[ARCHIVED] Want to make sure I understand using Points/Weighted grades

[SX0T]

I formerly used Weighted Grades in my course. I understood how this worked just fine. Creating weights for each category (and in essence - at least my understanding - was that each assignment in that category it didn't matter how many "points" it was graded as ex. out of 100, or out of 20 - that didn't matter as they all totaled up to the given category weight).

However, if I choose NOT to use Weighted Grades, do I need to be conscious of how many "points" each assignment is worth? Or does it just take them all and evenly distribute them to get to 100% regardless of home many "points" were the in the Rubric when grading. For example a project that was worth 5 points vs a project that was worth 20 points. If I person got a 5/5 - that's 100%. If a person got 20/20 - that's 100%. Same would be the case for 4/5 or 18/20 - they are both a 90% for that particular assignment, but would be "weighted" as equal if there was no Weighted Grades being used.

Does this make sense? Basically - if I am NOT using Weighted Grades, are the "point values" irrelevant? I'm hoping so, but not sure.

[gnoack · Accepted solution]

Hi SXOT, 

I think points always matter, even with weighted grades. The way I think of weighted grades is that it lets you decide how much of each category you want to be a total of the final grade.  Then within each category is a mini-gradebook of total points.

If you aren't using weighted grades, Canvas will simply add up all the points and give a percentage.  So an exam with 100 points will be worth twice as much as an exam with 50 points.  

With weighted grades, the same would happen, but it would be within the Exam category. Not as part of the whole. So within the exam category, the exams would not be treated the same.  

So for example, using points a 90/100 and a 35/50 gets you 125/150, 83.3%, This is what is happening within categories using weighted categories, or within the gradebook using no categories.   

Using the same point totals as percentages, 90% and 70% and divide by 2 (finding an average), you get 80%. Based on what you stated, this is what you think is happening.

You can review how weighted grades work here:  https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Weighted-Average

[SX0T]

So I'm curious - 

How could I do what I propose? Where regardless of the "points on a rubric" for an assignment, it would be weighted the same?

Could I theoretically set up a "Category" in a Weighted System model but then just put EVERY assignment into that 100% weighted category? Would it then not matter what the point value was for each assignment and weight them all evenly?

[gnoack]

HI SXOT, 

Using Canvas and your current grading scheme, the only way I know to do what your asking would be to create a category in the gradebook for each assignment and weight the categories the same.  Assuming you have multiple assignments, that doesn't sound reasonable. 

Mathematically, to weight them the same within a category or within an unweighted gradebook, the total points would have to be the same for each assignment.  So, if you wanted to enter all of your grades as their percentage, that would accomplish what you asking, as all of the assignments would be out of 100.