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Set Up
Categories |
Weighted Average/Override |
Select Grade Scale |
Set Up Grading Parameters
"G" in Date Column |
Due
Date/Skipped/Overdue Activities
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 | Category Names. Determine the Category Names that
you will use in the Set Up Categories tab. Base them on the categories you use
in your own course outline. Abbreviate the category names so
they will fit in the Category Name boxes. If you have a specific breakdown for the
individual grades for specific timed writing speeds, you will
need them later to assign timed writing grades.
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| Category Weights. The Category Weights
represent the individual weights you assign to each
category. For example, timed writings are worth 50% of the final
grade and are therefore assigned a weight of 50%. All
your category weights must add up to 100%, so you might need to
adjust your grading standards accordingly to make the gradebook
work for your standards. |
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| Weighted Average. To further breakdown your grades,
enter a percentage in the Keystrokes Grade and Format Grade columns.
The Wt. Avg. (Weighted Average) column in the
Portfolio will weight the Text Grade and Format Grade
according to the % of Current Weight you enter, average
the two grades based on the assigned weights, and place a
Weighted Average grade in the Wt. Avg. column of the
Portfolio.
Note: If you enter 0% or 100% for Keystrokes Grade
or Format Grade, a weighted average of these two grades
does not apply. Instead, whatever grade is earned or assigned
for either Keystrokes or Format will go directly
to the Wt. Avg. column of the Portfolio.
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| Keystrokes Grade (Text Grade in Portfolio). The Keystrokes Grade
is assigned based on an error tolerance (a range of errors) for typographical errors as reported by GDP in the scored copy
for any document processing job. If you want to use a keystrokes
grade, enter any percentage other than 0% in the
Keystrokes Grade column. GDP will automatically enter a
Text score in the Grade Column of the Portfolio for
any document you have designated as Graded and Required
in Set Up Grading Parameters based on the number of
errors in the scored copy for that document as compared to the
error tolerance you enter in Set Up Grading Parameters,
Errors box, for that document or based on the
due date if the document is late. For example, if the error
tolerance is set to 4 and the student has 5 errors, the Text
Grade in the Portfolio Grade column will be 0%. However, if
the student is within the error tolerance and has 0-4 errors,
GDP will assign a grade based on the completion time you enter
in Set Up Grading Parameters for that document. For
example, if you entered 12 minutes as the completion time for an
A, GDP would assign a text grade of whatever percentage you have
set as the value for an A in the Select Grade Scale tab,
Minimum Value box. However, if the document is submitted
late, GDP will automatically enter a score of 0% in the Grade
and Weighted Average Columns of the Portfolio.
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| Format Grade (Format Grade in Portfolio). The Format Grade
represents a grade you manually assign to a document
based on formatting. If you choose to use this category, enter
any percentage other than 0% in the Format Grade column. Later,
you must manually assign a grade to each document in that
student's portfolio by selecting that document and clicking the
Enter Grades button.
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| End of Term Date. The End of term
date is very important as it will become the default
due
date later in the Set Up Grading Parameters page.
Overdue activities are automatically
assigned a grade of 0, so this date is important, although it
can be overridden. You
can also go into the Gradebook and change due dates during the
semester as desired.
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| Assign Exercises to This Category—Yes. If you
have exercises or activities you know you will assign to this
grade category click Yes under Assign Exercises to This Category.
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| Assign Exercises to This Category—No. If you have a
category for work that will not be automatically graded
by GDP such as attendance, objective tests, extra credit, deductions, etc.,
click No under Assign Exercises to This Category.
To enter grades for this category, go to the List of Students
page; in the Select a Report box, click Class Summary
Report; check the checkbox next to the desired student;
click Enter Additional Grades and enter the desired
grades.
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| Document Grades. If you prefer to
assign one bottom line grade to a document based on correct
keystrokes (accuracy), format, and/or completion time rather
than using GDP's approach of a weighted average based on a
combination of two separate grades (keystrokes and format),
enter the percentages shown in Keystrokes Grade and
Format Grade columns in the Set Up Categories
screen shot above. Later use the Override Weighted Average
feature in the Portfolio to assign a grade manually and override
GDP's automatic calculations. See the example for timed writings
below.
