Specifying default grade lists

      

information2 More information about how grade lists are used.

Grade lists are the markers used when marking a task with a grade (A, B, C, D, or 1, 2, 3, etc), or when asking iWise to calculate a grade based on a numeric mark you enter.

Default grade lists and default thresholds can be set up for use throughout your school. Individual teachers can then modify their grade list on a task-by-task basis, as required.

If your school is just starting to use the Markbook you will need to set up at least one default grade list before users can mark a task with an automatic grade.

 

1.Go to Markbook | Admin | Grades.

This screen displays all the current grade lists on the left and a work area on the right.

2.To create a new grade list, click Add in the top right Grade Detail area.

3.Enter a Short Description and click Save.

You will then see the list you are about to create in the grid on the left of the screen.

4.The list ‘shell’ is there, but there are no grades in it yet. To add a grade, click Add New Grade Value – which is located at the bottom right of the screen.

5.This adds a line to the grade list work area. Enter a Value and a Prompt.

The Value and the Prompt can be the same. It is the Value that is seen on screen as teachers mark the task.

The only time you may want the Value to be different to the Prompt is if the grade you are marking with has a really long description and you want this long description to appear on a custom report, but don’t have room for it on screen.

For example, if you were marking a task with the grade of ‘what-a-great-student-you-are’ then this is probably too long to appear on the screen when being used by teachers for marking. But you may have a custom report where you do want this to appear. In this case you would make the Value ‘1’ for example’ and put the long description in the Prompt field.

lightbulb_on  If you enter the Value and then hit the tab button on your keyboard, the Value you just entered will appear in the Prompt field automatically.

6.Click Save.
7.Click on Add New Grade Value again to enter another grade. Enter the Value and the Prompt for the next one and then click Save.
8.Repeat this until all the grades you want to use are there.

Next we will look at the Sort Order and Threshold columns.

9.The Sort Order column determines the order in which the grades appear as a teacher is marking. Usually you will want the list to appear best to worst, or worst to best. Enter the sort order for your grades. 1 will be the grade displayed at the top of a list.

10.Click on the name of the grade list in the list on the left. This will refresh the screen and the grades will be displayed in sort order.

11.The Threshold is the minimum percentage mark a student can have to receive a particular grade.

Thresholds are always expressed as percentages. When customising a grade list for an individual task, the threshold will always be expressed as a percentage – even if the task is out of something other than 100.

Enter the default Threshold for each of the grades.

In the screen shot above, the thresholds have been set so that anyone who received 80% or more in the task would receive the grade of ‘Outstanding’. 79% could give the student a grade of ‘High’.

If the task was out of 50 and the student received 40/50 they would also get a grade of ‘Outstanding’.

The lowest grade should always have a threshold of 0 to ensure that every student who has received a mark will be given a grade. If you had set the lowest threshold to 30, for example, a student who got 20% in a task would not receive a grade.

lightbulb_on  To delete a grade, click the red ‘Delete’ icon at the end of a row.