Drop the lowest grade per marking period

[JW1952]

Is there a way to choose the "drop the lowest grade" in an assignment category but isolate it to one marking period?  When you choose this option now, it applies it to all marking periods instead of only the current one.  We have four marking periods.  I dropped the lowest "assignment" grade for Q1 but I don't want to do that for Q2.  When I remove the rule, it resorts Q1 back also and no longer drops the grade.  There is no option to apply this one quarter only.  Does anyone know a work around or something else?

[TrishaMeyer1 · Accepted solution]

Hi @JW1952 ,

I'm not sure if you'll be able to make this change now, but if possible, I would just make a new Assignment Group for Quarter 2 without the rule to drop the lowest. Set it to the same percentage (weight) as the one you were using for Quarter 1 and then just stop using the Q1 Assignment Group. I think this will work only if your institution has set Grading Periods so that you're working in a new Gradebook for Quarter 2. If the Gradebook doesn't "see" any assignments from the Q1 Assignment Group in the right date range, it won't count that AG at all in the grade calculation. Similarly, it won't count any Q2 AG assignments in the calculation for the Q1 grade (or Q3 or Q4).

I think this is how it would work, but someone else may know more about it and can correct me.

[greydon]

Hello @JW1952 

Just to follow up with what @TrishaMeyer1 mentioned - this is currently the only way to do it. You'd need separate assignment groups for Q1 and Q2. There is no filter or way to drop the lowest grade within an assignment group for a particular quarter - it applies to the entire assignment group.

Feel free to check out our Ideas and Theme forum as Canvas implements great ideas such as this that they find within the community. 

Canvas Ideas and Themes - Instructure Community  

[wilsong]

This new way of dropping the lowest grade is not a great option and requires more setup and steps than when faculty could do this via the Gradebook, not via Assignment Groups.

We have four marking periods and faculty have gotten used to making sure due dates fall where they should to be correctly recorded for each marking period. Now they have to also create new assignment groups for the marking periods and the same assignment groups as used prior. Seems redundant when this was working just fine before this feature got moved. I'll also admit I may not have all the information as to why it was moved, but my faculty are not happy about it.

Thanks.