Adding Classes to a Gradebook
In Easy Grade Pro, a class is a collection of students and their data for a single subject in a single term. A subject might be Reading, Math, Physics I or Art History. A term might be Quarter 1, Semester 2 or even Final Exam.
It is generally best to have a one-to-one correspondence between the classes that you teach and the classes in your gradebook. If you teach five subjects this term, you probably should have five classes in the current term of your gradebook. If you teach multiple sections of the same class (i.e. three sections of Earth Science), there generally is no benefit to combining the sections into a single class. Easy Grade Pro makes it easy to switch from one class to another and to copy assignments and options from one class to others. By keeping your classes separate, you will be able to view summaries of each making it easy to make comparisons. If you are an elementary teacher with multiple reading (or math) groups from your main group of students, you can choose to have all groups in a single class or break them into separate classes. Easy Grade Pro can handle either setup well.
If you have just created a new gradebook, one without classes, a window will automatically appear (shown below) directing you to add classes.
Obviously, a gradebook without classes is not very usable so it is a good idea to click the Add Classes button. Here are some general guidelines about adding classes to a gradebook:
- Add a class to the gradebook for each class you teach in your current term only.
- Do not add classes for future terms; it is best to add them later.
To add a class:
- If your gradebook has no classes, click the Add Classes button. Otherwise, choose Add Class from the Tool menu. In either case, the Records window will open (shown below) to an empty class record.
- Type the name of the class in the Class/Subject Name field and press tab. Be sure to use a unique name for the class. Examples include Math, Reading, English(1), English(2), etc. Do not include a term name with the name of the class.
- (Optional) Edit the Class Weight and press tab. It’s not likely that you’ll ever need to change the class weight. It is used only in the multi-class progress report and the multi-class gradesheet report when a student’s weighted average or GPA for several classes is calculated. In most cases it should be left at 1.00. If you have a class that is worth half of a normal class, set the class weight to 0.50 and so on.
- Edit the Term Labels in the column on the left so that they match the term labels used by your school. You can use First 6 Weeks, Quarter 1, Semester 2, etc. If you will give a final exam that must be weighted, then you must add the final exam as a term. Changes made to these labels will apply to all classes so you won’t have to change them again in the gradebook.
- Select the current term for the class by clicking in the box to the right of your current term’s label. A check or ‘x’ will appear. You must select at least one term and you may select more. We recommend that you select your current term only. Later on, when you are ready to begin the next term, you can add a new term.
- (Optional) Edit the Custom Labels and enter Custom Data. These eight custom fields are very important to some users of Easy Grade Pro but are not used by most. They are used to hold course number, section number, teacher name and other course-specific data. These values are critical if you will be importing your student rosters from school administration software and exporting grades. These are also used when uploading internet reports to Edline or Basmati. Generally, you won’t use them unless your school instructs you to do so.
- (Optional) To add more classes, click the Next Class button. Then repeat steps 2 through 6.
- Click Done to close the Records window. To switch to the different classes, use the Class menu or the Prior Class
and Next Class 
tools.