How do you record/store student grades?

[runonsentence]

For those of you who are responsible for keeping track of student grades for the classes they TA: what method do you use to record grades?

A paper gradebook? An Excel sheet? The gradebook function in your university's course management software (e.g., Blackboard)?

I ask because I'm in the process of going through my student evals and pulling out the useful constructive criticism. I've used Excel spreadsheets in the past, but have had one or two students comment that they'd like to see their current grades online.

Though I prefer using my spreadsheets and just telling students they can ask to conference with me anytime about their grades, something more transparent would have the benefit of simplifying homework grades (I could collect more electronic homework instead of having to hand back paper).

So, yes, curious to see what others do.

[wtncffts]

I used an excel spreadsheet for grades and attendance and had no problems. Your field seems like it would have many more assignments than mine. For me, there was typically only a term paper and sporadic exams, not weekly assignments or whatnot. I'm not sure I get your point about electronic homework; it seems to me the format of the homework has nothing to do with how you keep track of the grades, but I might be misunderstanding.

[robot_hamster]

Most professors at my school like to enter grades on Blackboard, so when I was grading stuff that it where the grades went. There was a place to enter comments, but I would usually enter comments in the word documents they would hand in (the professor had them submit them on Blackboard) and then attach the file to their grade in Blackboard's grade book.

[runonsentence]

wtncffts: Sorry, should clarify. You're right that I have a ton of assignments to keep track of; I collect a lot of low-stakes assignments, between homework and in-class writing.

Right now I collect a lot of paper homework assignments. I'd like to switch to more electronic homework submission, but it makes grading more clunky if I continue to use Excel: either I would have to email every student individually to tell them what they got on homework assignments, or it would mean keep homework grades cloaked in mystery (which I don't think is very fair). Unless someone has a creative workaround and can enlighten me, that is.

So thus, I'm toying with the idea of something transparent, like Blackboard's gradebook function, which would let students see their homework grade without me having to contact them individually every time they turn in a homework assignment. I'm not super crazy about the interface, though, so I was wondering what other people used.

robot_hamster: did it get tedious/time-consuming to upload Word docs every time you handed back an assignment?

Edited August 1, 2011 by runonsentence

[Timshel]

I always use Excel for myself because I give everything points so it makes it easier to give them their final grade. The class is out of 1000 points, so if at the end they have 867 points, they have a B+. I used to also put the scores on Blackboard so they could see them, but then it was twice the work for me and half of them never even looked. So, I just decided to do it for me, and I told them that if at any time they wanted to know about their specific grades, they could email or make an appointment with me. I maybe got 2 a semester who asked, so it worked. However, everything I handed back had comments and grades, so it's not like they didn't know.

As for the daily, in-class assignments, I just made those worth their participation points, so I never had to give those back. I told my students if they were curious how they were doing for participation at any time in the semester, they could ask me. In the 3 years I have taught (1 year as assistant to another instructor, 2 years as primary instructor), I've never had one student ask.

[rising_star]

I use our online course management system to post grades for everything except participation. I don't divide participation points up into specific days, I give students a more holistic score based on their overall performance in the course (which allows me to account for things like improvement during the course). I also include feedback with those grades so students have an idea of what they did well and where they can improve. I typically do *not* upload edited Word docs to students, though I know some people that do. I've found that students never look at those extensive comments (whether done in Word, Turnitin, or on paper copies that I return) so I only make them on request now. As a backup, I download the grades from the course management system to Excel about once a week to ensure that nothing is lost and that I have copies for my own records.

When I used to lead discussion sections (4 sections, 20-25 students in each), I would keep track of their participation on a spreadsheet that had each student's name and the date listed. I brought that sheet (one sheet per section, because I listed all the dates for the semester on it) with me to class and I would try to take quick notes when a student made a good comment. But, sometimes that would be distracting so I'd end up filling it out very quickly in the 10-15 min after class. I transferred those to a gradebook on the course management system, which was what the professor required all of us to use.

[CageFree]

There is some software out there that professional teachers (I don't mean any respect, I mean people who teach for a living) use. Nowadays many districts have electronic gradebook that you access online that are tied to attendance records, and that parents/students can access by getting personal accounts. However, there are programs (some free!) still for those who don't have access to such things.

Just a couple of electronic gradebooks:

http://www.engrade.com/

https://www.igradeplus.com/

Hope that helps

[robot_hamster]

runonsentence - I don't think it was all that tedious. I mean, I had to download the word documents anyway since that it how the students submitted stuff. As I read the assignments, I would use the notes option to add notes/comments. The rubric was broken down into sections, so at the bottom of the document I would type in some comments for each section explaining why they got the score they did for each one. Since I had to do all of that anyway, it wasn't a big deal to then upload the altered documents on Blackboard for the students to see.

