Grades for groups of assignments

[ibanezcasasi]

I have created groups of assignments (case studies, exams, quizzes, etc...) in my courses to give them relative weight on the final grade. The problem is that for each group, Canvas is only taking the highest grade among the individual assignments within the group instead of the average. So for instance, we have 5 case studies, and if a student has 80-80-80-80-100, the group grade shows 100% instead of 84%, which would be the real grade (the average of all 5 grades). How can I change this? how can I make Canvas calculate the average for each group of assignments instead of taking the highest grade?

[Ron_Bowman]

@ibanezcasasi -

I may be misinterpreting what you are saying - some of the phrasing is throwing me off.  So hopefully what I have below is what you are doing - if not, maybe what I specify is what you want to do and can make the corrections.

When you say groups of assignments, I am assuming that you have created assignment groups and that you are using a weighted gradebook with those groups

That is assignment group1 is worth 40% of the grade and has 5 case studies, assignment group 2 is worth 40% and has 5 homeworks and assignment group 3 is worth 20% and has 3 quizzes.  You are stating that for the first group only the highest score out of 5 is kept.  If that is the case, then somehow the rule to drop the 4 lowest scores must have been created (only way I can think of that happening).  I have never seen Canvas drop scores from calculating a grade for an assignment grade.

Can you provide some more information about the construct of the assignments if what I described above is not what you have.

Ron

[ibanezcasasi]

Ron,

You are absolutely right in your interpretation of my poorly described grade book.

I have 5 assignment groups, 1) case studies (total of 5), 2) exams (total of 5), 3) Quizzes (total of 10), 4) attendance (just a single item), and 5) extra credit (currently no weight), weighted 15%, 65%, 15%, and 5% respectively. We are in the middle of the semester, so I have not opened all of this yet. I am assuming Canvas is NOT counting the unpublished assignments for the calculation of the assignment group total, which would be ideal to show progress to students, but I would appreciate clarification on this from this community. Also, I have a rule set up for the two lowest grades in each category to be dropped. For the case studies, this would explain why I'm seeing Canvas getting the highest grade only, because we have only done 3 case studies so far, so if the student has 80-80-100, the 80s would be dropped and Canvas would keep the 100% as the grade for that category. But this is happening also in the quizzes group, where we have done 5 so far. The rule is the same, 2 lowest grades are dropped, but then if a student has 80-80-80-80-100, Canvas is giving them 100% instead of the average of 80-80-100 (after dropping two 80s), which would be 86.6%. As you probably understand, this may create BIG problems in the long run when I adjust these and students see their grades drop...

While I figure this out, it would be very helpful to hide the totals for each assignment group in the grade book, but our local support said we cannot do that either. I would have to hide the grade of one individual assignment for the group total to be hidden, which obviously does not work for me or my students. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to help me!

Inma.

[Ron_Bowman]

@ibanezcasasi -

Thanks for the additional information.  What you are describing with the quizzes does not make sense.  Just to make sure, all the quizzes are worth 100 points(jkust rethought on that - I assume the scores you gave were points, but now I am thinking you gave me percents)?  you could try using scores of 60,70,80,90,100 for the quizzes to see what you get response wise - just curious if there might be something strange going on with the procedure when the lowest grades are all the same.  Are the quizzes New Quizzes?  If so, 

As a side note with dropping grades.  If the assignments are worth different amounts of points, then Canvas figures out which grades to drop based on what configuration of grades to keep gives the highest score - it can seem incorrect when you first look at it.

You are correct, unpublished assignments are not included in the grading.  Also you have correct information about hiding the groups.  I was not aware of if one assignment has hidden grades that the assignment group grade was hidden.  However, if that is the case, you could add a dummy assignment to the group worth 0 points, make it manual grading and give 0's to all students and make sure grades are hidden.  Confusing to the students, but you could put information in the assignment explaining its purpose.  Then when you want to display the grades, delete the assignment.  

If I get a chance, I'll try to play around some with playground to see if I can duplicate what you are seeing.

Ron