Weighed Grades and Drop Lowest

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corellie
Community Explorer

I have read some Canvas threads on “Weighted Grades” and am still confused.  I have an an assignment group, Exams, that is set to a weight of 50% and has a rule “Drop lowest 1.”  As an example, assume there were 3 exams. Each exam has a different ‘total points.  A student got 10/15 pts on Exam 1, 15/25 on Exam 2, and 5/10 on Exam 3.  What exactly is the algorithm for Canvas to (1) determine which grade is dropped and (2) calculate the students weighted grade for Exams?

References:

https://canvas.ewu.edu/courses/805988/pages/normalize-weighted-assignment-groups

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-9880-4152232976

1 Solution
James
Community Champion

 @corellie  

The grade that hurts the student the most is dropped. Not necessarily the grade that has the lowest percentage.

The way it does this is by compute the grade with each of the missing exams and see which comes out best. It keeps that scenario.

  1. Exam 1 dropped, use Exam 2 and Exam 3: 15/25 and 5/10 gives 20/35 = 57.14%
  2. Exam 2 dropped, use Exam 1 and Exam 3: 10/15 and 5/10 gives 15/25 = 60%
  3. Exam 3 dropped, use Exam 1 and Exam 2: 10/15 and 15/25 gives 25/40 = 62.5%

Since 62.5% is the highest, it would drop exam 3.

Technically, there's a complex mathematical algorithm behind that, but it's easier to explain it the way I did.

The grade for exams would be 62.5% and that would count as 50% of the overall grade (assuming your categories add up to 100% -- which they may or may not). The student would get 31.25 points (towards 100%) from the exams.

Note: Edited to eliminate non-standard usage of addition operator.

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