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CGHS Instructor Resources (Canvas)

Grading

CGHS requires instructors to post all student grades within 96 hours of the due date. All assignments and final discussion forum posts are due on Sunday of each week, therefore all grades should be in the Gradebook by 11:59 pm the following Thursday. This includes:

  • comments designed to enhance learning,
  • feedback on all papers and subjective learning assessments,
  • feedback to students in discussion forums,
  • a 0 for all assignments not submitted, and
  • final course grades within 96 hours of the last day of the term.

Grading is an important form of two-way communication. Quality, summative feedback on assessments is critical to the students' learning process.

Please do not change, remove, or hide columns in the Grade Book. If there is a grade column missing or if anything in the Grades is incorrect, please contact cghsdesigers@atsu.edu immediately.

In addition, do not delete any student submissions. Students have the ability to resubmit, so it is their responsibility to submit the correct assessment.

As you are teaching your course, please put a 0 in the Grade Book for any assignments that were not submitted by a student. This allows students to see a more accurate representation of their grades, and allows the Academic Advisors to know which students are at risk of failing the course. Faculty may not excuse any grades or excuse students from completing assessments.

Final Grades

Your Academic Advisor will email the official course grade sheet to you before the end of the term. This grade sheet must be completed and returned to the Academic Advisor within 96 hours of the end of the term.

Only letter grades will be entered on the grade sheet. CGHS assigns letter grades of A, B, C, and F - there is no D and no plus or minus values. The grading scale is found in every syllabus. The grade sheet letter grades MUST be a direct conversion of the numeric grade in Canvas; the submitted grades and the online Grade Book must match exactly. Note that CGHS does not round to the nearest whole number when figuring the numerical final grade. If a student earns 89.76 points, that student will receive a B for the course.

The names of students who have withdrawn from the course will be listed on the grade sheet with the WE or W designation in the grade column. You do not need to do anything for those students.

Incomplete Grades

A student may request an "Incomplete" grade designation for a course if the situation meets the following criteria:

  • Student is unable to complete coursework due to a circumstance beyond the student's control,
  • The "Incomplete" was requested by the student prior to the last day of the course,
  • Student has completed at least 60% of the work in the course,
  • Student attended the course at least 14 days prior to the end of the last day of the course, and
  • The student's grade must be 70% or above at the time the "Incomplete" is requested.

As the instructor, you must list the work to be done, the date by which this work must be completed, and any other terms of completion to remove the "Incomplete" and send that information to the student via the Messages tool within the course. If you approve the "Incomplete," enter an "I" on the grade sheet and submit it as usual. Contact your Academic Advisor for additional information and assistance in dealing with requests for an "Incomplete" in your course.

Fourteen days after the end of the term, the "Incomplete" must be changed to a letter grade. Please contact your AA for steps to handle those courses.

When you receive the work from the student and you've graded it, you must complete a Change of Grade Request form, which you may obtain from your Academic Advisor. The completed form is faxed or scanned and emailed to the Academic Advisor. If the work is not completed, the missing work is given a "0," and the student receives the letter grade for the points shown in the Grade Book.

Giving Feedback

When grading assignments, summative feedback is important for students. It is a form of dialogue with students to help guide them to improved writing. You may find the following general guidelines helpful in providing feedback on written work.

  1. Focus on the task, not the learner. You wish to establish a climate of trust and respect, and if a student's self-esteem is threatened, that relationship will not occur. For instance:
    "Research for this assignment should be based on peer-reviewed sources; this draft is based largely on unsubstantiated web sources" is less harsh than "You have failed to use peer-reviewed sources."
     
  2. When possible, try to link feedback to goals and performance. Rubrics can help provide this focus.
    "One of the goals of this assignment was to evaluate the viability of the solutions presented (see the third point of the rubric). I don't recognize the evaluations in this paper" is better than "There is no analysis of solutions."
     
  3. Focus on content. Surface errors (grammar, spelling, punctuation) can be distracting, lead to ambiguity, and leave the writer open to criticism. While some assessments need to focus on surface errors, most feedback should also give attention to critical thinking, content, and writing style.
     
  4. Model good writing and refrain from unprofessional and disrespectful responses (condescension, sarcasm, lack of seriousness).
     
  5. Provide an overall summary of the paper and its strengths and weaknesses. Simply marking errors and plugging numbers into a rubric is not enough.
     
  6. Encourage the student to think critically ... ask questions about missing conclusions or the route to conclusions; point out missing relationships; pose possibilities; ask for clarifications of statements, ideas or logic; summarize what you take away from the document.

Feedback is an integral part of the learning process and -- as instructors -- we need to consciously continue to develop our skills in providing it.