Grading Made Easy

Illustration of individual grading on a computer

FIU Online’s monthly Faculty Webinar series explores relevant instructional strategies and effective ways to use technology in an online classroom. The third webinar in the series titled “Grading Made Easy” provided faculty with helpful tips on grading within Canvas, as well as submitting final grades to Panthersoft. 

Instant Replay: Grading Made Easy

Head shot of presenter Aisha        Head shot of presenter Maikel

 

Presenters Maikel Alendy and Aisha Hamid from FIU Online showcased some of Canvas’ most useful grading features. If you missed this webinar, you can view the recording or read some of the key takeaways below. 

Weighing assignments 

Things to keep in mind when determining weights for assignments.

  • Proportional distribution:  give students the opportunity to master a course in various ways. (Ex: Avoid weighing a single assignment as 80% of a student’s final grade) 
  • Manageable points:  distribute points as whole numbers to avoid any confusion. 
  • Intentional weighing:  provide students multiple assignments and activities with varying weights to allow them more opportunities to master particular concepts within your course.

Pro Tip: Using assignment groups within Canvas allows you to better organize the assignments within your course. Creating groups for each assignment type (ex: Journals, Discussions, Quizzes) allows you to more easily assign weights within Canvas. 

 

Screen capture of the assignment of group weight feature on Canvas

 

Grading schemes

Grading schemes use a set of criteria to measure varying levels of achievement within a course. Additionally, some things to keep in mind when customizing grading schemes within Canvas:

  • Grading schemes within Canvas by default are not turned on
  • Rounding must be included within your scheme
  • You are able to customize your grading scheme at any time
  • Ensure your grading scheme is enabled before the start of the course

 

Rounding up within a grading scheme “prevents me from getting quite a bit of emails from students” requesting bumps in their grades. -Maikel Alendy

Canvas gradebook features

Using your Canvas gradebook is important because it provides the university pertinent student success outcomes and data. Some of the Canvas gradebook features highlighted within the webinar included:

 

“I think if I give my students the opportunity to do some truly impactful additional work, it is beneficial to both my field and they should be rewarded for that.”- Maikel Alendy

Importing Final Grades into PantherSoft 

It is important to note that instructional designers do not have access to upload final grades into PantherSoft. The MyFIU Grade import guide provides a helpful step by step guide on how to import grades into PantherSoft. If you are having any issues with importing your final grades, reach out to your department, as they will be your best resource. 

Future Faculty Webinars

Be on the lookout for FIU Online’s future webinars on instructional strategies and effective ways to use technology in your online classroom. If you have any ideas for future webinar topics, we’d love to hear them. Contact Christina Schettini (cschetti@fiu.edu) to share your ideas for future webinar topics. 

Read our other faculty webinar instant replay articles:

Christina Schettini is a Project Manager for the FIU Online Learning Design team. Through her work, she supports the development of effective and engaging learning experiences in the online modality.

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