Angel Gradebook Training Hb 08 09

ANGEL [A New Global Environment for Learning]

HONORIA BALOGH iCreate Activity Grant Iowa Valley Community College District

Gradebook Training

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Table of Contents Gradebook Training Description and Objectives ........................................................................... 5

Decision time .................................................................................................................................. 6

Grading Scenarios ....................................................................................................................... 7

Gradebook Scenario #1: Points-Based Grading ..................................................................... 7

Gradebook Scenario #2: Points-Based Grading ..................................................................... 8

Gradebook Scenario #3: Percentage-Based Grading .............................................................. 8

Grading Scale .............................................................................................................................. 9

Points or Percentages? .............................................................................................................. 10

Categories ................................................................................................................................. 11

Ready, Set, Go! ............................................................................................................................. 12

Gradebook Setup Wizard .......................................................................................................... 12

Setting up your grading scale .................................................................................................... 13

Setting your gradebook preferences.......................................................................................... 14

Creating Categories ................................................................................................................... 16

Adding Assignments ................................................................................................................. 19

How to Enter Grades ................................................................................................................. 21

By User ................................................................................................................................. 21

By Assignment ...................................................................................................................... 22

How to View Grades ................................................................................................................. 24

How to Generate Copies of Your Gradebook ........................................................................... 25

How to Export Grades to an Excel Spreadsheet ....................................................................... 26

Step-by-Step: Gradebook Scenario #1 .......................................................................................... 27



How to Tie Gradebook to Active Online Content .................................................................... 35

How to Assign Extra Credit ...................................................................................................... 37

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Gradebook Training Description and Objectives

Description The goal of this self-paced basic training is to provide information and resources on select basic features of the ANGEL gradebook. Participants will learn how to set up and use the ANGEL course gradebook. Setting up a points-based or a percentage-based gradebook will be covered. Setting up categories, assignments, and other gradebook components will be covered. Focus is placed on the manual-entry grade book. Three gradebook scenarios are presented to serve as examples. Setting up a gradebook in Angel is fairly easy, but it does require some planning prior to actually entering information into the system. This material allows for time to reflect on how you want to setup your gradebook, before you actually begin the task of configuring the gradebook for your class. Materials in this course can be covered in about two (2) hours.

Objectives Upon completion of this training, participants will be able to:

Understand the ANGEL gradebook functionalities. Make informed decisions about their own gradebook. Understand the difference between Points-based vs. Percentage-based (weighted)

gradebook. Set up their gradebook preferences. Set up their grading scale. Set up their gradebook categories. Set up individual assignments. Enter grades by user or by assignment. Manipulate and update data in the gradebook. View, grade, and print assignments. [Understand how to tie live content with the gradebook – if time allows.] Select one of the three scenarios that best represents their grading practices and apply

them to their course. Follow the step-by-step directions to set up a functional gradebook in the ANGEL

environment.

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Decision time When you first begin setting up your gradebook, there are three big decisions that you need to make before you start. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What is my grading scale?

2. Do I grade by points or percentages?

3. What are the categories for my grades?

There is one more question you may want to ask:

Am I going to enter grades manually or connect them specific assignments on ANGEL for automatic grading?

For the purposes of this manual, we will focus on the manual gradebook where instructors must enter individual grades for students one by one. However, under Gradebook Scenario #3, you will learn the basics of how to tie content to the gradebook.

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Grading Scenarios

Let’s assume that you use a simple grading scale such as: A = 90% - 100% B = 80% - 89% C = 70% - 79% D = 60% - 69% F = 00% - 59%

Ask yourself: What is the grading scenario I am most likely to use? Choose which one represents your grading style the best.

Gradebook Scenario #1: Points-Based Grading

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Gradebook Scenario #2: Points-Based Grading

Gradebook Scenario #3: Percentage-Based Grading

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Grading Scale Your grading scale is the minimum percentage cut-off for each grade. You can specify as many different kinds of grades as you want. For instance, you could have an A be a minimum of 95% etc. The highest grade you can give at our college is an A (not A+). Complete the table below by thinking about a specific class that you teach. That is, what is the minimum “cut-off” point for each of your grades? Once you determine your scale and enter it into our ANGEL site, your students will be able to look up their grade every time they log into your class.

