre-Algebra Road Trip Project

Well, since I’m preparing to start my first year of teaching, I decided that I really needed to finish posting the last few projects I did during my student teaching. 

During my last week of student teaching , my cooperating teacher asked me to come up with a creative way to review some of the 8th grade math standards. 

A lot of my students had been struggling with the concept of proportions.  With lots of practice, they had been improving, but many students still weren’t comfortable with solving proportions. 

I wanted to show students that proportions were definitely applicable to their lives.  So, I created this pre-algebra road trip project.  It actually turned into a 3-part project because the students were enjoying it so much. 

Each student chose 5 cities to travel to on their road trip.  Using a ruler, they drew out their route on a US map.  Then, using the map scale, students determined the length of their road trip in miles.

Day 2 of the road trip project was spent using gas mileage and fuel costs for various vehicles to determine which vehicle students would take on their road trip.  

On Day 3, we calculated food costs, hotel costs, and rental car costs.  By the end of the 3-day project, students were much, much, much more comfortable working with ratios and proportions. 

It was an amazing experience to see the light bulbs go off with so many of my students.

Looking back at Day 2 and 3, there are a ton of little things I would change.  I actually changed the rental car problem on Day 3 because my students were having a ton of trouble with it.  I just did a flat rate per day.

This pre-algebra road trip project is easily adjusted based on your time limitations and the level of your students.  This was never intended on being a 3-day project.  It just sort of evolved into one. 

My 8th graders really enjoyed it.  My cooperating teacher enjoyed it.  My University Supervisor even observed me on Day 3 of the project. 

The lesson was a little more chaotic than I had planned, but my supervisor complimented me on the project.  He even asked for electronic copies of the files to send to some math teachers in China.   

Edited to Add : I have also done this with my Algebra 1 students.

Since I had already done this project with 8th graders, I thought my Algebra 1 students would be able to whiz right through it.  I was wrong.  I had to teach many of my students how to read a ruler. 

Rounding to the nearest quarter inch was a disaster.  And, the questions students asked me made me feel more like a geography teacher than a math teacher. 

These are actual conversations I had with my Algebra 1 students during this activity.

Me: Class, today we are going on a road trip.  If we’re going on a road trip, that means we will be traveling on… Class: Roads! Me: Yes, so that means we can’t travel to… Class: Hawaii Student 1: Why can’t you drive to Hawaii?  Me: Hawaii is an island.  That means it is surrounded by water. Student 2: Why does Hawaii look so weird? Custodian who just happens to be emptying the trash at this point: Hawaii is a series of small islands. Student 3: Do you mean you can’t drive between the little islands? Custodian: No.  When I was in Hawaii, we traveled between the islands by taking ferries. 

Student 1: Is Washington, D.C. here? [The student is pointing at Washington state.] Me: No. Student 2: No, Washington, D.C. is in Virginia.

Student 1: I think this map is wrong. Me: Why? Student 1: Oklahoma City should be above Tulsa.

Student 1: Do you mean Nashville, Tennessee is in the United States? Me: Yes.  Nashville is in the U.S. Student 1: I’ve heard of it before, but I didn’t realize it was in the U.S.

I required my students to write both the city and the state they were visiting on their assignment.  One student wrote that she was traveling to New Jersey, PA. 

Free Download of Pre-Algebra Road Trip Project

Road Trip Project Day 1 (WORD) (4864 downloads )

Road Trip Project Day 2 (WORD) (3629 downloads )

Road Trip Project Day 3 (WORD) (3179 downloads )

Road Trip Project Map and Rubric (PDF) (3406 downloads )

Video with Instructions on Completing the Road Trip Project

I ran across a YouTube video that someone created to walk students through completing the Road Trip Project. I thought I would link it here in case it was of use to anybody.

