Thanks for addressing this important, and in my corner of academia, much discussed topic! One area that I think warrants further consideration is the use of Quizzes in Canvas. Years ago, before I adopted standards-based grading, I converted a lot of my Canvas activities to Quizzes, which are set at multiple attempts and unlimited time, and function largely as work interactive sheets. Quizzes largely obviate the need for uploading work as a file, among other benefits. However, there seems to be no way to have Canvas grade Quizzes as Complete/Incomplete.
I have experimented with making the points in a Quiz add up to 1, however, this is not always practical. In many cases, I simply enter the final grade in Canvas (using Fudge points) as 0 (revise) or 1 (satisfactory). Unfortunately, students consistently interpret internal points in a Quiz as meaningful, or interpret the 1 or 0 as points rather than symbols (and insist it is not fair to get a zero when they did get some points). I have recently begun looking into Grading Schemes (which can display EMRN letters but are based on points system. Any thoughts on this?
The bigger issue here may be a manifestation of student perceptions of standards-based grading. In those cases where internal points are warranted (or are they?) or necessary such as in Quizzes, how do we manage students' tendency to think in points rather than in terms of meeting standards?
Michael, thanks for the quiz discussion. When I implement quizzes in Canvas, I do the same as you, manually adjusting the learner's score to zero or 1, depending on a threshold. This is not too arduous of a task if you sort the grade book by the quiz column, and then simply go down the column entering ones until you get the the threshold, and then switch to zeros.
In addition to Canvas quizzes, I do a lot of my quizzes in class using iClickers (student response system). The associated software allows me to define a threshold for the quiz, and automatically assigns a zero or one when I upload the data to Canvas.
Perhaps someone else will share an even better solution... or Canvas developers will implement changes to fully support specifications grading.
Yes--I agree David, it is not too onerous to convert scores to 0's and 1's in the Gradebook. I also use a threshold value for fully automated quizzes. One problem is that students remain steadfast in interpreting the 0's and 1's in Canvas as points and not symbols meaning revision needed and satisfactory. I also worry that assignment specifications based on internal points vitiates the point of pointless standards-based grading.
There's a real tension between pragmatics of administering assessments and philosophical beliefs about what grades "are". I tend to land on the pragmatic side, but there's some privilege in working with this particular student body that lets me get away with the "unclearness" of that.
Hi Ken, the Stylus website says July for the book publication date but there are some things going on behind the scenes that might delay this. Stay tuned.
Interesting post. Why are Participation and preparedness included in grade determination? Those are behaviors and they should be reported separately. Grades should be based entirely on academic achievement.
That's very off-topic for a "how to cajole Canvas to do this thing" post. But you may set up your course with whatever criteria you think are most effective and appropriate!
It isn't "off-topic:" the author(s) included how they determine overall grades and I asked a question and made a comment about what they include in grades.
Hi Ken, they address this directly in the post: "students self-assess their preparation and preparedness (ungrading style, with lots of feedback)". In my opinion, that's an excellent way to bring student voices into the discussion on participation. We talk about this approach, at some length, in our book as well.
The one "hack" I want to share is that when using a 4-category rubric (Robert's EMPX, actually), I assigned points as 5, 4, 1, 0.
That way, when Canvas calculated percentages, there was a very obvious distinction between Meets Expectations and Progressing.
Were these percentages actually used in final grading? No, but it helped prevent students from thinking that E's and P's averaged together could get them a good-enough grade.
Thanks for the "hack" Cody. We thought about discussing non-binary rubric scales in the post, but decided it was already long enough. Your example "point" values are a great suggestion.
Thanks for addressing this important, and in my corner of academia, much discussed topic! One area that I think warrants further consideration is the use of Quizzes in Canvas. Years ago, before I adopted standards-based grading, I converted a lot of my Canvas activities to Quizzes, which are set at multiple attempts and unlimited time, and function largely as work interactive sheets. Quizzes largely obviate the need for uploading work as a file, among other benefits. However, there seems to be no way to have Canvas grade Quizzes as Complete/Incomplete.
I have experimented with making the points in a Quiz add up to 1, however, this is not always practical. In many cases, I simply enter the final grade in Canvas (using Fudge points) as 0 (revise) or 1 (satisfactory). Unfortunately, students consistently interpret internal points in a Quiz as meaningful, or interpret the 1 or 0 as points rather than symbols (and insist it is not fair to get a zero when they did get some points). I have recently begun looking into Grading Schemes (which can display EMRN letters but are based on points system. Any thoughts on this?
The bigger issue here may be a manifestation of student perceptions of standards-based grading. In those cases where internal points are warranted (or are they?) or necessary such as in Quizzes, how do we manage students' tendency to think in points rather than in terms of meeting standards?
Michael, thanks for the quiz discussion. When I implement quizzes in Canvas, I do the same as you, manually adjusting the learner's score to zero or 1, depending on a threshold. This is not too arduous of a task if you sort the grade book by the quiz column, and then simply go down the column entering ones until you get the the threshold, and then switch to zeros.
In addition to Canvas quizzes, I do a lot of my quizzes in class using iClickers (student response system). The associated software allows me to define a threshold for the quiz, and automatically assigns a zero or one when I upload the data to Canvas.
Perhaps someone else will share an even better solution... or Canvas developers will implement changes to fully support specifications grading.
Yes--I agree David, it is not too onerous to convert scores to 0's and 1's in the Gradebook. I also use a threshold value for fully automated quizzes. One problem is that students remain steadfast in interpreting the 0's and 1's in Canvas as points and not symbols meaning revision needed and satisfactory. I also worry that assignment specifications based on internal points vitiates the point of pointless standards-based grading.
There's a real tension between pragmatics of administering assessments and philosophical beliefs about what grades "are". I tend to land on the pragmatic side, but there's some privilege in working with this particular student body that lets me get away with the "unclearness" of that.
I'm not derailing the post, I'm asking a legitimate question about the ingredients in and the purpose of grades.
When will your book be published?
Hi Ken, the Stylus website says July for the book publication date but there are some things going on behind the scenes that might delay this. Stay tuned.
Interesting post. Why are Participation and preparedness included in grade determination? Those are behaviors and they should be reported separately. Grades should be based entirely on academic achievement.
That's very off-topic for a "how to cajole Canvas to do this thing" post. But you may set up your course with whatever criteria you think are most effective and appropriate!
It isn't "off-topic:" the author(s) included how they determine overall grades and I asked a question and made a comment about what they include in grades.
Hi Ken, they address this directly in the post: "students self-assess their preparation and preparedness (ungrading style, with lots of feedback)". In my opinion, that's an excellent way to bring student voices into the discussion on participation. We talk about this approach, at some length, in our book as well.
Please don't derail this very useful post.
Thanks for the very practical post!
The one "hack" I want to share is that when using a 4-category rubric (Robert's EMPX, actually), I assigned points as 5, 4, 1, 0.
That way, when Canvas calculated percentages, there was a very obvious distinction between Meets Expectations and Progressing.
Were these percentages actually used in final grading? No, but it helped prevent students from thinking that E's and P's averaged together could get them a good-enough grade.
Thanks for the "hack" Cody. We thought about discussing non-binary rubric scales in the post, but decided it was already long enough. Your example "point" values are a great suggestion.