Teachers, are you pre-grading quizzes test and assignments in canvas?

[Anonymous]

Teachers, is it standard practice, or maybe easier for you in the long run, to pre-grade quizzes and test and then go back and adjust the scores?

I receive canvas notifications and for a couple of classes I consistently get notifications of a 0/(whatever the total will be). And either the next day or later in the day have an updated grade.

My question is purely out of curiosity. I will admit that the first zeros I saw I was not happy with my kids but then I noticed that the grades always changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers, is it standard practice, or maybe easier for you in the long run, to pre-grade quizzes and test and then go back and adjust the scores?

I receive canvas notifications and for a couple of classes I consistently get notifications of a 0/(whatever the total will be). And either the next day or later in the day have an updated grade.

My question is purely out of curiosity. I will admit that the first zeros I saw I was not happy with my kids but then I noticed that the grades always changed.

As a parent, I've had a problem like this over the years. At first, I would accuse the kids and it would sometimes create a pretty stressful situation (particularly for one kid who has a tendency not to turn in homework, so it was not at all helpful to have inaccurate data).

But it's sometimes worse than you think. Some teachers have Canvas pre-grade multiple choice questions and hand grade short answer questions. And we get a notice on the intermediate grade that makes it look like the kid failed the test. In other words, we get a score of 6/11 (because canvas assumes 0 on the short answer questions) and it is ultimately updated to 11/11 once short answers are graded.

[Anonymous]

Some quizzes in Canvas auto-grade on submission. If there are free-form answers, those aren't graded automatically, and the kids will only get credit for those multi-choice ones. The kids are generally quite aware of this, and the teachers usually remind them as well if they hear surprised kids.

[Anonymous]

I'm not in Moco but I'm a teacher who uses Canvas, and PP is right about the multiple choice versus short answer questions. At least on my Canvas, there is no option to hold off the grade until it's finished - it grades all MC, matching, etc answers immediately

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers, is it standard practice, or maybe easier for you in the long run, to pre-grade quizzes and test and then go back and adjust the scores?

I receive canvas notifications and for a couple of classes I consistently get notifications of a 0/(whatever the total will be). And either the next day or later in the day have an updated grade.

My question is purely out of curiosity. I will admit that the first zeros I saw I was not happy with my kids but then I noticed that the grades always changed.

As a parent, I've had a problem like this over the years. At first, I would accuse the kids and it would sometimes create a pretty stressful situation (particularly for one kid who has a tendency not to turn in homework, so it was not at all helpful to have inaccurate data).

But it's sometimes worse than you think. Some teachers have Canvas pre-grade multiple choice questions and hand grade short answer questions. And we get a notice on the intermediate grade that makes it look like the kid failed the test. In other words, we get a score of 6/11 (because canvas assumes 0 on the short answer questions) and it is ultimately updated to 11/11 once short answers are graded.

Do you use Canvas from a teacher-end? This is...how the quizzes work. No one is "having" Canvas do something just to irk you. It auto-grades multiple choice and true false and matching, and for short answer or most fill-ins an actual human needs to review the answers (yes, even for fill-ins, which may be spelled differently than the correct answer inputs).

If teachers had to hand-grade multiple choice questions, there would be countless errors and tons of time wasted. When I give a test I say aloud and and in the written test instructions "this isn't final until I finish grading and say it's final, no matter what in-progress grades pop up." A student or two inevitable emails me because they aren't saying attention, and I could not IMAGINE parents emailing me about this. I would be so incredibly irritated. This is precisely why MCPS tells parents and kids not to look at grades anywhere but Synergy: THOSE are final, input by teachers when they are ready to input them. Anything else may add info to a situation, but isn't final, and it could muddy things up.

I teach in higher ed not K-12, but honestly, it's as if some people are looking for reasons to crap on teachers. Chill out, monitor your kid's Canvas if you want, but don't get so deep in the micromanaging that you're overcomplicating things or creating issues where they are none. I get it...I look at my MSers Canvas and remind them and ask them about things, but they always know what is final and what isn't. If your kid doesn't know or is too young to know or is not paying attention or capable of understanding how these grades work (or if the teacher isn't grading anything until the last day of the quarter) make a parent-teacher appointment to talk about how you can monitor effectively. But this...ain't it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers, is it standard practice, or maybe easier for you in the long run, to pre-grade quizzes and test and then go back and adjust the scores?