More Activities for Teaching Ratios and Proportions

Sarah Carter teaches high school math in her hometown of Coweta, Oklahoma. She currently teaches AP Precalculus, AP Calculus AB, and Statistics. She is passionate about sharing creative and hands-on teaching ideas with math teachers around the world through her blog, Math = Love.

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53 comments.

We saw this and thought it would be absolutely wonderful to use with our students! Our issue is we cannot open or download any of the links. We aren't entirely sure what is going on. Do you think you could send an email with the documents and materials? My email is [email protected] and my department head's email is [email protected] . We would greatly appreciate this and are excited to try this out!

E-mails sent!

I am so excited to use this project next week! Thank you so much!!! My students will love it!

i don't understand the proportion and show work part.

what is the cost/gallon of the fuel? Where do you get it from?

I got the fuel data for 25 miles from https://www.fueleconomy.gov/

Hello their Sarah I'm having trouble with this project if you could plzz send me the answers like all of it plzzz:( this is due Friday my grade is at a D right now just plzz I'm sorry for bugging like asap lol thank you

And my email is eliasdaniel4599[at]gmail.com, thank you

I'm was the one that needed help that says anonymous

i think she used a lot of creativity to make this project.

FOR STEP FOUR OF DAY ONE DID YOU HAVE THE STUDENTS USE THE UNIT CONVERSION OF MILES TO INCHES AND THEN SET THAT EQUAL TO THEIR DISTANCE?

Great project!

Any chance you have the CC standards that are associated with this project?

Comments are closed.

Rubric Best Practices, Examples, and Templates

A rubric is a scoring tool that identifies the different criteria relevant to an assignment, assessment, or learning outcome and states the possible levels of achievement in a specific, clear, and objective way. Use rubrics to assess project-based student work including essays, group projects, creative endeavors, and oral presentations.

Rubrics can help instructors communicate expectations to students and assess student work fairly, consistently and efficiently. Rubrics can provide students with informative feedback on their strengths and weaknesses so that they can reflect on their performance and work on areas that need improvement.

How to Get Started

Best practices, moodle how-to guides.

• Workshop Recording (Spring 2024)
• Workshop Registration

Step 1: Analyze the assignment

The first step in the rubric creation process is to analyze the assignment or assessment for which you are creating a rubric. To do this, consider the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the assignment and your feedback? What do you want students to demonstrate through the completion of this assignment (i.e. what are the learning objectives measured by it)? Is it a summative assessment, or will students use the feedback to create an improved product?
• Does the assignment break down into different or smaller tasks? Are these tasks equally important as the main assignment?
• What would an “excellent” assignment look like? An “acceptable” assignment? One that still needs major work?
• How detailed do you want the feedback you give students to be? Do you want/need to give them a grade?

Step 2: Decide what kind of rubric you will use

Types of rubrics: holistic, analytic/descriptive, single-point

Holistic Rubric. A holistic rubric includes all the criteria (such as clarity, organization, mechanics, etc.) to be considered together and included in a single evaluation. With a holistic rubric, the rater or grader assigns a single score based on an overall judgment of the student’s work, using descriptions of each performance level to assign the score.

Advantages of holistic rubrics:

• Can p lace an emphasis on what learners can demonstrate rather than what they cannot
• Save grader time by minimizing the number of evaluations to be made for each student
• Can be used consistently across raters, provided they have all been trained

Disadvantages of holistic rubrics:

• Provide less specific feedback than analytic/descriptive rubrics
• Can be difficult to choose a score when a student’s work is at varying levels across the criteria
• Any weighting of c riteria cannot be indicated in the rubric

Analytic/Descriptive Rubric . An analytic or descriptive rubric often takes the form of a table with the criteria listed in the left column and with levels of performance listed across the top row. Each cell contains a description of what the specified criterion looks like at a given level of performance. Each of the criteria is scored individually.