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| Timed Writing Grade. If you prefer to
wait until the end of the semester to select the best timed
writing(s)
for that student and assign a grade in the category of Timed
Writings, create a special category for these
timings--perhaps name it Final Timed Writings.
Go the Portfolio and
use the
filter Exercise Types--Timed Writings and Only include exercises used to compute course grade.
Click the undesirable timings one by one and click Exclude
This Exercise. Then, click the one (or more) desired timed
writings, click Override Weighted Average, and enter the
desired grade based on your timed writing scale. If you prefer,
you can set the Minimum WPM and error counts for these
timings and let GDP take over assigning grades. |
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The timing in this example was
measured at 41 wpm, was assigned a text grade of 87 by GDP,
and was then assigned an override grade of 100% based
on the breakdown shown in Zimmerly's grading scale at the right. |
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| Even if you use letter grades in your course,
you need to fill in a numeric equivalent here and enter your
grades as numbers when assigning grades. GDP will convert the
number grades to letter grades later in its final computations.
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| Note: Once you start assigning grades,
you cannot change the values here, so take great care. Also, if
you click the Clear All button, the entire gradebook is
reset to its defaults and you will have to start your entire
gradebook over again. |
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| All the Category Names and
Category Weights you assigned in Set Up Categories
appear in Set Up Grading Parameters as well as the
default due date in the Set All Dues Dates box and Due
Date column, which corresponds to the End of Term
date entered in Set Up Categories.
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| Apply a Lesson Filter and Exercise
Filter to display the desired activities and documents. When
you click a radio button to assign a document or activity to a
category, the Graded and Required boxes become
active as well as the calendar for a Due Date and the
Completion Time and Errors box if applicable. All of
these can be changed as desired.
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| Note: If you plan to use the
Override Weighted Average
feature and just assign one grade based on keystroke
accuracy and format and completion times (for tests only), you
can ignore the Completion Time (minutes) box and
Errors box. You would then ignore the grades reported in the
Portfolio in the Grade column for Text and Format and would look
only at the Wt. Avg. column after you have overridden it and
entered a grade manually. |
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| In the example for Correspondence 25-1 below,
the "G" in the Date column next to the first exercise
means that the Weighted Average of 100% will be used in
the Grade Computation for the Category: Daily DP Jobs and the
Weighted Average of 0% for the first attempt below it will be ignored. In this
example, the Text grade of
100 means that the students had zero typos on that document. Format
appears as NA because 0% was assigned to the Format
Grade column in Set Up Categories.
Note: Remember that GDP scores a trailing space after a
line in an inside address or after the ending punctuation at the
end of a paragraph, for example, as an error. Most teachers
don't consider this trailing space as an error, so you might
need to override the text grade and weighted average.
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Note: Even if the student has attempted a document more than once,
if the "G" is not listed in the date column, you do not have to
use the Exclude This Exercise button. The other attempt
will not affect the grade calculations in any way.
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| Assuming the student made some formatting errors and you
want the Weighted Avg grade to reflect that, click the
checkbox next to the first document with the "G" in the date
column. The Override Weighted Average button will become
active.
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| Click Override Weighted Average and enter the desired grade in the
Grade
Override box. The new grade will then show up in the Portfolio
and be reflected in the Course Grade average and the Grade
listed in the Detailed Report. This new grade would be averaged
in with the grades for all other documents in that Category and
be reflected in the final Course Grade in the Class Summary
Report for that student. |
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| If an activity is designated as Required,
the due date has passed, and the activity was never submitted or
was submitted late, a
grade of 0% will be calculated for that assignment in that
Category. For example, if a student only completes 8
out of 10 required activities for a given grading category and
the 8 assignments were completed with a grade of 100%, the
student will be assigned 80% credit for that category.
Note: You can go into the Gradebook and change due dates
during the semester as desired.
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| From the Student Portfolio, from the
Select a report: drop-down list, click Required Exercises
List. This Required Exercises List is available only in
Instructor Management. Students do not have this feature in
their Portfolio. You can click the Export Report Data
button to create a csv file that can be opened in Excel, or you
can click Print to print the Required Exercises List
and distribute it to students.The buttons are found at the
bottom of the Required Exercise List.
In the example below, you can see that
Correspondence 31-3 was submitted late and even though it had 0
typographical errors, GDP will automatically enter a score of 0% in the
Grade and Weighted Average Columns of the
Portfolio. |
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