Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Vicki Dunnam -
Number of replies: 7

Right now, if a course has a total of 1000 points for the course - the students cannot see where they are in the course until the end of the course.

Is there a way to have total points earned and total points available to earn to date.  Example.  After week 2 - students may have a chance to earn 400 points.  A student should be able to see they earned example 350 points out of a total 400 points at that point in the course.  Right now it would show 350 points from 1000 which gives 35% where really their grade is 350 points out of 400 points possible which is 87.5%. 

I am using Moodle 1.9.2. 

I have tried adding columns to the gradebook but the problem is finding a way for the computer to automatically change the points to date amount.  After each week or assignment/quiz, the total points to date would change. For example week 2 could be a possible of 400 points but week 3 - possible points to date could be 450 etc.  How do you track it so the students sees an actual grade at that point in the semester? 

In reply to Vicki Dunnam

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Bryce Bernard -

Vicki,

We have done the following to accomplish what I think you are asking for.

You need to change the aggregation method to Simple Weighted Mean of grades (not sum of grades) and check the "Aggregate only non-empty grades".  When you do this the grade book total will only include columns with a grade entry. (teachers will have to issue a "0" and not leave it blank if a student earns a "0").

If you have categories in your class you will need to set the class total to weighted mean of grades and each category to simple weighted.  If you lose your totals you know you missed a category.

Hope this helps.

Bryce

In reply to Bryce Bernard

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Vicki Dunnam -
I am not sure how that will work but I will test it.  I want the sum of points instead of a weighted grade.  Thanks for the idea.  I will test it and see if I get the results I need.  Could I create a column and do a simple weighted on that column but leave the rest sum of grades? 
In reply to Bryce Bernard

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Vicki Dunnam -

Another question. See below examples of "total" possible points to earn

quiz 1 - 45 points
quiz 2 - 15 points
quiz 3 - 15 points
assign1 - 20 points
assign2-  20 points

Total     115 points possible to earn

Grades given:

quiz1 - 40 points
quiz2 - 10 points
quiz3 - 12 points
assign1- 18 points
assign2 - 15 points

Total  95 points earned from grades

I know how to get the 95 points in the gradebook.  I am wondering how to calculate the total 115 points possible to earn.  This amount will change every time a new assignment or quiz is added.  Any ideas?  I hope this makes sense.  Then I can calculate the points from graded 95 and divide ito the possible points of 115 to get the current grade. 

In reply to Bryce Bernard

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Lynette Sorenson -

Bryce,  I am working with one of my faculty members and have stumbled over whether to use simple weighed means or weighed means of grades. 

Can you explain why you use the weighted mean with the class total and simple weighted within the category?  I think it makes sense, but just want to make sure that I am understanding.

Thanks,  Lynette Sorenson, Northwest University

In reply to Vicki Dunnam

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Matt Campbell -
I haven't tried this myself, just stumbled into it after reading your issue, but there is a setting that may work.

Site Administration -> Grades -> Report Settings -> User Report -> Show Hidden Items can be set to 'Only hidden until'. You can then go into your course gradebook and on each item you want to hide, edit that item and set the 'Hidden until' value.

I haven't tried this myself, just encountered it while I was helping one of our faculty and thought I'd pass it on to you. Let us know if it works to give the students their grades based on total points to date.

Thanks,
Matt
In reply to Matt Campbell

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Vicki Dunnam -

I had that feature turned on.  I am not sure faculty is using it to the fullest.  I can see that it would hide the grade until the grade assignment is opened by the date however, I am not sure how to make the gradebook do exactly what I want.  Right now, I have created a column called "Grade to Date" where I have it take the Course Total grade and divide by the possible number of points to date.  That number has to be changed each time a new assignment is entered and become due.  That is the manual way of doing it.  I was hoping the computer could look at the maximum grade field of each assignment/quiz and total those either by date or when grade entered in gradebook.  It does the course total correctly but a student really doesn't know what their grade is.  3 weeks in a course, the student may have the opportunity to earn 350 points but the total course is worth 1000 points.  the computer now calculates for the total 1000 points.  You either change that course total points to the 350 manually and then change that number each time an assignment is added.  Looks like there would be a way that the computer could keep an accumulated total each time an assignment is entered in gradebook.  The way I have it working right now - works but it is crazy for the teachers to have to keep track of the total points possible and manually change those numbers so the students knows their grade. 

Thanks for the information.  I will test it more to see if that will work. 

In reply to Vicki Dunnam

Re: Showing total points earned to certain point in semester

by Kelly E. Duell, M.A., NBCT -
I'm in the same situation, manually resetting the course total points.  That is not only a pain, but a waste of time.  I've tried lots of different settings, but it doesn't matter, I cannot get the course total to automatically add.