Advantages of analytic rubrics:

• Provide detailed feedback on areas of strength or weakness
• Each criterion can be weighted to reflect its relative importance

Disadvantages of analytic rubrics:

• More time-consuming to create and use than a holistic rubric
• May not be used consistently across raters unless the cells are well defined
• May result in giving less personalized feedback

Single-Point Rubric . A single-point rubric is breaks down the components of an assignment into different criteria, but instead of describing different levels of performance, only the “proficient” level is described. Feedback space is provided for instructors to give individualized comments to help students improve and/or show where they excelled beyond the proficiency descriptors.

Advantages of single-point rubrics:

• Easier to create than an analytic/descriptive rubric
• Perhaps more likely that students will read the descriptors
• Areas of concern and excellence are open-ended
• May removes a focus on the grade/points
• May increase student creativity in project-based assignments

Disadvantage of analytic rubrics: Requires more work for instructors writing feedback

Step 3 (Optional): Look for templates and examples.

You might Google, “Rubric for persuasive essay at the college level” and see if there are any publicly available examples to start from. Ask your colleagues if they have used a rubric for a similar assignment. Some examples are also available at the end of this article. These rubrics can be a great starting point for you, but consider steps 3, 4, and 5 below to ensure that the rubric matches your assignment description, learning objectives and expectations.

Step 4: Define the assignment criteria

Make a list of the knowledge and skills are you measuring with the assignment/assessment Refer to your stated learning objectives, the assignment instructions, past examples of student work, etc. for help.

  Helpful strategies for defining grading criteria:

• Collaborate with co-instructors, teaching assistants, and other colleagues
• Brainstorm and discuss with students
• Can they be observed and measured?
• Are they important and essential?
• Are they distinct from other criteria?
• Are they phrased in precise, unambiguous language?
• Revise the criteria as needed
• Consider whether some are more important than others, and how you will weight them.

Step 5: Design the rating scale

Most ratings scales include between 3 and 5 levels. Consider the following questions when designing your rating scale:

• Given what students are able to demonstrate in this assignment/assessment, what are the possible levels of achievement?
• How many levels would you like to include (more levels means more detailed descriptions)
• Will you use numbers and/or descriptive labels for each level of performance? (for example 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and/or Exceeds expectations, Accomplished, Proficient, Developing, Beginning, etc.)
• Don’t use too many columns, and recognize that some criteria can have more columns that others . The rubric needs to be comprehensible and organized. Pick the right amount of columns so that the criteria flow logically and naturally across levels.

Step 6: Write descriptions for each level of the rating scale

Artificial Intelligence tools like Chat GPT have proven to be useful tools for creating a rubric. You will want to engineer your prompt that you provide the AI assistant to ensure you get what you want. For example, you might provide the assignment description, the criteria you feel are important, and the number of levels of performance you want in your prompt. Use the results as a starting point, and adjust the descriptions as needed.

Building a rubric from scratch

For a single-point rubric , describe what would be considered “proficient,” i.e. B-level work, and provide that description. You might also include suggestions for students outside of the actual rubric about how they might surpass proficient-level work.

For analytic and holistic rubrics , c reate statements of expected performance at each level of the rubric.

• Consider what descriptor is appropriate for each criteria, e.g., presence vs absence, complete vs incomplete, many vs none, major vs minor, consistent vs inconsistent, always vs never. If you have an indicator described in one level, it will need to be described in each level.
• You might start with the top/exemplary level. What does it look like when a student has achieved excellence for each/every criterion? Then, look at the “bottom” level. What does it look like when a student has not achieved the learning goals in any way? Then, complete the in-between levels.
• For an analytic rubric , do this for each particular criterion of the rubric so that every cell in the table is filled. These descriptions help students understand your expectations and their performance in regard to those expectations.

