Grading in the Digital Classroom

As many classrooms begin transitioning toward a 1:1 ratio of devices to students, many teachers are left wondering, "How in the world do I grade this stuff?" and "How do I inform my students' parents about their digital grades?" Trust me, I'm right there with you. I've lost sleep over this issue, so I did what a lot of other teachers would do, I created my own solution. Is it perfect? No way. Does it have kinks? Absolutely. I wanted to go ahead and share what I've decided to use in my own classroom, so that it might trigger an idea that works for you in your own classroom.

How do I grade digital assignments?

Rubrics and checklists: both of these have been preached to many of us in the traditional classroom. Well, if you're afraid that you won't be able to use these any longer, don't fret! I have found a way to use checklists when grading digital assignments. Simply print out a roster, list the content that you are looking for across the top of it, decide how many points each area is worth, and get to clickin'! You can quickly determine students' grades by going across the columns and totaling the amount of points. (I've even used the same roster to grade more than one assignment!) Rubrics can still work as well! You can either print a rubric to use in the traditional way and send home OR you can include the rubric at the end of your digital assignment. When you grade the assignment, simply use the drawing tool to add a circle to the area of the rubric in which the student scored. Type their grade, and
woo-lah! You just used a rubric to grade a digital product.

How do I communicate my students' grades with parents?

I personally don't think that the "how-to grade" part of the digital classroom is the most stressful part. In my opinion, the "how-to communicate the grades" is the toughest part. In my classroom, I have converted to a close 50% paperless environment, so this means that I have a fair amount of digital grades to share with parents. I've toyed around with several ideas for how to communicate these grades. For my students, I can simply post their grade on the assignment, but for their parents, it isn't that easy as some of them don't have access to their students' digital platforms (i.e. Google Classroom, etc.). Printing out the assignments to give to parents is too time consuming AND it defeats the purpose of being a paperless classroom. Not giving parents any feedback, well, that's not even an option. I began brainstorming different ideas to solve this problem. Here's the products of my brainstorming session. 1) Print a list of grades by subject area on a sheet of paper. 2) Use labels and a notecard. 3) Use labels and a sheet of paper that's returned weekly.

1) Printing a list of grades by subject area. This may be feasible for some, but for me, it wasn't my top choice. I felt like this option would take more time each week (& more paper).

2) Using labels and a notecard. This option requires students (& parents....& you) to keep up with a notecard that is supposed to be returned weekly. This isn't a bad solution; however, the notecard is only good for about an 8-9 week period.

3) Use labels and a sheet of paper to record grades weekly. This method is my FAVORITE! For me, it's what works the best in my classroom. I simply print all the assignments that I've graded in a list on a label. I copy and paste the list onto each label. Then I record the students' grades on the label. Once the labels are ready, I simply peel and stick onto my yellow sheets. My yellow sheets are initialed and returned every week (sometimes it's every two weeks). The awesome part about my yellow sheets is that they can be used for a total of two, yes TWO, nine week periods! This means you only have to print two sheets for the entire school year! How awesome is that?! Take a look below to see what I've been using. You can download your own copy HERE!

Again, these tips aren't flawless, but they are what's working for me in my busy classroom. I hope that you find a tip here that will help you in yours!

Also, just in case you were wondering, you can check out some digital products in my store that you might be able to use in your classroom. Happy browsing!

Thanks for stopping by!

Elaine, Teaching Lane