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Dropping Scores from the Gradebook

It is common practice for instructors to use a grading system in which students are given the option to drop scores from their final grade. For example: a faculty member gives seven quizzes throughout the semester, but allows students to drop the two lowest-scored quizzes from their final grade. Unfortunately, there is not a simple tool or button that will automatically calculate this scenario for you in the Pearson LearningStudio Gradebook. However, it is possible to use the following tip to manually drop scores from each student’s gradebook.

The Pearson LearningStudio Gradebook will only calculate the grades that the instructor has submitted to it. Therefore, when establishing your gradebook setup, you will need to factor your drop items as additional percentage.

Now that the total amount possible for the course has been established as 110%, it is left up to the instructor to manually remove the lowest scored item from each student’s gradebook. By removing these two scores, each student’s grade will be calculated out of 100% (instead of the 110% possible for the course). It is important that you completely remove the score and save rather than entering a zero. By entering zero, this will include the additional 10% to the grade and subsequently count against the student. Leaving the score blank will show a '*' symbol in the Points area.

Please note that this method will require the instructor or TA/GA to manually remove the drop scores from each individual student gradebook.

Display Grade Without Adding It To Final Grade

Want to display a grade in the Gradebook without adding it to final course grade? To add these items to the Gradebook in your course, please follow these steps. 

1. Go to the Gradebook

2. Click on the button at the top of the Gradebook page that says Setup Gradebook

3. Go to the Add New Items page

4. You can add the item and then make sure the checkbox next to the name of the assignment is selected then click the Next button.

5. On the Select Gradable Items page, check all of the checkboxes for the assignment for each unit that it's in then click Next.

6. To exclude this assignment from the final course grade, click the button near the top that says "Exclude from Course Grade"

In the popup window that appears, click the checkbox or checkboxes next to each of the course items you want to exclude from the final course grade then click on button at the top of the page that says "Exclude Selections from Course Grade”.

Gradebook Item Summary View

When using the gradebook tool in Pearson LearningStudio, you are allowed multiple methods of viewing grades. One gradebook view that has caused a bit of confusion with faculty is the Item Summary View. The Item Summary View allows you to see a summary score for all content items, course tools, and custom course items. For example, if you had five Reading assignments in your course, each worth 20 points, the Item Summary would show each student's score out of 100 (five assignments x 20 points each) rather than showing five separate Readings scores. You'll also see each student's current course points and course average (or, with Weighting turned on, the Course Weighted Average).

Please keep in mind, though, that you do not submit grades when in the Item Summary View. The Item Summary View only allows you the option to enter a letter grade for either a summary of items or the course average. If you enter a numeric grade in this area, it will not be factored into the automatic calculations.

If you have questions about the Item Summary View, contact eLearning at elearning@tcu.edu.

Why Are My Students Not Seeing Their Grades?

• In exams, the most common reason students can't see their grade is due to a Gradebook Review Date set in the future. See the section below for more information adjusting the exam grade review date.
  
  

• You may have unchecked the "Show Grade to Student" box (Located in the Gradebook for exams, threaded discussions postings and Dropbox submissions).
  
  
• Specifically in an auto-graded exam, there could be a setting in the Toolbox which is unchecked. This setting is the "Automatically display objective score of a finished exam to students in the Gradebook" check box.  When this box is unchecked, the instructor must manually enter the exam results in the Gradebook.
  
  
• Specifically in a Dropbox item, you may not have checked the "Return" box in the Dropbox Inbox area. One way that you can tell if a dropbox assignment has not been return to the student is if the item's grade appears with brackets [ ] in the gradebook.
  
  
• You may have entered your numeric grade in the letter grade box in the grading interface.

Setting the Exam Grade Review Date

The Gradebook Review date can be used by professors to keep students from seeing their exam grade and results until a date set in the scheduler, found within the toolbox.  We recommend setting this date 1-5 days after the exam, giving the Instructor enough time to grade all exams before the answers are released. 