Well-written descriptions:

• Describe observable and measurable behavior
• Use parallel language across the scale
• Indicate the degree to which the standards are met

Step 7: Create your rubric

Create your rubric in a table or spreadsheet in Word, Google Docs, Sheets, etc., and then transfer it by typing it into Moodle. You can also use online tools to create the rubric, but you will still have to type the criteria, indicators, levels, etc., into Moodle. Rubric creators: Rubistar , iRubric

Step 8: Pilot-test your rubric

Prior to implementing your rubric on a live course, obtain feedback from:

• Teacher assistants

Try out your new rubric on a sample of student work. After you pilot-test your rubric, analyze the results to consider its effectiveness and revise accordingly.

• Limit the rubric to a single page for reading and grading ease
• Use parallel language . Use similar language and syntax/wording from column to column. Make sure that the rubric can be easily read from left to right or vice versa.
• Use student-friendly language . Make sure the language is learning-level appropriate. If you use academic language or concepts, you will need to teach those concepts.
• Share and discuss the rubric with your students . Students should understand that the rubric is there to help them learn, reflect, and self-assess. If students use a rubric, they will understand the expectations and their relevance to learning.
• Consider scalability and reusability of rubrics. Create rubric templates that you can alter as needed for multiple assignments.
• Maximize the descriptiveness of your language. Avoid words like “good” and “excellent.” For example, instead of saying, “uses excellent sources,” you might describe what makes a resource excellent so that students will know. You might also consider reducing the reliance on quantity, such as a number of allowable misspelled words. Focus instead, for example, on how distracting any spelling errors are.

Example of an analytic rubric for a final paper

Example of a holistic rubric for a final paper, single-point rubric, more examples:.

• Single Point Rubric Template ( variation )
• Analytic Rubric Template make a copy to edit
• A Rubric for Rubrics
• Bank of Online Discussion Rubrics in different formats
• Mathematical Presentations Descriptive Rubric
• Math Proof Assessment Rubric
• Kansas State Sample Rubrics
• Design Single Point Rubric

Technology Tools: Rubrics in Moodle

• Moodle Docs: Rubrics
• Moodle Docs: Grading Guide (use for single-point rubrics)

Tools with rubrics (other than Moodle)

• Google Assignments
• Turnitin Assignments: Rubric or Grading Form

Other resources

• DePaul University (n.d.). Rubrics .
• Gonzalez, J. (2014). Know your terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics . Cult of Pedagogy.
• Goodrich, H. (1996). Understanding rubrics . Teaching for Authentic Student Performance, 54 (4), 14-17. Retrieved from   
• Miller, A. (2012). Tame the beast: tips for designing and using rubrics.
• Ragupathi, K., Lee, A. (2020). Beyond Fairness and Consistency in Grading: The Role of Rubrics in Higher Education. In: Sanger, C., Gleason, N. (eds) Diversity and Inclusion in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

Project-Based Learning

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Plan a Road Trip Project Based Learning | Vacation PBL

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What better way to have students use real-life math, reading, and writing skills than with this fun, high-interest Road Trip Project? In this unit, students will have the opportunity to plan a trip and persuade others to visit their chosen destination!

Click HERE to SAVE 35% with the PBL Activities Bundle for the Year!

All of the hard work is done for you. Simply print the NO PREP pages, and let your students make the decisions in this fun Project Based Learning Road Trip Unit!

This engaging Road Trip Project includes:

• Unit Guide for Teachers
• Planning the Trip
• Shopping List
• Packing Your Suitcase
• Time and Money on the Road
• Vacation Selfies
• Road Trip Postcards
• Road Sign Sightings
• The Playlist
• Must-See Spots
• Strange Sightings
• My Road Trip Bucket List
• Mapping the Route Project
• Create a Brochure Project
• An Amazing Destination Persuasive Writing Project
• Scoring Rubrics
• Printable AND Digital Versions

Please note: Students will be required to do some research in order to complete some pages and projects. Research guides are not included with this packet.

You might also be interested in these helpful end of the year resources: Third Grade Summer Packet Fourth Grade Summer Packet Fifth Grade Summer Packet

As always, please contact me with any questions!

Thank you so much, Shelly Rees

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