Important steps In Designing Units

Step 1: Determine & Unpack Standards
Step 2: Group Standards into Units
Step 3: Identify Enduring Understandings tied to
                  standards
Step 4: Decide Themes to frame the unit
Step 5: Design Essential Questions within the
                 Unit Theme
​Step 6: Create Unit Performance Assessment to
                 Assess Priority Standards
                   - Performance Based Assessment &
                       Authentic Art Assessments
                  - Rubrics & Scoring Guides
Step 7:  Write Lessons that Build Skills to the
​                 Assessment
When to use Rubrics, Scoring Guides, or Proficiency Scales...and what is the difference?

Rubrics

from The Glossary of Education Reform and Wikipedia...
A rubric is typically an evaluation tool or set of guidelines used to promote the consistent application of learning expectations, learning objectives, or learning standards in the classroom, or to measure their attainment against a consistent set of criteria. In instructional settings, rubrics clearly define academic expectations for students and help to ensure consistency in the evaluation of academic work from student to student, assignment to assignment, or course to course. Rubrics are also used as scoring instruments to determine grades or the degree to which learning standards have been demonstrated or attained by students.

 A scoring rubric can also provide a basis for self-evaluation, reflection, and peer review. It is aimed at accurate and fair assessment, fostering understanding, and indicating a way to proceed with subsequent learning/teaching. This integration of performance and feedback is called ongoing assessment or formative assessment.
Several common features of scoring rubrics can be distinguished, according to Bernie Dodge and Nancy Pickett:
  • focus on measuring a stated objective (performance, behavior, or quality)
  • use a range to rate performance
  • contain specific performance characteristics arranged in levels indicating either the developmental sophistication of the strategy used or the degree to which a standard has been met.

When talking about rubrics, you will most often hear them described as holistic, analytic, or single-point. If you want to dig in and learn more about the differences of those, please check out either of these two resources:
Sometimes people use the term rubric—incorrectly—to mean any list-like evaluation tool, and therefore checklists and rating scales are sometimes confused with rubrics. The most important difference between checklists and rating scales on the one hand and rubrics on the other is that checklists and rating scales lack descriptions of performance quality. As we have seen, rubrics are defined by two characteristics: criteria for students' work and descriptions of performance levels. Because checklists and rating scales lack one of these two pieces, they are not rubrics."

Chapter 7
How to Create and Use Rubrics for Formative Assessment and Grading  by Susan M. Brookhart


Scoring Guides

The term scoring guide is just another way to say ​rubric.  But I think it implies it is used to help score student work. Therefore, it should provide more details in order to help teachers align scoring to each other, and to help students understand how to earn a certain score, or more importantly, what it means to master a specific standard or skill.
​

Proficiency Scales

Another tool that is sometimes used to assess student work is a proficiency scale, something I first came across in Robert J. Marzano's book Classroom Assessment & Grading That Work.   As defined by Marzano (2006), a proficiency scale represents a progression of learning goals with three levels of difficulty: (1) the target (level 3.0) content; (2) the simpler (level 2.0) content; and (3) the more complex (level 4.0) content.  The organization of scales, in addition to representing learning progressions, can also inform how teachers structure classroom lessons and design assessments for each unit or topic addressed 
References:
- Brookhart, S. M. (2013). How to create and use rubrics for formative assessment and grading. Alexandria, Virginia USA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum 
​         Development.
- Heflebower, T., Hoegh, J. K., & Warrick, P. (2014). A School Leader's Guide to Standards-Based Grading. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.
- Marzano, R. J. (2006). Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.