Here is what our sample grading scale would look like in ANGEL:

TO DO #1

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Points or Percentages? The next decision that you will need to make is whether you want to conduct your course using percentages or points.

Points Each category is worth a total number of points (see grading scenario 2). All categories are added up to determine the overall grade. For example, a category called Exams is worth 450 points, Projects is worth 300 points, and Final is worth 250 points. For this scenario, use the appropriate point value (450, 300, and 250) as the weight for each category.

The grade by points scenario can optionally be accomplished using a single category (e.g. called Assignments) with a value of 100 (percent) or with a value equal to the total point value sum of all assignments (see grading scenario 1, pg. 4). The use of more than one category is only required if you prefer to weight categories to determine the overall average (percentage) or if you want to categorize assignments by assignment type.

Percentages Each category is worth a specific percentage of the overall grade. For example, a category called Exams is worth 50% of the overall grade, Projects is worth 30%, and Final is worth 20%. In this case, simply use the appropriate percent value (50, 30, and 20) as the weight for each category.

Remember:

It is best to keep it simple, so if points will work just fine and you don’t need to specify “weight” for projects over exams, you can simply use points.

Check which way you wish to calculate grades:

_____ Points _____ Percentages

TO DO #2

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Categories

The final decision that you will need to make are the categories or major buckets that you will use in your gradebook. You could have just one category, or several. Think about the major areas that you want to divide your course. You might use categories such as homework, quizzes, participation, final, project, etc. Then, determine if you want to weight any of the categories. Write your categories and weight in the space below.

Category Weight (if needed, must be %)

Here is what our sample categories would look like in ANGEL:

TO DO #3

Category

Assignments

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Ready, Set, Go! You are now ready to access your ANGEL gradebook and transfer your own settings to the gradebook for one of your classes. Remember:

Gradebook is always course-specific.

You will need to set up your gradebook from scratch for each of your courses.

If you set up your gradebook in one course and you would like to use the same settings in another course, there are tools that make this possible.

You can copy the gradebook from one semester to another when you copy course content. Just remember to adjust the dates!

To access the Gradebook, log into your ANGEL course, click the Manage tab, and click the Gradebook hyperlink.

Gradebook Setup Wizard

Upon first access to the gradebook section, the Gradebook Setup Wizard appears. You may choose to set up your gradebook using the wizard, but for the purposes of this training, we will not use the wizard. Wizard works the best if you created your full course content under the Modules tab prior to setting up the gradebook. Click on the Skip Wizard button. If you ever wish to go back to the wizard and start from scratch, you will have to delete all of your gradebook categories. This will restore the wizard for your course.

You can view the wizard how-to video at a later time by clicking on the Manage tab >> Gradebook >> Overview under Gradebook Tutorial section.

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Setting up your grading scale

The main screen for gradebook looks like the one below. Please become familiar with this screen, because we will go back to this screen throughout the training and you will use this screen whenever you want to go to the gradebook. Select the Grading Scale option. It is option 4 under the Gradebook Management heading.

You will see the following:

Grading Scale

Label Minimum Percent

Add New

<< Back To Main Menu

Enter the grading scale that you developed earlier in this training. For example, you might want an A to have a minimum percent of 95. Enter the label and minimum percent into the box and click on Add New until your entire scale has been created.

Note: You can always go back to Grading Scale and make changes should you decide to raise or lower your scale. You can add grades such as A-, B+, C-, P (for pass), etc.

Again, this is what our completed sample grading scale looks like:

http://wvmccd.angellearning.com/section/Gradebook/default.aspx

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Setting your gradebook preferences When you completed your grading scale, click Back to Main Menu to return to the Gradebook Management page.

Now, let’s set up our Gradebook Preferences. Click Preferences under the Gradebook Setup heading.

Next, note the highlighted hyperlinks on the Preferences page. Click on the hyperlink to learn more about that specific setting. Make sure to familiarize yourself with each of these settings so that you understand how the gradebook works.

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Preference Settings: 1. You may want to keep the Default Display Format to Score (Letter Grade).

Students will see both their score and the letter grade for each graded assignment, for example 150 (A). There are other options available. Review the Student Gradebook image below to see what these settings affect.

2. You will probably NOT want to check the Treat Upgraded Items as Zero. This would

change your average score for students who have not yet submitted their quiz or assignment and everyone would be failing everything they have not yet taken. You can, however, check this box at the end of the semester when you are ready to enter final grades.

