Lesson 2: Adding Assignments and Scores
The most time consuming task in the grading process is that of adding assignments and scores. Easy Grade Pro provides many tools to make this task easy and fast. In this lesson, you'll be introduced to some of these tools. To begin this lesson, the Demo Gradebook must be open and the score chart must be visible.
- Using the Class menu, move to Quarter 2: Science-1. You’ll know that you are in this class when its title is visible on the tool bar. Be sure you are viewing the score chart. If necessary, click the Score tab or choose Score from the Chart menu.
- To prepare for the entering of scores, click the small triangle below-left of the first tab so that the triangle points downwards. The triangle (circled below) shows and hides a row of grades and special scores.
Click on the triangle (circled above) to show the row of grades and special scores below the tools.
- Click the Add Assignment button visible after the last assignment or choose Add Assignment from the Tool menu. After clicking, the Records window will open to an empty assignment record.
The Records window is used to add assignments, students and classes to a gradebook.
- In the Name field, type Star Lab.
- Press tab to move to the Max. Score field. Type 25.
- Press tab to move to the Points field. Type 100. For a detailed explanation of maximum score and points, see FAQ: What are maximum score and points? How should I set them?
- Set the due date of the assignment by clicking on the calendar. The date is used by Easy Grade Pro when sorting, using filters to show or hide certain assignments and when producing graphs.
- Press on the Category menu and select Classwork. The category is used when sorting assignments, in filters, graphs, summaries, reports and in grading if you have category weighting turned on. You can view, edit and create score categories in the Class Options window but you’ll see this later.
- Click the Done button. You should be viewing the score chart again. The first score cell under the new assignment’s title should have the flashing cursor in it. If not, click on the first empty box under the Star Lab assignment.
- Now it’s time to enter scores. Just to make things interesting, you’ll enter scores in several different ways. Follow the directions below to enter the first four scores. If you make a mistake, simply click on the score cell with the error and try again.
Student #1: Type the number 25 and press enter.
Student #2: Click on the B grade on the tool bar. Do not press the enter key because the next cell is automatically selected after clicking. You can set up the grades that appear on the tool bar. In fact, you can have a different set of grades for each student and for each category.
Student #3: Press the letter m. This enters a score of mi for missing. You can customize up to thirty special scores and give them any meaning you wish. Notice that the score turns red. Ms. Demo has set things up so that all failing scores are displayed in red.
Student #4: Type the number 25. Do not press enter. Now click the Fill Down tool
on the tool bar. Notice that 25 is repeated all the way down.
- Click the Undo tool
on the tool bar or choose Undo from the Edit menu to prepare for the next step. Notice that the score of 25 is removed from the students. Undo is nearly always available to reverse the last action.
- Select the seven blank score cells by pressing on the first and dragging to the last. Release the mouse. The seven score cells should be highlighted as shown below.
Press on A and drag down to B to highlight the score cells.
- Click on the A+ grade on the tool bar. A score of 25 is entered for each student. Try clicking on other grades and special scores on the tool bar.
Ms. Demo has decided to begin assessing her students based on her school district’s educational standards. She also has decided to ease into standards-based grading by focusing just on science at first. If you are interested in learning about Easy Grade Pro’s standards-based grading tools, proceed with the next set of steps. Otherwise, skip ahead to step 19.
- Click on the Standard tab or choose Standard from the Chart menu.
You should be viewing the Standard chart in the class Quarter 2-Science-1. Notice that there is a second tool bar with tabs labeled 1-Assign. and 1-Student. Below these is a menu with the name of an assignment. To the right, are three tools. Make sure that the 1-Assign. tab is selected.
- Press on the menu and choose 11. Star Lab. Or click on the Next Item tool
until the menu displays 11. Star Lab (shown above). Note that the Star Lab assignment will appear in the first column to the right.
With Easy Grade Pro’s standards-based grading features, every assignment can have up to ten standards linked to it for independent scoring. These standards can be very diverse from having to do with spelling, completion, effort, skills and knowledge. Summaries of performance on standards can be viewed and printed that are independent of any specific assignment. In the next step, you’ll select three knowledge standards that correlate to the Star Lab activity.
