Grade Quick Information August 2009

General GradeQuick Information The entire gradequick manual is available to you by opening your gradebook and hit the "support online button"; this is the last icon on your standard toolbar. Also very helpful online tips are available to you in regard to gradequick.

I. How do I start my Gradequick file? Be sure you are logged in with your Novell login, Double click GradeQuick on your desktop, enter your gradequick login (first initial last name), then do a file, new, yes, if your teacher name does not appear, then click change, scroll to find your name and hit ok. Select the class you wish to bring down, click file, save as, name the file beginning with your initials and some identifying way to know what class it is. ie. period number, class description. Then you may file and close if you are finished with the file. The next time you open gradequick, you can do a file, open, select the file you wish to work on. The first time is the only time you should do a file save as; always do a file save from here on out.

II. Adding a Test Column To add a test column, edit, add/delete students or tests, add tests OR you can right click anywhere in the white section where the cells are, OR you can click once up in the white area where the test description, points allowed are displayed. Place your mouse in the test description cell of the test column you just added. You may place a long test name if desired. Term will default to what the last test column made was or 1 if starting from the beginning. Category is an area where you can categorize your assignments. You may want to break them down into tests, homework, projects … whatever suits your class setting. You DO NOT need to use the category field. It will remember what you put in there and build a drop down list for future use. You may also weight categories. Total Possible number points is the maximum number of points that you are having for an assignment. Point based scale can be used or you can base everything off 100.

III. Filling a Column Automatically To fill a column quickly with a grade…. Say you are on a Pass/Fail scenario and you want to fill in all the Pass’s and then go back and change just the Fails. You may find this useful. Right click on the column which you would like to fill. This means that you will have added the test column with the name of assignment (If you are just going to enter one test column… you are not going to enter all your tests etc… you will need to put this info in also and base it on 100 points) term, category and possible points. Right click on the test column and go down to Global Changes OR you may go to Edit and global changes. The above box will appear. Complete it according to what you want to do. For example if you wanted to fill a grade of 100 in for everyone, you would put 100 in the fill col/row with and hit ok. It would do everything. 1

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IV. Grading Preferences Grading Preference screen can be displayed by going to Grading, Grading Preferences. The first item is a checkbox which says display numeric grades. By default, this is checked. This only will need changed once a year when you start your gradebooks. If you are using Grading Scale 1, the standard A B C D F scale, then you will not need to change this. If you are using Grading Scale 2, then you will want this to be unchecked so that you can send to MMS the Grading Scale 2 or 3 as letters meaning the P F or E M NI or U. When you change this, the value in the right hand side of the subtotal column will change to the corresponding letter. When sending the grades, this is what will be sent along with your comment codes, which is explained in the next section.

V. Setting Grading Scale to be Viewable There are 3 grading scales set up: 1 = Regular Scale A B C 94%, 87% etc. 2 = Pass/Fail 3 = Middle School Grading Scale E, I , M. To change your grading scale, open your gradebook. Then Click on View, choose "Student Information". The following screen will appear:

Next click on the down scroll bar and locate the Gscale Field. Highlight it. Click ok. When you return to your gradebook, a new column will appear with the GradeScale. The default is 1. To change everyone to a gradescale 2 or 3, then you may find the "Fill a Column Info" above helpful or double click each one and change it to 2 or 3. You may have students on different grade scales in the same gradebook if necessary.

VI. Comment Codes Click on View, Student information. Scroll down the right hand side until you see fields called C1, C2, C3, and C4. Click on C1 and C2 and say ok. You will now be returned to your gradebook. Notice the two columns added. You may now fill this column with comments you want printed on the report card. The comments are in the back of this gradequick information. When report cards are printed, these 2 columns along with the right hand side of the subtotal for the term will be printed. You may use the fill column procedure if you wish to give everybody the same comment. Now you may go back to view, student information, unhighlight the C1 and C2 and say ok and it will go off your spreadsheet. Remember you must change your comments each term before report cards are printed or last terms comments will appear.

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VII. Users who use the Middle School Grading Scale 3 I understand that some of you will use the Grading Scale 3 of E M etc for Terms 1 and 2 and then on Term 3, you will send a numeric grade. For Term 1 and 2… do not turn on the send numeric grading as explained below. For Term 3, you will turn it on and send your percentage grade.

VIII. Weighting If you wish to weight by terms or have different categories of assignments count differently in the overall score, you will want to turn weighting on. This is done by going to Grading, Weighting. Click on the button if you wish to turn weighting and terms. If you want Term 1-6 and the Final Exam to be equal, a 1.00 will need entered in each term. When you add new terms, this screen will appear and you will put a 1.00 in the appropriate term shown. (Changing terms is explained below). If you wish to weight your categories, click on the weigh categories. All categories that you have developed will appear. Fill in the appropriate weight for each category.

IX. Quick Way to do an Ineligibility Report Open up your Gradequick file that you wish to find your ineligibles. Click on Reports, Summary, Overall with Terms, Click Students, Select Students, Select Criteria, Standard Selection, Click on the drop down box by Student Whose, Select the Average for Term field, place the term number in the term number field, select the drop down box that says less than and select the option for less than or equal to, place 70 in the next box, Click ok and ok again. This will give you a report showing your ineligibles for this class. These can be all printed, stapled together and submitted to the high school office. THIS SETTING ONLY NEEDS CONFIGURED ONCE, THE NEXT TIME YOU GO IN TO DO THE REPORT DO THE FOLLOWING. Click on reports, Summary, Overall with Terms, Click Students, Select Students, Select Criteria, OK, OK. and it will be done. WHEN THE TERM CHANGES HOWEVER, YOU WILL HAVE TO CHANGE THE CRITERIA TO REFLECT TERM 2. This can be changed just by clicking on the select criteria, place your cursor in the ‘formula’ shown and change the 1 to a 2 to change the term in your criteria.

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NORTHERN BEDFORD COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT DISTRICT WIDE GRADE COMMENT TABLE COMMENT CODE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

COMMENT TEXT Improving attitude/interest Showing steady progress Good class preparation Good interst/attitude Achieving at expectancy Works beyond requirement Accepts constructive criticism Good class participation Finds class work difficult Poor test performance Poor attendance Poor class preparation Works below ability Poor class participation Fails to make up missed work Work assignments done carelessly Fails to follow directions Fails to do assigned homework Poor interest/attitude Fails to maintain class organizer Unacceptable class conduct Conference requested Tests read aloud Modified tests Reading below grade level Reading at grade level Reading above grade level Math below grade level Math at grade level Math above grade level

Pass/Fair Grade Scale 2 For Pass or P put in anything greater than 70 For Fail or F put in anything less than 70

E, M, NI, U Grade Scale 3 E, Excellent put in anything greater than 90 M, Meets Expectation, put in anything between 78 and 89 NI, Needs Improvement, put in anything between 70 and 77 U, Unsatisfactory, put in anything less than 70 4

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