3. The next box, Limit Course Assistants by Team, probably does not relate to your

teaching situation since you probably do not have course assistants. Leave it unchecked.

4. You are likely going to want to click the Exclude Instructors from Averages option. Once again, this will affect your averages. Since you can enter your own course as a student and you can grade your own submissions, you do not want those grades to be counted.

Student Gradebook (in student’s view)

Overall Display Format:

Percent (Letter Grade)

Default Display Format:

Score (Letter Grade)

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Select the mode for your gradebook: either Points or Percentage.

If you wish to assign weight to your categories, you must select the Percentage gradebook mode.

For average settings, you can deselect the option to display the overall average. If you deselect this option, students will not be able to compare their score with the class average.

The last preference setting, like the first, will allow your students to see both their overall score and letter grade. If you leave this box unchecked, students will not see their overall grade for the course. Note: Some instructors prefer that this box remain unchecked.

Creating Categories

Now, let’s move on to creating your categories. Remember, it is possible to have just one category, if you choose not to specify weights for your assignments. By default, this category is labeled Default. From the main Gradebook page, select Categories.

Note the following toolbar. Each button will give you different options. Let’s explore each of these. Click Add New to add a category.

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To set up details for a specific category, you will have to scroll down. You will have an option to see the Category Editor in either Normal or Advanced modes. This is the screen for the Normal mode:

This is the screen for the Advanced mode: (note the additional options)

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To simplify your set up, let’s present the set up for the categories we used in our earlier scenarios. Remember, we added these sample categories for you:

Notice that you can check any box and show tasks, edit, or delete a selected category.

Warning: Selecting the topmost checkbox will result in highlighting of all categories. Should you delete all categories, your gradebook will be reset to default and you will lose all your students’ grades. (It has happened before.)

Once you added your assignments, you can use the toolbar on the bottom of the page to manipulate and update your categories. You can complete inputting your categories by adding, editing, and deleting categories until it reflects the desired main categories in your gradebook. Note: you can always add categories, or make changes to the gradebook. If you click on the Show Tasks button, you will see the following:

Note: Instructors often ask about easy ways to change the order of assignments within a specific category as it appears in the instructor/student gradebook. For example, instead of Exam 3, Exam 1, Exam 2, they want to correct the order to display as Exam 1, Exam 2, Exam 3. Use the Reorder Assignments link under Show Tasks to accomplish this.

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Adding Assignments

The next step in our process is to add assignments and to tie them in with categories to which they belong.

1. From the main Gradebook page, select Assignments.

2. Click Add New. 3. Again, you will be able to choose between Normal or Advanced modes. Advanced will

give you additional options. 4. In the Assignment Editor, specify the assignment details. You must enter a title for each

assignment. Try to keep the titles clear for students to understand. 5. Add the rest of the information. You may click on the blue hyperlinks to find out

additional information about a specific setting. Click Save when you are finished.

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Here are the sample assignments for all our categories:

Here is a sample set up for the Exam 1 assignment in Advanced mode:

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How to Enter Grades

There are several ways to enter grades. You can enter the assignment grades either by user or by assignment.

By User

Let’s see how to enter grades by user

1. From the main Gradebook page, click By User under the Enter/Edit Grades heading. 2. Click Search to find your student. 3. A search window will pop up. Type in a name portion of the name you are searching for.

(You may also click Search again to get the full roster.) 4. Click the appropriate name hyperlink. 5. You will be directed to the student’s gradebook. 6. Enter the points the student earned for the specific assignment. The percentage earned

will be filled in for you automatically. 7. You may add comments regarding a specific grade. These comments, along with the

complete gradebook, will be accessible to the student in the student’s gradebook via the My Grades link on the Course tab of your course.

8. If you are using a manual gradebook, the locked checkbox will be checked to prevent accidental grade overwrite.

Take a look at the example below:

This is a percentage

field, so it cannot be

larger than 100.

Enter the points earned

for this assignment.

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By Assignment

And now, let’s see how to enter grades by assignment.

1. From the main Gradebook page, click By Assignment under the Enter/Edit Grades heading.

2. Select the assignment from the drop down menu. (Be sure to select an assignment, not a category.)

3. Then, you will see the following screen. Note that you can choose between Condensed or Full views. Full view will enable you to enter comments on this screen.

