Grade Masters

Do you ever get tired of your students asking you where they stand in your class? Or whether they can still pass your class?

Well, I kept getting these questions too. And they are a legitimate concern for students. And I realized something. Just grading stuff on time isn't good enough. Students don't just want to know about the past, they want to know about the future!

That's why I created my Grade Masters. (See this folder for all referenced files.) The idea is to make it as easy as possible for students to know exactly where they stand in my classes. I know below it looks complicated. But it really only takes me an hour or so to set up each class each semester, and the students only have to log into their Google Drive and open a single file to see all of this information! Here is how it works:

1. There is one Grade Master per course. This may seem like a simple gradebook, but there is more to it. Note what it does in each indicated column:

D-G: Shows students how many points they've earned and lost, and how many they still have to play with
H: Shows what grade students need to make on all remaining assignments in order to get an A in my class
J: Shows what grade students need to make on all remaining assignments in order to get a C in my class
BM: Shows whether students are exempt from taking the final exam
etc.

Now, here's the real beauty. The Grade Master send out the information for each individual student to their own, personal Grade Spreadsheet! They have to log in with their university email in order to view their spreadsheet, so these are private. Each student can see exactly where they stand all the time! You want to know if you can pass my class? Let's take a look at your Grade Spreadsheet. Looks like you need to make an average of 66.84% on all remaining assignment in order to get a C in this class. Do you think you can swing that? Yes? Good! Then you can pass my class.

Finally, if you open the sample Grade Spreadsheet, you'll also notice that it has a second tab with attendance. Here it shows my entire attendance record. Don't know where you're two absences came from? Let's take a look at tab 2. Looks like I have you as tardy on 9/6 and 9/16 and as absent on 9/11. Just another way to help students know where their numbers are coming from.

And I take attendance using the Attendance Spreadsheet, which automatically feeds the data to the Grade Master, which automatically feeds the data to the individual Grade Spreadsheets, so students know right away what their attendance is. (The Grade Spreadsheet also calculates penalties based on attendance, such as losing 20 points for each absence beyond the 4th.)

All of these resources are created using importrange on Google Spreadsheets. So it is free. I also make sure that the Grade Master and Attendance Spreadsheet are fully password protected and that each Student Spreadsheet is only accessible by each individual student, and that they cannot edit their spreadsheets. If you would like more details, please comment below or send me an email.

To date I have not found any software that provides the kind of functionality I have described above. If it exists, please let me know!

Have fun teaching!

Dr. Agon