Grading question for differentiated assignments

[KendraStewart]

Hi -

I'm pretty new to Canvas and have been able to figure things out for the most part; however, I'm stumped by how to set up appropriate grading for this situation. I have two students in my class who are completing an additional project so that they earn Honors credit for the course. I was easily able to figure out how to create assignments just for these two students, but the class was already set up with weighted assignment groups, and now I'm not sure how to fit the Honors project into my grading system. For the whole class, I have exams weighted more heavily than homework. Now I need for the Honors project to be about 10-15% of the grade for these two students.

Thanks for any help!

[ProfessorBeyrer · Accepted solution]

Welcome @KendraStewart to the Instructure Community!

I did some testing and it looks like what will work is to create an additional assignment group for the additional project and give it a 15% weight. If you include that weight within the 100% total for the class, then that weight will be ignored for students who are not able to complete the assignment in that group. Their final score will be based on the weighted amount out of 85%. So a non-honors student who got a perfect score on all the homework and exams would have an overall score of 100% because their weighted scores add up to 85%/85%. For those students who do get assigned the additional project, their total possible weighted amount would be 100% instead of 85%. So an honors student who got a perfect score on all the homework and exams but did not complete the additional project would have an overall score of 85% because their weighted scores add up to 85%/100%.

Another option is to keep your current weight settings for homework and exams and make the additional assignment group worth an additional 15% weight. The additional project would then become extra credit, with the possibility that an honors student who does well on the homework, exams, and the additional project could end up with an overall score of 115% because their weighted scores add up to 115%/100%.

I’m going to mark my response as a solution, but there can be more than one. I hope our colleagues here in the Community share other options.

[Ron_Bowman]

@KendraStewart 

@ProfessorBeyrer has provided a good example of how to approach it.  I will try to find what I came up with when dealing with a mixed grad/undergrad class (same situation as your honors/regular student scenario).  If I remember correctly, with the grad/undergrad scenario they were in separate sections (which came from the cross-listing) and you were able to have weighted assignment groups for the grad students separate from the undergrad.  The undergrad assignment groups totaled to 100% and the grad groups totaled to 100%.  the document I wrote up was fairly long, I just need to find it to see if there is a short explanation of what to do.

Edit - I found the document.  However, somehow I mention figures in it that were never put in, but hopefully the text is clear enough.  The procedure works for points based or weight based assignment groups.

If you use a weighted gradebook and you have to have separate assignment groups for the two types of students, then your total weight percentage will show as 200%

i attached the pdf

Ron

[KendraStewart]

Thank you both for your help! I am going to play around with these options, and I'm also considering that -- since there are only two students completing the Honors project & I had my system set up before I knew about it -- it might be simplest this semester just to manually re-calculate their grades with the project factored in. The next time I teach this course, I'm likely going to set it up as points-based and make it a little easier on myself!

[Ron_Bowman]

@KendraStewart -

You are welcome.  I hope points based works out for you.  For me, I prefer weighted groups because I don't have to have the correct number of points for the various assignments in the course(I'm not disciplined enough to have all the assignments and scores figured out the way I want at the beginning of the semester.)  

With points based, you have the possible issue of say 1000 points for regular students, and then you want 15% of the grade for the honors project for those students.  adding in an additional 150 points making a total of 1150 for those students does not make the honors project worth 15% - more like 13%.  Of course the other percentages are off as well - but without knowing your class assignment configuration I can just speculate.  You of course are in a much better position to figure it out.

Ron