4. Enter the points or percentages students earned on the assignment.

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5. Scroll down. 6. You have an additional option of batch updating the grades for students. Enter the

default points in the batch update window. Clicking the Batch Update button will automatically fill in the desired point value to each student’s Points widow. It’s a timesaver!

7. Make sure to Save Changes when you are finished. 8. Click Done to return to the main Gradebook page.

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How to View Grades

You have an option to view all grades at once or filter your view by certain criteria. To view your course gradebook, select the View All Grades option under the View heading on the main Gradebook page. You will see the grades in this format:

Let’s zoom in a bit closer and add some explanations:

Note: The ANGEL gradebook is always live. You must submit your final grades based on current college policies. Do not count on the administration to have access to your ANGEL gradebook. Make sure to spell out your grading policies in your course syllabus.

This column shows

the student’s

current grade.

This column

represents the

overall grade for the

Exams category.

This column

contains grades for

the Exam1

assignment.

Note that you (the

instructor) are

included on the

course roster. You

can hide your

grades by checking

the Only Students

checkbox.

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How to Generate Copies of Your Gradebook To use print grades:

1. Log into your ANGEL course and click the Manage tab. 2. Click the Gradebook hyperlink. 3. Click Print Grades under the View heading.

The following page appears:

4. From the Page Size drop-down list select the size you want to use. Default is Letter but other choices include Legal, 11 x 17, A3, A4, A5, A6, B3, B4, and B5.

5. From the Page Orientation drop-down list select how you want the gradebook to print. Default is Landscape, but Portrait is also available.

6. Select the page margins from the Page Margins drop-down list. 7. Select the font from the Font Family drop-down list. 8. Select the font size from the Font Size drop-down list. 9. Select the category order from the Category Order drop-down list. 10. Select the team from the Team drop-down list. (You may not be using any.) 11. Select the Show Students Only checkbox if you want only student grades to appear. 12. Select the Show Averages Only checkbox if you only want averages displayed. 13. Click the Generate PDF button.

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How to Export Grades to an Excel Spreadsheet

The Export Grades option under the Gradebook Setup heading on the main Gradebook page allows the course editor to export the assignment grades, for all students, as a comma delimited or tab delimited file. The resulting delimited file can easily be viewed and modified in a standard spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel. To export assignment grades to a delimited file:

1. Click the Export Grades hyperlink. The Export Grades page displays.

2. Select the delimited file format you prefer to export (comma-separated or tab-separated values).

3. Optionally select the Include Averages and Include Course ID checkboxes to include the additional data in the export file.

4. Click the Export button. A File Download dialog box appears on the screen. 5. Click the Save button to save the file. A Save As dialog box appears on the screen. 6. Select a location to save the file and click the Save button. 7. Once the file has finished downloading, you may open the file in any spreadsheet

program (recommended) or text editor to view or modify the assignment grades.

Note: When you export your file into a comma separated or tab separated file, you will first need to open Excel, then open your file.

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Step-by-Step: Gradebook Scenario #1 You will need to:

1. Set your Gradebook Preferences. 2. Set up your Grading Scale. 3. Set up your Assignments.

Follow these steps to access the main Gradebook page from your ANGEL Home page:

1. Choose a course and click its hyperlink. 2. Click the Modules tab. 3. Click Gradebook.

Gradebook Preferences 1. Click Preferences under Gradebook Setup heading. 2. Follow this set up:

Grading Scale 1. Click Grading Scale under Gradebook Management heading. 2. Enter the grading scale as specified in your syllabus.

Categories Since you will be using one category, you do not need to worry about setting up categories.

Assignments 1. Go back to the main Gradebook page.

You may prefer

different display

formats.

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2. Select Assignments under Gradebook Management heading. 3. Click Add New. 4. Specify the assignment settings as desired.

Follow this set up for Gradebook Scenario #1:

Give your assignment a Title.

Make it easy for your students

to identify

Since we are not using any

other categories, let’s leave it

at Default.

Enter the point value of this

assignment.

The grades will be entered

manually by you, so do not

change this setting.

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1. Set your Gradebook Preferences. 2. Set up your Grading Scale. 3. Set up your Categories. 4. Set up your Assignments.





You may prefer

different display

formats.

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Categories Since you will be using multiple categories, let’s take a look at their setup:

Here is the screen containing the category settings for Gradebook Scenario #2:

We are

using three

categories.

