How To Grade in MOODLE PHASE ONE: ENTERING IN THE GRADES In MOODLE there are several steps that are needed in order for you to grade your assignments: Step1: When creating your assignment or forum, you need to select the grading option (typically the highest point value possible for that assignment)that you will be using. This is found in the set-up screen for each activity. Though this is slightly different depending on the type of activity, normally the grading option is directly under the textbox where you can articulate your assignment.

Step 2: Once you have set the activity up to be graded, if it is an assignment, in the upper right hand corner there is a blue link that states View (# Here) Submitted Assignments. Click on this link, when you are ready to grade.

Step 3 (For an assignment): This will show you a window that looks something like this:

STEP 3 (For a forum): Once you have told the forum how you want to grade it (remember we suggest using a 1-4 scale to represent the rubric you have named in your assignment), when you click on the discussion you are interested in grading, in the bottom right hand corner there will be a drop down box that allows you to grade each post.

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT SEE THE GRADE AND COMMENT COLUMN SEEN HERE, GO TO THE BOTTOM LEFT HAND CORNER AND CLICK ON THE ALLOW QUICK GRADING OPTION, FINALLY HITTING SAVE PREFERENCES. AFTER ADDING EVALUATIONS, DO NOT FORGET TO HIT SAVE ALL FEEDBACK BEFORE LEAVING THE PAGE.

These grades will not be added to the grade book if: 1. You do not hit the “Send to Grade book” gray button at the bottom of the page. 2. You decide to reply to a student before sending the evaluation to the grade book.

PHASE TWO: MAKING YOUR GRADE BOOK WORK FOR YOU As is very clear throughout MOODLE, the more options given, the more complicated it can seem. Therefore, some of you may decide to leave the grade book in its simplest form. That is fine, as only you see your grade book. However, for the more adventurous, a little bit of set up could save you time in the long run. THE SIMPLE GRADE BOOK This is a version of the grade book in its simplest form. You can see all assignments/ forums, the total grade, and the grade you have given for each student. If you only use numbers it will also give you the total percent, which for various reasons does not typically show the whole picture. (Mainly because once an assignment is added to course, it appears in the grade book and is added into the final total at the end. Therefore typically students will have low overall percents, because they have only been graded on a portion of the total points. There are fixes for this, but you have to use the advanced features).

THE ADVANCED FEATURE If you would like to:

1. Create categories in your grade book (this can be useful when trying use the grade book to support your midterm and final evaluations).

2. Hide the pts from weeks/ assignments you have not graded yet. (There are other tricks like excluding (or excusing) a student from an assignment, dropping the lowest score for a certain group, or weighting grades.)

If you are using groups, make sure this is set on All participants.

STEP ONE: Using the advanced format To do this: First select the Set Preferences tab at the top of the simple grade book. Then select Use Advanced Features. Afterward, you should see something like this:

NOTE THAT ALL THE ASSIGNMENTS HAVE “DISAPPEARED” AND ARE NOW UNDER THE UNCATEGORIZED LINK. IN THIS FORMAT, YOU MUST CATEGORIZE YOUR ASSIGNMENTS. STEP TWO: CATEGORIZING YOUR ACTIVITY To categorize your assignments:

1. Click on your Set Categories tab. 2. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and type in the category name, hitting Add Category to save

it. 3. Use the drop down box to assign an activity to a category. 4. Click on the Save Changes at the bottom of the page. 5. After you have graded work or created work, you will need to go back into the

grade book and give each activity a category.

This window is the window where you give each activity a category.

Once you have categorized your grade book it will look like this:

Note 1:To see all of the assignments in a category you simply click on the category name.

STEP THREE: Hiding the uncategorized (upgraded) points for the overall total or dropping the grades from the extension assignments not completed

1. Click on the Set Weights tab. 2. Adjust the weights for each category, so that it all adds up to 100. 3. Click on the Hidden option, for the Hidden/Uncategorized group, which every group you have

used to group your un-graded work. (Make sure you have not given this grouping any weight.) 4. Decide how many activities you would like to drop under each category. Then type in that number

in the Drop X Lowest column next to that activity.