I receive canvas notifications and for a couple of classes I consistently get notifications of a 0/(whatever the total will be). And either the next day or later in the day have an updated grade.

My question is purely out of curiosity. I will admit that the first zeros I saw I was not happy with my kids but then I noticed that the grades always changed.

As a parent, I've had a problem like this over the years. At first, I would accuse the kids and it would sometimes create a pretty stressful situation (particularly for one kid who has a tendency not to turn in homework, so it was not at all helpful to have inaccurate data).

But it's sometimes worse than you think. Some teachers have Canvas pre-grade multiple choice questions and hand grade short answer questions. And we get a notice on the intermediate grade that makes it look like the kid failed the test. In other words, we get a score of 6/11 (because canvas assumes 0 on the short answer questions) and it is ultimately updated to 11/11 once short answers are graded.

Op here and I get these too and I also created a “stressful situation“, i’m not proud of myself for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers, is it standard practice, or maybe easier for you in the long run, to pre-grade quizzes and test and then go back and adjust the scores?

I receive canvas notifications and for a couple of classes I consistently get notifications of a 0/(whatever the total will be). And either the next day or later in the day have an updated grade.

My question is purely out of curiosity. I will admit that the first zeros I saw I was not happy with my kids but then I noticed that the grades always changed.

As a parent, I've had a problem like this over the years. At first, I would accuse the kids and it would sometimes create a pretty stressful situation (particularly for one kid who has a tendency not to turn in homework, so it was not at all helpful to have inaccurate data).

But it's sometimes worse than you think. Some teachers have Canvas pre-grade multiple choice questions and hand grade short answer questions. And we get a notice on the intermediate grade that makes it look like the kid failed the test. In other words, we get a score of 6/11 (because canvas assumes 0 on the short answer questions) and it is ultimately updated to 11/11 once short answers are graded.

Do you use Canvas from a teacher-end? This is...how the quizzes work. No one is "having" Canvas do something just to irk you. It auto-grades multiple choice and true false and matching, and for short answer or most fill-ins an actual human needs to review the answers (yes, even for fill-ins, which may be spelled differently than the correct answer inputs).

If teachers had to hand-grade multiple choice questions, there would be countless errors and tons of time wasted. When I give a test I say aloud and and in the written test instructions "this isn't final until I finish grading and say it's final, no matter what in-progress grades pop up." A student or two inevitable emails me because they aren't saying attention, and I could not IMAGINE parents emailing me about this. I would be so incredibly irritated. This is precisely why MCPS tells parents and kids not to look at grades anywhere but Synergy: THOSE are final, input by teachers when they are ready to input them. Anything else may add info to a situation, but isn't final, and it could muddy things up.

I teach in higher ed not K-12, but honestly, it's as if some people are looking for reasons to crap on teachers. Chill out, monitor your kid's Canvas if you want, but don't get so deep in the micromanaging that you're overcomplicating things or creating issues where they are none. I get it...I look at my MSers Canvas and remind them and ask them about things, but they always know what is final and what isn't. If your kid doesn't know or is too young to know or is not paying attention or capable of understanding how these grades work (or if the teacher isn't grading anything until the last day of the quarter) make a parent-teacher appointment to talk about how you can monitor effectively. But this...ain't it.

NP. OP was asking for information. Why don't you provide it and stop there instead of giving a lecture.You are the one who needs to chill.

[Anonymous]

Is ParentVUE Synergy? And Mymcpsclassroom Canvas? So former is the accurate one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers, is it standard practice, or maybe easier for you in the long run, to pre-grade quizzes and test and then go back and adjust the scores?

I receive canvas notifications and for a couple of classes I consistently get notifications of a 0/(whatever the total will be). And either the next day or later in the day have an updated grade.

My question is purely out of curiosity. I will admit that the first zeros I saw I was not happy with my kids but then I noticed that the grades always changed.

As a parent, I've had a problem like this over the years. At first, I would accuse the kids and it would sometimes create a pretty stressful situation (particularly for one kid who has a tendency not to turn in homework, so it was not at all helpful to have inaccurate data).

But it's sometimes worse than you think. Some teachers have Canvas pre-grade multiple choice questions and hand grade short answer questions. And we get a notice on the intermediate grade that makes it look like the kid failed the test. In other words, we get a score of 6/11 (because canvas assumes 0 on the short answer questions) and it is ultimately updated to 11/11 once short answers are graded.