Weight column

basically contains the

points in each

category. The total

adds up to 1000.

This specifies the

release date and time for

the category or

assignment. This

controls when the

category will be

unlocked for students

and gradebook

calculations.

Optionally, you may choose to drop the 1 (or more)

lowest grades. Careful: If you have only one

assignment in a category, this will drop it!

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Assignments 5. Go back to the main Gradebook page. 6. Select Assignments under Gradebook Management heading. 7. Click Add New. 8. Specify the assignment settings as desired.




to identify

Choose the proper category

for your assignment: in this

case, Exams.


assignment.




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1. Set your Gradebook Preferences. 2. Set up your Grading Scale. 3. Set up your Categories. 4. Set up your Assignments.





You may prefer

different display

formats.

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Categories Since you will be using multiple categories, let’s take a look at theis setup:

Here is the screen containing the category settings for Gradebook Scenario #3:

We are

using three

categories.

Weight column

basically contains the

percentage for each

category. The total

adds up to 100%.

Type in the weight for the

category in percentage format.

Do not check the auto-calculate

checkbox.

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Assignments 1. Go back to the main Gradebook page. 2. Select Assignments under Gradebook Management heading. 3. Click Add New. 4. Specify the assignment settings as desired.




to identify

Choose the proper category

for your assignment: in this

case, Exams.


assignment.




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How to Tie Gradebook to Active Online Content

Let’s take our Gradebook Scenario #3 and expand it a bit. Let’s assume that you are using ANGEL to enhance your courses. You are actively using the Modules tab to upload files, have students submit assignments in a drop box, contribute to discussion forums, or take online tests. It is best to create your assignments through the Modules area of ANGEL. Then, ANGEL will automatically enter the grade that you give to the student into your gradebook. For this example, we will create an assessment and have that assessment automatically entered into your gradebook.

1. Click on the Modules tab at the top of your course. 2. Click on the Add Content link. 3. Click on the Assessment link. You will see this screen. 4. Give your assessment a Title and type it in.

You will proceed for each of the tabs, but for the purposes of this training, we are interested in the Assignment tab where you link the quiz to your gradebook. Change your Settings to Advanced to see all options.

To save a content item,

it must have at least a

Title. You can fill out

the rest of the fields

later.

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Let’s look at the new assignment settings: Under Gradebook settings, click on the down arrow and select New Assignment.

Select New Assignment

from the dropdown menu.

Give your assignment a

title. If you leave it blank,

the computer will pick up

the title you entered on the

Content tab.

Do not choose manual

calculation type for this

scenario. You can choose

any of the others.

Calculation Type

Specifies how the assignment grade should be determined. The

Calculation Type option is intended to be used in combination with

the Associated Content Items option, for example, a computer-

graded multiple choice quiz can be an associated content item. If the

gradebook assignment has one or more associated content items,

then the Calculation Type option should be used to determine which

content item grade should be used to update the gradebook

assignment.

Since many content items can be graded multiple times, and multiple

content items can be associated with the same gradebook

assignment, you have four options for obtaining a grade: Average

Score, Maximum Score, First Submission, Last Submission, and

Manual.

- Average Score uses an average of all scores submitted.

- Maximum Score uses the highest of all scores submitted.

- First Submission uses the first score submitted. Last

Submission uses the last (most recent) score submitted.

- The calculation type of Manual requires the instructor to

enter a score manually.

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Note: You can add questions to this assessment later.

This same procedure is followed for drop boxes and for discussion forums. By selecting New Assignment under Gradebook settings, ANGEL automatically takes the title of your drop box, discussion forum, or assessment and adds that assignment to the gradebook. Then, when you grade the assignment or when the quiz is automatically graded, the grade is entered into the gradebook.

How to Assign Extra Credit

You can handle extra credit assignments in a variety of ways, but here are my two favorite ones:

1. You can create a category called Extra Credit and make sure that the Extra Credit checkbox is in the Category Editor is checked. That way all of the assignments in this specific category will be handled as extra credit. All of the other categories should total 100%. You can either auto-calculate your extra credit category or you can assign weight to it, for example, 5%.

2. You can also specify certain assignments to be extra credit. The Extra Credit checkbox would be checked not at the category level, but rather at the assignment level.

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Angel Gradebook Training Hb 08 09