To update the Gradebook Review date, the professor can do the following:

1. While in the course, click the Author tab. 

2. On the Navigation bar on the left, go into the exam in question. 

3. In the screen on the right (the main screen) click the Toolbox button. 

4. Now, click the "Edit Schedule" link.  This will open a new window. 

5. Find Gradebook Review Date, and then enter the desired date. 

6. Now, click Save Changes.

Grades to Date

In the Gradebook, a student's Grade to Date represents the number of points the student received out of the number of points possible, for only those items which the student has received a score.  It is a quick and easy way to see how a student is doing at any particular moment in time.   If you are using the Grade to Date to report a mid-term grade, please be sure to enter a zero for any item the student did not complete but should be graded on and that all Dropbox items are returned to the student.  If you do not, the Grade to Date will not reflect those items in the calculation and the points possible will not be accurate.

Exporting Your Gradebook

It is highly recommended that you always export a copy of your gradebook after entering grades for students or making any changes. You can export the current view of your Gradebook to a comma-separated value (.csv) file, which you can then open in any spreadsheet application. Doing so will allow you to take advantage of standard spreadsheet functions such as calculating mean, medium, average and other statistical calculations. Exporting the current view of the Gradebook also provides you with final grades in a format that you can turn in to your administration and keep as a backup for your records.

To export grades, complete the following steps:

1. Click the Gradebook tab.

2. Select the Gradebook View you'd like to export (i.e., Grades To Date, Unit 1, Item Summary, etc.) and click Go.

3. Click Export View in the top right corner of your screen. A new screen appears.

4. Select the data format in which you'd like to export the current Gradebook view:

   • Letter and Number Grades.
     Exports the current view with Letter grades and Number grades in separate columns.

   • Number Grades Only.
     Exports the current view with Number grades only.

   • Letter Grades Only.
     Exports the current view with Letter grades only.

5. Click Export. A File Download window appears.

6. Select Save and click OK.

7. Use any spreadsheet application to open the Gradebook file.

Duplicate Items in the Gradebook

If you have added content items to your course shell, these items will automatically appear in the "Add New Items" tab of your Gradebook Setup. It is up to you whether or not you want to include these items in your final gradebook. Checking the box next to each of these items will include them in the gradebook. Leaving them unchecked will not include them.

A common mistake in setting up a gradebook is Duplicate Gradebook Items. Faculty will often create a Custom Gradebook Item even though they've already incorporated items associated with content into their gradebook. Be sure to verify that you haven't already incorporated a content item into your gradebook before adding anything else.

Exams and content items that have a Dropbox associated with them are "checked" on the "Add New Items" tab by default, since it is assumed that they will be graded items. Faculty often mistakenly build a custom item for their dropbox items or exams, creating duplicate items. Again, it's best to verify that these have not already been included in the gradebook setup before adding anything else.

If you have any questions about Duplicate Items in the Gradebook, please contact eLearning at elearning@tcu.edu.

A Weighting Primer

If the points for the gradeable items in your course do not all add up to 100, and how many of ours don't, it sometimes takes extra effort to figure out a student's final grade. If Use weighted calculations is selected under Preferences in Setup Gradebook, you can break everything down to percentages of the final grade, and, no matter how many points you've given each item, they will all be given the weight that you enter in that extra box on the Assign Points/Weights page of Setup Gradebook. Remember, you must enter a "pts" (points possible) value for each item or the system cannot compute the percentage of the final grade for that item once the student's Numeric grade is posted.

If you have several identical items, like an Assignment in every Unit, Week or Module, you can click the Distribute Weight % button, enter the total percentage of the final grade that you want them all to add up to, say 40, select all of those items, say 10 different Assignments, and click Distribute Weight. The tool will then give each item you've selected its own share of that total percentage of the final grade, which in this example would be 4% each.

Tip provided by iSupport at Pearson

Extra Credit - why won't it calculate?

If your gradebook is set up with weighted calculations, you MUST add a percentage to your extra credit.

For example: Your overall course assignments are worth a total of 1000 points and worth 100%. You want the students to get a max of 3 points added to their final grade if they complete extra credit. If you simply enter 3 points, for possible extra credit points in the "Assign Points/Weights" step, the points will not calculate or be added to the final grade. You MUST fill in the percent field and the points fields.