How to Put Into Practice
The purpose of grading is to evaluate the students’ performance and, in turn, to tell the students explicitly what you value as important in your course. Reviewing the structure and presentation of the course grading policy with an eye to transparency will smooth course delivery, forestall questions or complaints, and build students’ motivation and confidence as learners.
Amplify Transparency in the Grading Policy
Structure and present your grading policy to reinforce the purpose of different course activities and provide details around the calculation of grades. Pay particular attention to where grading can be highly subjective—most notably, the grading of participation.
Link the purpose of assessments to how they are graded. Looking at two types of quizzes with different purposes for student learning will illustrate this practice:
- Quiz type 1: Weekly LMS quizzes with automatic feedback are set up as a student-directed learning tool. Students can retake the quiz multiple times until they have mastered the content. This type of quiz will probably be worth just a few points (low-stakes grading).
- Quiz type 2: This quiz is used to assess whether students have completed all of the key assignments and learned the material in a module. This assessment might be worth more points than the student-directed knowledge-check quiz.
- Both types of quiz can be used in the same course, valuing them differently in the grading policy and providing them with different names for clarity (e.g., Self-Check Quizzes or Mastery Quizzes as distinguished from Module Topic Quizzes).
Provide details valuable to the student especially on subjective elements like participation.
Most syllabi statements on grading provide a breakdown of course activities and assignments with percentage weights for each. Go into more granular detail to help students process and relate the grading policy to their own performance.
A syllabus statement on grading should include the following:
- Indicate how the course is graded and relative weights of assessments (assignments, papers, exams, etc.).
- Provide linkage between weights and letter scores. In other words, define how the letter grades of A, AB, B, BC, C, D and F (or S/U, Cr/N) will be assigned to final grade calculations. If some of the letter grades will not be used (e.g., AB or BC), this should be noted in the syllabus.
- Indicate whether the final grades are curved. Include the standards upon which a curve is set if applicable.
- Separate grading requirements for graduate students.
- Indicate whether attendance and/or participation is part of the grading. Defining this is especially important when a significant percentage (e.g., 10% or more) of the grade is tied to participation, attendance, and/or discussion.
To further pre-empt student confusion include the following details:
- An explanation of the correspondence between points, percentages,and letter grades.
- Clear guidance on late submissions, including details such as how many points will be deducted.
- Guidance on use of AI. See AI statements for course syllabi the (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for specific institutional examples of how to frame standard, tiered language regarding student parameters for utilizing AI.
When considering how to assess participation, recognize the importance of providing students with transparency in an area that is often highly subjective, not thoroughly explained, and prone to reinforcing inequities in the broader social environment (e.g., who often feels most comfortable participating in a majority-white space, etc.).
- Review the basics of creating a rubric and how you can use AI to help (University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.)
- Review a University of New South Wales resource on assessing participation in a transparent and equitable way with sample rubrics and real-life case studies from the classroom.
- Explain to students your plan for intentionally fostering opportunities to participate.
OneHE member content to explore (Access: These resources are available with OneHE membership. A 10-day free trial is available for new members.)
For a student-centered approach to grading participation, see “Reconceptualizing Participation Grading as Skill Building” (Gillis, 2018). Gillis proposes an approach where participation is seen as a set of skills which can be developed. Students set personal goals for participation and can be graded based on their progress in achieving them.
Create an Online Gradebook
An online gradebook can make grading faster and more transparent. The time you invest to set up grading tools in your learning management system (LMS) at the start of a course can save significant time later on.
To set up your gradebook, consult your LMS vendor support pages or institutional documentation on how to navigate and configure the gradebook interface.
Choose a Grading Structure
Set up a points-based or weighted (percentage-based) grade calculation scheme in your LMS.
- Points-Based Structure: For a points-based course, the total course grade is typically calculated based on the total cumulative points earned divided by the total possible points. While assignment grouping may not affect the final math, it is still best practice to group assignments by category or chronological order to help you and your students track progress.
- Weighted/Percentage-Based Structure: To set up percentage-based grading, you will need to organize assignments into categories or groups within the LMS. You can then assign specific percentage weights to those groups to match the breakdown listed in your syllabus (e.g., quizzes are worth 30% of the final grade, discussions 20%, etc.).
Tip: Always double-check your gradebook calculation setup prior to publishing the course to ensure that the backend logic matches how you state grades will be calculated in your syllabus.
Explain to Students How to View Grades
In a course orientation module or other introductory communication, share information with students about when to expect grades to be posted and tech tutorials on how to view grades and feedback in your LMS.