Drop and Curve Grades (6m39s)

Person 1 (00:00):
if you want to curve and drop the lowest. Dropping the lowest grade. In the Course Management section, in the action bar of the full grade centre, click on Manage, then Categories. In the Categories page, on the action bar, click on Create Category. Name the category from which you want to drop the lowest grade and make sure the name is a plural. Don't ask us why. In our example, the category is Quizzes. Click on Submit. Go to the full grade centre. Use the horizontal scroll bar to centre the columns that belong to the Quizzes category in our example, or the one for which you want to drop the lowest grade. You'll need to edit each one of them. Click on the Action button to the right of the column name, then on Edit Column Information. Go down to the Category section, and in the drop-down box, select the newly created category. Click Submit to save the change. Repeat for each column. In the full grade centre, on the action bar, click on Create Calculated Column, then Weighted Column. Name it Percentage Quiz drop lowest. Click on Create Weighted Column page, scroll down to the Select Columns, and in the Categories to Select box, the one on the bottom left, select the newly created blackboard category and use the arrow to move it to the Selected Columns box on the right. Set the percentage to 100. Under Drop Grades, in the box between Drop and Lowest Gr ades, fill in 1 to drop the one lowest grade. Click on Submit. Downloading the Grade Centre. Downloading the Grade Centre. In the Course Management section of your course page, the Kitchen, go to the Grade Centre, then in the full Grade Centre. In the Action bar, go to Manage, then Column Organisation, to reorder and group all the quiz columns together. Make sure that the Calculated Percentage Quiz and the Per centage Quiz drop lowest columns are to the left of the first, non-calculated, quiz column. Click Submit. Next, click on the Action button next to the Percentage Quiz column, then on Edit Column Information to change its name to Per centage Quiz Non-Curved. Back in the full Grade Centre, on the right of the Action bar, click Work Offline, then Download. Leave every setting as default and click Submit. On the Download Grade screen, click the Download button and then save the file to your computer. Curving the Grades for a Grading Category. Open the downloaded file in Excel. Insert a column on the right of the Percentage Quiz Non-Cur ved and Percentage Quiz Drop Lowest columns. Call this column Percentage Quiz Curved. In the Excel example presented in the image, compare the formulas used to calculate the curved and non- curved quiz totals. In both formulas, the percentages add up to 100. In the non-curved total that Blackboard calculated, these percentages are all the same. In the curved column, however, the increasing percentages in the formula in the formula bar show that we curved the grades to reward learning as it leads to ever better performance as the semester goes on. It's up to you now to create your own formula to reward your students' learning. Remember that you can copy formulas in Excel simply by clicking on the first cell that has the formula, then hover your mouse on the lower right corner of the green box and dragging it down. Release and you shall see. All the curved grades are filled in for you. Yay! Next, insert a column to the right of the Percentage Quiz Curved column. Name it Percentage Quiz. Click on the top cell in this column and in the formula bar. Write the following formula. Equal sign followed by M-A-X followed by the open parenth esis sign. Then click on the top cell in the Percentage Quiz Non-Cur ved column. Then press the comma key. Next, click on the top cell in the Percentage Quiz Drop Low est column. Then press the comma key. Next, click on the top cell in the Percentage Quiz Curved column. And lastly, press the closed parenthesis key. Then press Enter. The number you shall see represents the highest score of the curved, non-curved and dropped lowest grades. Copy the formula down to let Excel calculate the grades of all students. Entering the highest score of the curved, non-curved and dropped lowest grades back into the Blackboard Grade Centre. In the Course Management section of your course page, the Kitchen, go to the Grade Centre. Then, in the Full Grade Centre, in the Action Bar, click on Create Column. Name it Percentage Quiz. Select your options, but leave the default No Category option as is. Click on Submit. Back in the Full Grade Centre, you may need to use the scroll bar to see your newly created column, as Blackboard placed it by default at the very end of the spreadsheet. If you want to move it elsewhere in the Grade Centre, in the Action Bar, click on Manage, then on Column Organisation, then reorder your columns. Don't forget to click on Submit. Next, in this newly created Percentage Quiz column, click inside the top cell and record the grade from your Excel sheet's Percentage Quiz column. Press Enter to save. Continue this step for all students. Afterwards, go to the Weighted Total column for the course. Click the Action button next to the column name and select Edit Column Information. Scroll down to the Select Column section. In the Selected Columns box, remove the Percentage Quiz non -curved column by clicking the red X button on the right. Then, in the Columns to Select box on the left, select the newly created Percentage Quiz column and use the arrow to move it to the Selected Column box on the right. Fill in the appropriate percentage for the Percentage Quiz category. Click Submit to save the changes. Now you are done. Go to CUNY First and copy the grades from the Blackboard Grade Centre Weighted Total column to the grade roster in C UNY First. Yay!