Initial Gradebook Setup and Configuration
These are the things you should check in your Gradebook to make sure everything is set up right. See Navigating the Canvas Gradebook for more information, particularly on where to find certain tabs/menus.
Note that when you enter the Gradebook, the course navigation menu will disappear. You can show the course navigation menu again by clicking the three horizontal lines in the upper-left corner
Click the settings cogwheel in the upper-right corner to open the Gradebook Settings
Select View Options
Select/Check the box for Notes. Unselect the other three boxes.
Click the box with the heading "Arrange By".
Select Due Date- Newest to Oldest
Click Apply Settings
You can show the short notes about students can be seen in this Notes column at the front of the Gradebook. Students cannot see these notes. Any student with below 70% in the course must have a note diagnosing why the student is in danger of failing.
Each set of notes should briefly detail the reasons a student is failing. These notes should be updated periodically to reflect the student's most recent efforts and trends. A good time to update would be in the first few weeks of a new grading period. Click into the notes space for the appropriate student. Then, after updating, click SAVE.
*Note- updates here do overwrite previous notes entries.
Total Display is the representation of the current average for the selected grading period. It should ALWAYS be displayed at the front of your gradebook.
To trigger this display, scroll to the far right of your Gradebook entries and find the Total column, by default, it will be the last entry on the far right.
Click the 3 vertical dots to activate a drop-down menu, then select Move to Front
At the front of the Gradebook, you should now see your students' names, total grades, and the teacher's notes.
Click for an Iorad guide of the above steps
Assignment Categories
In the far right of the gradebook, you'll see columns that list percentages underneath. These are your assignment categories. They should:
- Add up to 100%.
- Never have a column worth 0%.
- Have category weights that align with what your school district wants. The district One-Sheet that Data Specialist should provide is supposed to have this information. Check in with your TLS if you believe this information to be in conflict with what the school may have indicated to you.
*Note- if you have not configured your Attendance section properly so that it does NOT count attendance toward the final grade, you will unintentionally create a new Assignment Category default named "assignments" with a 0% weight. This will distort your Canvas grade calculations and display inaccurate averages for your students.
Please click here to understand and configure Roll Call Attendance
Below are two examples of incorrectly set up categories. They can be fixed in the Assignments tab.
Grading Periods
You can tell whether or not you have grading periods by checking the Apply Filters menu. If it's not there, then you don't have grading periods currently attached to your course.
When your course is initially set up for Grading Periods, it's important to toggle those on. This will help with keeping an eye on your class (See the next point on the checklist). Typically these are set up during the first grading period of the school year unless the school joined PLI services after that initial start.
If your course does not have Grading Periods set up to select, please feel free to send in a PLI Support Ticket to request that be added. Solutions will confirm with the Data Team as to the correct exact dates and get them loaded as soon as possible.
Due dates
As you start to pace out and assign your assignments, make sure to add due dates to them. Adding due dates will make your assigned items appear in the Gradebook as gradable entries. If an assigned item does not have a due date, it will not appear in your Gradebook nor will it be calculated toward the current Grading Period averages.
Note-If you find that you have given a due date but still do not see the assigned item in your Gradebook, check to make sure the assigned date falls within one of the Grading Period time frames. This can make it seem like assigned items have disappeared if an assigned date falls outside of the current grading period, even if just by a single day.
For example: Using the example dates below, if an assigned item was given a due date of 11/4, it would land in Q2 and NOT in Q1.
Setting up Late Submission policies
*Unless otherwise specified by the client school, this section is entirely optional.
When setting up this section, please remember that one of our primary goals is for our students to have many opportunities to be successful and demonstrate their understanding/mastery of knowledge and skills. For some, this might mean not penalizing late work.
To set up the gradebook to account for late submissions you will first need to click on the GRADES tab in your Canvas course.
Then click the Settings wheel in the upper-right-hand side of your Gradebook.
This will generate a pop-up window with this view below. Here you may check to have missing submissions automatically scored a particular score like a 0, 10, 50, 70, or any other value the school might dictate or that you might deem reasonable. You would need to check the box and select a value for this feature.
*Reminder- We are obligated to defer to the client school's policies here, even if our own preferences as teachers differ. Some schools do not allow certain grades like zeros for late or missing work.
*Note- this will automatically score assignments that pass the due date without submissions. But this is a one-time function. Setting a different number after the fact will not apply a change. All changes beyond that initial automatic scoring will have to be made by hand in the Gradebook view itself.
After that, you may also choose to set an automatic deduction of points to be applied for work submitted late. These deductions will appear in the Speed Grader view of submissions and a metric for how late the assignment was submitted is displayed.
Check the box for applying deductions. Then you may set how many points and specify for what time interval (ex: 10% points deducted for each 1 day late). You may also set a bottom threshold for the lowest score allowed given these deductions. As discussed previously, auto deductions will take place but any changes after the fact will have to be made by hand in the Gradebook view.
*Reminder- We are obligated to defer to the client school's policies here, even if our own preferences as teachers differ. Some schools do not permit the deduction of points for tardiness in submissions.
Lastly, be sure to select APPLY SETTINGS at the bottom and then click (X) to close that display.
Click here to understand and configure Roll Call Attendance
Click here for an explanation of Attendance Procedures
Click here for an ioRad Explanation of Late Submission Setup