Extra Extra! Read all about Extra Credit

Students love extra credit, and some instructors allow students to earn bonus points by completing additional assignments. Creating an “Extra Credit” category in your ANGEL gradebook makes it easy to track extra credit assignments.

Reorder Gradebook Entries

Reordering assignments in ANGEL isn’t difficult, but it’s not where you would expect to find it. Rather than going to the Assignments section of the gradebook, you need to go to the Categories section to organize your assignments.

Optimistic vs. Pessimistic Grading, Part Two

In our previous blog, we discussed how we may view grades optimistically or pessimistically depending on whether we believe students start the semester with A’s and then lose points or start with F’s and earn points throughout the semester. If you give multiple assignments in a semester and only count a certain number of those assignments, you have the opportunity to control how students view their grades in the ANGEL gradebook.

Optimistic vs. Pessimistic Grading, Part One

Are you an optimist or a pessimist when it comes to grading? Do you believe students start the semester with A’s and lose points for mistakes, or do you feel students start with F’s and need to work their way up by earning points on each assignment? It’s a matter of perspective, and ANGEL gradebook settings can reflect the way you view students’ earning of grades. This column explains the consequences of treating ungraded items as zero and suggests using the Batch Update feature to keep grades accurate when students fail to complete assignments.

Congratulations. You’re reaching a milestone!

Outside of ANGEL, we normally think of milestones as big events — birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Within ANGEL, milestones still refer to big events, but they aren’t birthdays and anniversaries. A milestone refers to a task that students must complete in ANGEL.

Create Gradebook Categories

Regardless if you’re using a points-based gradebook or a percentage-based one, you may choose to group your assignments into categories. Some instructors choose to have multiple categories, such as homework, discussions, quizzes, and exams, while other instructors use one category for all assignments and simply call it “Assignments.”

Add an Assignment to the Gradebook

If an assignment is going to be graded, you need to get it into the gradebook – but how do you do that? It’s easy! Just add the content item to the Lessons tab and then these steps to add it to the gradebook.

Setting the Grading Scale

When setting up the gradebook, most instructors focus on creating categories and assignments. While those elements are critical, it is essential to set up your grading scale as well to ensure that grades are measured accurately.

Gradebook Preferences: Points vs. Percentages

ANGEL gradebooks may be set up according to one of two systems: Points or Percentages. It wouldn’t seem like a big deal, but choosing the incorrect option for your course can result in grades that aren’t calculated the way you expect them to be.