- Press on the Standards tool
and, from the menu that pops up, select the following standards: ES1.4A, ES1.4B and ES1.4C. You’ll know that you’ve selected them if they appear in the columns to the right of the Star Lab column as shown below.
Ms. Demo did not need to type these standards into Easy Grade Pro. In fact, she easily imported them into this class from special plug-in files.
At the top of each standard column is the standard’s ID -- a unique identifier for the standard. Below this is the standard’s text and a number that represents the value of the highest rubric label. Ms. Demo set up a single rubric as follows: Exceeds Standard (4.0), Meets Standard (3.0), Approaching Standard (2.0) and Below Standard (1.0). If she had wanted to, she could have set up multiple rubrics for her standards.
Notice the blue color behind the standard text. This color indicates the level of the standard. In Easy Grade Pro, standards can be at three levels. By default, these levels are Standard, Strand and Indicator but these labels and colors can be changed.
Notice that the scores entered in steps 10 through 13 are present in the Star Lab assignment column. These scores could just have easily been entered in this chart instead of in the Score chart.
- Click on the first score cell under the ES1.4A column. Notice that the grade clicks bar displays the rubric labels. Enter scores on all three standards using the same techniques taught in steps 10 through 13.
- When done entering the scores, click the Score tab or choose Score from the Chart menu.
Recall that Ms. Demo teaches two science classes and both have the same assignments. It is easy to copy assignments from one class to another. In the next few steps, you’ll do just that.
- Using the Class menu on the tool bar, move to Quarter 2: Science-2.
- Click on the Copy Class Data tool
or choose Copy->Assignments... from the Tool menu. The Copy Class Data window will open. The Copy window can be used to copy assignments, students, options and other class data. It can copy several items together and copy them to several classes at the same
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- First click on the Assign. tab at the top. In the top-left list, click on Quarter 2: Science-1. In the bottom-left list, click on Quarter 2: Science-2. In the right-hand list, click on Star Lab. Finally, click Copy. The assignment will be copied from Science-1 to Science-2. After the window closes, the first score cell for the new assignment will be selected, ready for you to enter scores.
The rest of this lesson will focus on entering scores for the copied assignment. You’ll use a very powerful tool that allows you to easily enter scores from a mixed stack of papers. Since you don’t actually have the student papers, you’ll simply pretend.
- Click on the Find tool
on the tool bar or choose Find from the Tool menu. The Find window will open.
- Select Use Continuous Search Mode. Then click Exit -- you must close the Find window. The continuous search mode causes Easy Grade Pro to return to the Find window after every score is entered. This means that whenever the enter key is pressed, or whenever a grade is clicked on the tool bar, the Find window will reopen automatically.
- In the score chart, select the first score cell for the Star Lab assignment. This score cell is for Kelly Armstrong.
- You will be pretending to enter scores directly from student papers. Follow these steps:
Paper #1: In Kelly Armstrong’s score cell, type 25 and press enter. The Find window will reopen.
Paper #2: The next paper belongs to Josef Talbo. In the Find window, type the letter T and notice that Easy Grade Pro completes it with ‘Talbo, Josef’. Press enter. Now click Sat on the tool bar. The Find window reopens.
Paper #3: Tad Nguyen earned a 20. Type an N in the Find window and press enter. Type a 20 and press enter again.
Paper #4: Justin Bronin earned an 18. Type the letter B and notice that Easy Grade Pro completes it with ‘Benjamin, Atunde’. Type the letter R and notice that Easy Grade Pro completes it with ‘Bronin, Justin’. Press enter. Type his score.
Go ahead and finish the remaining scores on your own -- just make them up! When you are done, be sure to deselect the Use Continuous Search Mode box so the Find window will stop reappearing. By the way, the Find window and the continuous search mode work in all of Easy Grade Pro’s charts: score, attendance, seat, student, assignment and standard.