[CageFree]

robot_hamster - I like that idea. Giving feedback to students is so important!

[robot_hamster]

robot_hamster - I like that idea. Giving feedback to students is so important!

I thought it was important because if the students were interested in improving their grade next time, they would know what they need to do.

[Timshel]

I also uploaded the document back with my comments. I learned that you ALWAYS should give back work with comments because A. they should be learning from their mistakes B. they can never question your grading.

[rising_star]

Timshel, you can give comments on students' work without uploading documents with changes tracked.

[Timshel]

Timshel, you can give comments on students' work without uploading documents with changes tracked.

Wait, so you're saying I can open their document that they uploaded, make comments on it, but then not have to reupload it as a new document?

[runonsentence]

No, I believe rising_star is referring to Blackboard's comment functionality in the gradebook. It's possible to type in comments to the student directly into the gradebook when recording scores.

[robot_hamster]

I have tried to use the comment function on Blackboard, but I didn't like it. The one at my school only allowed so many characters and it just lumped everything together instead of allowing line spaces. Very annoying. I like actually adding notes to the Word document because that way the student can see exactly what you are referring to. Maybe this applies more to the sciences, I'm not sure.

[runonsentence]

Ah, I see. I definitely can see commenting on Word docs for somewhat substantial assignments, instead of dealing with the tiny textbox. I'm thinking it might suit my purposes for low-stakes daily homework reflections and the like, though.

[robot_hamster]

Sure, if it is a small assignment then a quick note like that would work well with the comments function. I will have to remember that this coming semester, the details are a little sketchy still on what will be required of the students in the class I am a TA for.

[Timshel]

My first year teaching, I made all assignments due through blackboard because I thought it would be easier to grade electronically. However, I started to feel like maybe it was more cumbersome, so this year I had everyone turn everything in hard copy, and I graded SO much quicker! Now I only use Blackboard for my online classes. However, I do still make them submit them electronically as well so I can scan them for plagiarism if I need to.

[rising_star]

Yes, I meant the comment feature in the gradebook, which exists in BlackBoard and other platforms (we don't use BlackBoard at my institution). Often, I just cut and paste into the box because I find myself writing the same thing on every paper (ie, "Please remember to proofread for spelling and grammar before submitting your work. If you need assistance, contact the Writing Center on campus."). I used to do more careful editing of student papers until I realized that it's not really my job to teach them how to write (I'm not in the English department and I mostly teach classes for juniors and seniors who should know how to write already) and that the students got bogged down in all the little marks and missed the large points about their paper.

I also grade MUCH faster on hard copy. I have students submit their work digitally to Turnitin and then I have them turn in paper copies, which are what I grade and return. This system works well for me, provided you have fewer than 75 students. Otherwise, the stacks of paper can get unwieldy.

[runonsentence]

I used to do more careful editing of student papers until I realized that it's not really my job to teach them how to write (I'm not in the English department and I mostly teach classes for juniors and seniors who should know how to write already) and that the students got bogged down in all the little marks and missed the large points about their paper.

Not to derail the original subject of my own thread, but there's a lot of research in my field that shows that marking up every mechanical/grammar/usage error you see is pointless. Students won't learn from it, or (like you discovered) they'll get demoralized.

I sometimes mark a handful of recurring issues, but usually I either tell the student to proofread as you do, or put a little "x" next to each line with an error and tell the student to go back over those lines to look for the errors themselves (and point out helpful portions of my textbook where they can look up comma rules, etc.). But of course, I'm working with assignments that students are required to hand back in again.

[ogopo]

I use google docs, specifically the spreadsheet, which resembles excel. This worked really well when there was another TA I was working with and we could access and update the spreadsheet anytime we wanted.

If you want to let your students see their grades, you could send them the spreadsheet too, but give them "read only" access and obviously use their student numbers rather than their names.

I have no idea what we will be using at my new school but I loved using google docs!

[Arcadian]

Excel spreadsheet keeps detailed scores, Blackboard is where I post final scores.

[TakeruK]

I also used Google Documents Spreadsheet so that the other TA and the prof could easily access the most up to date scores (without having to email back and forth countless revisions).

The students get their assignments back and twice a term, I tell them their grade so far. I do this by exporting the spreadsheet into a different one, and hiding their name so it just lists student number and grade. I re-sort the spreadsheet so it goes highest grade to lowest grade, which prevents people from knowing that so-and-so has a last name beginning with Z so they must be the last person etc. The grades ordering also helps students know how they stand vs. the average. I suppose students can guess at the student number with the highest grade if they know their classmates well, but this is easy enough to do if they look at all the numbers anyways. I don't post this sheet though, I bring it to the next class and go around to each group, showing them this information. But I only have 20-30 students at a time so this is feasible -- if not then I would probably post it online, or if institutional rules prevent that, just ask students to request the information specifically from me.