Do you use Canvas from a teacher-end? This is...how the quizzes work. No one is "having" Canvas do something just to irk you. It auto-grades multiple choice and true false and matching, and for short answer or most fill-ins an actual human needs to review the answers (yes, even for fill-ins, which may be spelled differently than the correct answer inputs).

If teachers had to hand-grade multiple choice questions, there would be countless errors and tons of time wasted. When I give a test I say aloud and and in the written test instructions "this isn't final until I finish grading and say it's final, no matter what in-progress grades pop up." A student or two inevitable emails me because they aren't saying attention, and I could not IMAGINE parents emailing me about this. I would be so incredibly irritated. This is precisely why MCPS tells parents and kids not to look at grades anywhere but Synergy: THOSE are final, input by teachers when they are ready to input them. Anything else may add info to a situation, but isn't final, and it could muddy things up.

I teach in higher ed not K-12, but honestly, it's as if some people are looking for reasons to crap on teachers. Chill out, monitor your kid's Canvas if you want, but don't get so deep in the micromanaging that you're overcomplicating things or creating issues where they are none. I get it...I look at my MSers Canvas and remind them and ask them about things, but they always know what is final and what isn't. If your kid doesn't know or is too young to know or is not paying attention or capable of understanding how these grades work (or if the teacher isn't grading anything until the last day of the quarter) make a parent-teacher appointment to talk about how you can monitor effectively. But this...ain't it.

NP. OP was asking for information. Why don't you provide it and stop there instead of giving a lecture.You are the one who needs to chill.

It was a very helpful response, albeit incredibly and unduly hostile. I’m a long-time MCPS parent with kids in Hs and Ms and I’ve never had it explained.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the kids stressed out when they first encountered this stupid grading method, but over the years we've learned to wait. Our kids will generally know whether a grade is final or not.

I agree it's really counterproductive, particular for a school system that aims to increase mental health.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you brought this up. It creates all sorts of stress for my child with a 504 plan for anxiety. MCPS should easily be able to change this setting but the tech folks are so incompetent they can't seem to get anything right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some quizzes in Canvas auto-grade on submission. If there are free-form answers, those aren't graded automatically, and the kids will only get credit for those multi-choice ones. The kids are generally quite aware of this, and the teachers usually remind them as well if they hear surprised kids.

I have seen this too, like an 14/20 and then it’s changed to 20/20. I’m talking about 0/20 for a quiz or assignment that my kid hasn’t taken. Then that gets changed to the real grade. It’s as if the teacher sets up the quiz, closes it and maybe it’s automatically graded even before the kids see it.

[Anonymous]

Teacher and NP here. As someone else explained, this is simply the way quizzes work in Canvas. It autogrades what it can when the student submits the quiz, and then the teacher needs to grade free-responses. There are also some question types that the teacher might give partial credit on (categorizing, ordering) or might choose to do partial credit differently than Canvas default. For a newly created quiz, sometimes the correct answer wasn’t set correctly (happens to me sometimes when I copy and modify a question), or it turns out that a question was unexpectedly unclear for students and the teacher wants to throw it out. In the cases, the teacher can make the correction with an instruction on how to rescore and then automatically regrade all the quizzes.

For all of these reasons, I do not show the grades tab in Canvas, make the grade a manual posting (instead of automatic as I finish grading), and always turn off showing the score and any results to students. HS students know how this works. I can announce before and after the quiz that scores aren’t final until I grade and push them to Synergy/StudentVue. I will still have students hunt down the one place they can hover over the assignment link to show a tooltip with xx/20 points, and then anxiously come to ask me about why they failed. I usually respond with telling them to think about why that question is so ridiculous and sit back down. I have no problems supporting students about real matters, but I can’t help them when they are going out of their way to create problems that don’t actually exist.

[Anonymous]

Canvas auto grades some things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some quizzes in Canvas auto-grade on submission. If there are free-form answers, those aren't graded automatically, and the kids will only get credit for those multi-choice ones. The kids are generally quite aware of this, and the teachers usually remind them as well if they hear surprised kids.

I have seen this too, like an 14/20 and then it’s changed to 20/20. I’m talking about 0/20 for a quiz or assignment that my kid hasn’t taken. Then that gets changed to the real grade. It’s as if the teacher sets up the quiz, closes it and maybe it’s automatically graded even before the kids see it.

Assignments and quizzes not completed by the due date are automatically marked as missing and assigned a 0 for the grade. When your kid takes the quiz, they will get a score. The 0 shows what will happen if the assignment is never completed. This is all per MCPS grading policy.