Elementary Schoology Grade Set up and Gradebook Options in Schoology
Keywords: Grade Setup, Elementary Grade Setup, Grade Set Up, Elementary Grade Set Up, Schoology
Aliases:
Please use this document to guide you in understanding your options for Grade Set up using the Gradebook in Schoology in a way that compliments current practices for Elementary Progress Reports.
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Elementary Schoology Grade Set Up Gradebook Use Options
Schoology has many tools and features to support giving feedback to students as well as provide grading support for teachers. This document will outline those tools and features.
Grading Periods in Grade Setup in Schoology
Viewing Grading Periods and Student Names in Gradebook
Setting Visibility of Overall Grades in Grade Setup
Creating a 4-Point Scale to match report cards
Creating & Using a Scoring Rubric to Support Elementary Report Cards
Monitoring Standards with Align Objective Feature
Categories
Creating Grading Groups for Small Group Instruction and Assignments
Grading Periods in Grade Setup in Schoology
You will see the following grading periods:
You will have the ability to choose the different trimester grading periods to manage assignments and content for your students. The default is to the current grading period you are in.
When creating an Assignment, Test/Quiz, or Assessment within Schoology, you can choose to set the grading period to a different range or no grading period. If you choose No Grading Period, you will NOT see this item in your gradebook.
To see a Grading Period option in a Discussion, you will first need to check the box in front of Enable Grading.
Viewing Grading Periods and Student Names in Gradebook
In the Grading Period drop down menu, you can select:
A single grading period to display only the items from that period.
All Grading Periods to view the calculated grades for the overall and grading period scores. Sub-periods are nested beneath their main grading period.
Final/Midterm Material Grades to view items for which you have checked Set as midterm/final in the item's Grading options.
(No grading period) to see items that haven't been assigned a grading period.
Note: This filter defaults to the current Grading Period. If your course is not currently active, this view will default to All Grading Periods, which does not show individual graded materials.
This will be helpful for elementary classes that have assignments or graded items throughout the year. You will be able to view specific time ranges to help in completing report cards.
Name Display
You can sort the list of members in your course to display in ascending or descending alphabetical order by First or Last name. The menu includes the following options:
First Name, A-Z
First Name, Z-A
Last Name, A-Z
Last Name, Z-A
Note: The default view is Last Name, A-Z. This will display names in the format: Smith, John. To make navigation among courses easier, the view selected for each section will save within your browser session. If you change browsers or clear your cookies, the view will reset to default (Last Name, A-Z).
Setting Visibility of Overall Grades in Grade Setup
Because we use standards based grading for elementary report cards, it is recommended that you hide the overall grade for your courses. Schoology Gradebook will automatically calculate an overall grade (percentage or letter) for a student based on any scores assigned to items in the course.
In Visibility Settings, check the boxes in front of:
student grade report
Parents will not be confused by seeing a percentage or letter grade for the course or grading period.
Parents will still be able to see the scores and feedback given on all individual items in the course.
Creating a 4-Point Scale to match report cards
You can create a 4-point scale to add to your gradebook and any graded material.
Video: Creating a 4-point Scale in Grade Setup
From Grade Setup go to Add and select Scale
Select Points, add numbers and a description to match the report card and Save Changes.
You can select the 4-point Scale from Scale/Rubric for any graded material type.
Creating & Using a Scoring Rubric to Support Elementary Report Cards
A basic Scoring Rubric that parallels the elementary report card scoring system, has been created and is available in Grade Level Schoology Groups that you can use to score items in Schoology courses. You can add the rubric to any Material type that has the grading option; Assignment, Test/Quiz, Assessment, and Discussion (with Grading Enabled).
You can also create your own rubrics to use. See Rubrics help files for more information.
Monitoring Standards with Align Objective Feature
Within a course in Schoology, you are able to add all adopted Washington State standards you would like to monitor. You can choose to add a standard to most material types; Page, Assignment, Discussion, Assessment and Test/Quiz (even align specific questions on an Assessment) with the Align Objective button.
Please see this help file for more information: Aligning Learning Objective/Standards
Categories
Schoology Grade Setup Categories can be used to organize Assignments. By having categories, you can target your view in the Gradebook. Categories also groups assignments in the student Grades view.
Categories by content area if you are using a single course to hold all subjects.
Sort view of assignments to only see a single category.
Students can see assignments grouped by categories to know if they have completed all the assignments and if there are grades and comments.
Another way to set up Categories is by Date Range. This will allow you to group assignments by the week they are assigned and sort your gradebook by week at a time.
This also allows students and families to view grades and assignments by the week to know what was completed, graded and given comment.
Creating Grading Groups for Small Group Instruction and Assignments
The Grading Groups feature enables educators to sort students into groups within a single course section.
Educators can then individually assign graded materials to these groups, and display them as individual groups in the course Gradebook. Visit: How to Individually Assign Materials for full details.
How Do I Create Grading Groups?
Grading groups are a great way to associate students of the class to group projects, special needs, or specific criteria. To create a grading group:
Click Members on the left side of your course.
On the right side of the Members page, hover your mouse over the gray Organize members into Grading Groups box.
Click the Add Grading Group button.
Enter a name or title for the group.
Click students in the course to include them in the group. Use the Search field to find specific students, especially for courses with a large number of members.
Once you've selected the students for the group, click Create Grading Group.
Assign Course Material to Grading Groups
Click Add Materials to create a new Assignment, Test/Quiz, or Discussion.
Click the Individually Assign icon in the Advanced row of the Create screen.
Enter the name of the grading group to which you'd like to assign the material. The names of your existing grading groups automatically populate as you begin to type.
Click Create to add the grade item.
When you assign something to a grading group, the entire item is only available to those students in the group. This means you will only see the scores in your Gradebook for the students who received the assignment.
Note: If some students have already completed the assessment and you then assign it to a grading group that does not include those students, the scores and submissions for those students not included in the individual assign tag will temporarily “disappear”.
To see the other students' scores, you can simply remove the individually assigned tags. This restores the submissions for all of the students who have completed the item.
Tips:
To make variations of existing material in a course, save the course to Resources, and import the material back into the course.
You can view the course as specific students in the course from Course Options under the course profile picture.
Filter Gradebook by Grading Groups
Once you have assigned materials to a grading group, you'll notice in the Gradebook that members not assigned a particular assignment, test/quiz, or discussion have a dash in the grading cell for that item. This dash prevents you from accidentally entering grades for students that are not assigned an item in the course. To enter grades for specific groups, you can filter the Gradebook by grading group. To sort your Gradebook view by Grading Group:
Click Gradebook on the left side of your course.
By default, the Gradebook displays all members of the course. Click All members to display a dropdown menu of all grading groups in the course.
Select the group you'd like to view.
To give all users in the group the same grade, click on the arrow next to the assignment or discussion name, and select the option to Set All Grades.
Edit or Delete Grading Groups
Click Members on the left side of your course.
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Grading Groups are listed on the right side of the Members screen. Click the gear icon to the right of the Group name:
Select Edit to change the group's name, or to add or remove members.
Select Delete to remove the group.
Notes:
If you delete a grading group that has been assigned a course material, you also delete that association, and the students who were in the group are no longer assigned the item.
If you remove a student from a grading group, all previous assignments completed while a member of the group still applies to the student's grade. For example, if you are using grading groups for differentiated learning, and students move to a different group in the middle of a grading period, all graded items they completed from the first group still apply to their final grades and display in all grade reports.