Visual Grade Representation and Assignment Checklist

Two issues often frustrate instructors and contribute to a significant drop in students’ grades.  First, students frequently fail to comprehend the importance an assignment contributes to their final grade and their lack of attention or concern contributes to severely undermining their grade.  Second, students commonly forget to accomplish all of their assignments.  The zero for missing an assignment tanks their grade. 

Instead of being frustrated and accepting that they these are inevitable failings of students, perhaps they are not.  Could the design of our courses be altered to offer scaffolds to assist in reducing the above cases? 

 

Fortunately, there is an OER tool that can provide scaffolds to improve student success.  The Visual Grade Representation and Assignment Checklist is a simple tool that can both better illustrate the ‘weight’ an assignment bears on a final grade as well as assist student planning to ensure they submit all their assignments on time.

 

First, the Visual Grade Representation and Assignment Checklist provides a graphical depiction of the grading. A pie chart shows how much each category contributes to the final grade.  The chart can easily be edited in MS Word and, as an instructor, you can change the type of graph, if it better illustrates the relationship. Simply Right-click and select “edit the data”.  This alternate representation provides another organization method to guide students understanding and their application of meta-strategies.

 

Second, below the pie-chart is a checklist. It reminds students of; which assignments belong to which category, when each assignment is due, the how much it may contribute to the final grade, and a space for students to mark-off completed assignments.  Color coding assists the association of assignments and categories with the above graph while labels ensure color-blind students will not be left behind.  Students can print out the checklist and use it to guide expectations and promote attitudes that help optimize motivation.  This also increases their length on task orientation, which is in line with the Principle of Engagement in the Theory of Universal Design for Learning.

A tool that helps your students succeed and reduces time you spend on reminding students about missed assignments is something every good instructor wants. How much would your pay for this incredible tool?  It doesn’t matter – it is free.  Feel free to download the tool and let’s start improving our student success rates today - https://tinyurl.com/VGRAC

NOTE: If you edit the file in Word and save it as a PDF, the page will be seen inline for all LMSs. You can also encourage students to print out the page and physically mark off assignments when they are submitted.  This act helps reinforce their memory of the remaining assignments.