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Tip #1: What's the best way to handle late homework assignments?

The new user interface allows you to assign only one grade per topic, which means that if a student submits more than one late assignment to a "Late Homework" topic, you will not be able to grade each of these assignments separately.

Solution: Extend the closing dates for assignments to allow students to submit late work.

Assignment topics allow you to set both a due date (deadline) and a separate — and later — closing date. Keep in mind that this functionality is based on the assumption that students submit their homework by creating posts and not by creating comments.

  • If you choose to extend the closing dates beyond the deadline for the assignment, students can still make comments on one another's work after the deadline, which allows time for peer review and discussion.
  • Any student posts made after the deadline and before the closing date will be clearly marked as "Late."

If you allow students to submit late homework, you can extend the closing date for an assignment to allow them however much leeway you feel is appropriate.

  • If you routinely accept late work — or if your students frequently submit revisions to their homework — you might choose to extend the closing dates for all your assignments to allow students an additional week or two.
  • If you accept late work only under limited circumstances, you can extend the closing date for assignments on a case-by-case basis.

This approach has a couple of advantages: first, any work that comes in late is clearly marked, so it's easy to tell who got their work in on time and who didn't. Second, the student's work, your critique, and the assignment grade are all in one place.

  

Late posts are clearly marked.

Tip #2: Do you want to review an assignment for your whole class at once?
 

  1. Set the default view for the assignment you want to grade to "List" by editing the assignment topic. (Do this from the Global Topics page for global topics or from the Current Topics page for course topics.)
     
  2. Open the assignment topic and enter the grading interface by clicking the blue "Grade Topic" button.
     
  3. Scroll down to the bottom of the grades page.
    (lightbulb) TIP: In most browsers, you can jump to the bottom of the page in a snap: just hold down the Control or Command key and click the down-arrow to zip down to the end of the page. This same trick (using the up-arrow) also works for taking you quickly to the top of the page!

  4. Then click the edit link for each student, moving upward as you go. When you reach the top of the page, the grading node will be open for every student.



  5. Now you can work down the page to review, critique, and grade each student in turn.

Tip #3: Do you want to see grades for all the assignments in a class?
 

1. Go to the main grades page, which can be accessed from your Home page or your Portal.

 
2. Open the Grade Detail page to see complete grade information for any student.

 
3. From here you can review, edit or enter grades for any of the assignments in this class. You can also see official grades, as well as test results, for the selected student.

Tip #4: Is it important to you to grade an assignment in the order the work was submitted?
 

  1. Set the default layout for the assignment to "List." This makes for the most efficient grading.
     
  2. Click on the blue Grade Topic button to open the assignment grading interface in a separate tab. (Right-click on the button, if you want to open the grading interface in a new browser window.)
     
  3. Return to the all posts page and select the grid view. Sort all the posts by date (chronological).
     
  4. Find the name of the student who submitted Post #1.
    (lightbulb) TIP:     When a student edits a post, it changes the date used in the chronological sort. However, the number of the post will always reflect the original order in which work was submitted.



  5. Switch to the grading interface, and click the edit link next to that student’s name.
     
  6. When you finish grading and critiquing this student's assignment, go back to the other tab/window to find Post #2… etc.

OO

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1 Comment

  1. Craig Kupka

    This was cool.  Thanks for posting Jenny!