Drop Lowest Points (not Assignments) for Weekly Modules

[JD87]

Allow a certain number of points to be dropped. For example, only 100 points of 112 counts toward their final grade. This would allow instructors to drop any number of assignments or weekly modules and allow for better ease of course structure by allowing instructors to tell students that they can miss an entire week of class without penalty.

[Stef_retired]

@JD87 

Thanks for sharing this idea. As it moves forward for broader discussion, I'd note that this: 

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...This would allow instructors to drop any number of assignments or weekly modules and allow for better ease of course structure by allowing instructors to tell students that they can miss an entire week of class without penalty.

...can be achieved with existing Canvas functionality, and it's how I designed my courses when I was teaching. I had 14 weeks of modules in my course, and each week students were asked to complete the items within each one: a low-stakes MC quiz, a discussion post, and a short reflection essay. I then created separate assignment groups for the quizzes, discussion posts, and reflection essays, and applied a group rule to drop the lowest two scores in each one. Last, I told students that they could give themselves a week-long vacation from school if they'd like to skip one full week (or two) and that the course grade was already designed to accommodate that automatically.

So this is an interesting idea, but you won't have to wait for it to be developed to accomplish something along the lines of what you're envisioning.

[JD87]

@Stef_retired This won't work for my course structure. 6-12 points are earned each module and are comprised of various assignments with different point values. For example, all lecture-based activities are 6 points, they do a research project that is broken down into various steps (each step is anywhere from 3-12 points), and the final exam is 12 points. All assignments sum to 112 points, but I want their FINAL score to be out of 100 points. Is there any way I can accomplish this with the existing canvas? 

[Stef_retired]

@JD87  I believe this can be readily accomplished with weighted assignment groups and grading rules and moving from a points-based to a percentage-based gradebook. While your idea moves forward for discussion, you might want to post a question to the Question Forum that lists all of the graded assignments in your course with their current point values and explain what you're hoping to achieve; it could well be that one of our savvy members with strong math skills will be able to devise a grading scheme that will work for this use case.

[ProductPanda]

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