LXD Style Guide

iPD’s Guide for Course Design & Development

Gradebook Progress Checks

Standard

The standard with which Michigan Virtual courses need to comply.

Plus courses include a progress check after each unit.

Alignment

Quality Matters

3.5 C Expectations for successfully completing the course, earning course credit, and calculating grades are clearly defined for the learner and instructor.

 

Requirements

What exactly do course developers need to include in order to comply with this standard?

Because student scores build from 0 to 100%, a student might be on pace and doing great work, but their score will show them as having a 30% if they are 30% of the way through the course. The progress checks give the quickest look at the quality of student work, providing needed context for students and stakeholders to better understand how students are performing.

Progress Check columns appear at the end of each unit. This allows students, guardians, and mentors to see the “current” score that a student has earned as they finish each unit – if the student is keeping up with their pacing guide for the course.

A Progress Check needs to be included for each unit. The Progress Check should include all graded assessments up to the Progress Check. Ex. Progress Check Unit 2 includes all graded assessments from Getting Started, Unit 1, and Unit 2.

 

Implementation

How can course developers implement this standard? What is the process for doing so?

  • Enter Grades > Manage Grades, and verify the following.
    • Graded items are organized within unit categories.
    • Categories for units are in the correct order, and titled correctly (Unit 1, Unit 2, etc.), new categories/category is created if more than 12 (units) is needed for the course and the items within each category appear to be in the correct order.
    • Unit categories – If a unit does not exist, delete the Unit category. (For example, if Unit 6 does not exist for the course, delete the Unit 6 category.)
    • Graded item titles are preceded by 0.1, 1.1, 1.2, etc prefixes
    • Graded Items are set to Type = Numeric
    • Each graded item has one of the following Associations = Discussions, Quizzes, Assignments
    • Each graded item has a numeric value set for Max. Points
    • Each grade item is visible (with the exclusion of practice quizzes and the COMPLETED column)
  • Practice quizzes, if any, and the COMPLETED column are excluded from the final calculated grade
  • If a course has practice quizzes:
    • All of the practice quizzes are all inside of a category called “Practice Quizzes” (this category is hidden from students. This category does NOT have a progress check for it.).
    • All of the practice quizzes are hidden from students and excluded from the gradebook calculations.
    • This category is the very last category of the gradebook. The COMPLETED column follows this category.
  • Ensure that there are no grade items with “delete” in the title
  • Each Unit Category, except for Getting Started, concludes with a Unit # Progress Check (Type = Calculated)
  • A PROGRESS CHECK calculated column appears and is correctly named after each unit (UNIT 1 PROGRESS CHECK, UNIT 1 – 2 PROGRESS CHECK, etc.) AND, if applicable, create any additional ones that are applicable to the course:
    1. Name the progress check
    2. Select each unit up to the progress check and the getting started unit under “Grade Item to Include”
    3. Save and close
    4. If needed, reorder items on the page so the new progress check falls before the next unit.

 

Resources

What resources would help a developer implement this standard appropriately?