Curving Grades (5m9s)

Person 1 (00:00):
Curving Grades. In this example, we'll curve the quiz category. The same steps apply for any category you want to curve. 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 quiz column, the one with the percentage mark, is to the left of the first quiz column in the Grade Centre. Click Submit. Next, click on the Action button next to the Percentage Quiz column, then on Edit Column Information to change its name to Percentage Quiz Non-Cur ved. Click Download. Leave every setting as default and click Submit. On the Download Grades 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-Curved column, the one with the percentage mark. Call this column Percent age 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 bar show that we curved the grades to reward learning as it leads to ever better performance as the semester goes. It's up to you now to create your own formula to reward your students' learning. Remember, 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. Now, click on the left column and click on the left column and select the left column. Now, you can click on the left column. Next, insert a column to the right of the Percentage Curved column. Name it Percentage Quiz. Click on the top cell in this column, and in the formula bar type the following formula: =, followed by M A X, then the open parenthesis sign, then click on the cell in the Percentage Quiz Non-Cur ved column. Next, press the comma key, then click on the top cell in the Percentage Quiz Curved column. Lastly, press the close parenthesis key, then press Enter. The number you shall see represents the highest score of the curved and non-curved grades. Copy the formula down to let Excel calculate the grades for all students. Entering the highest score of the curved and non-curved grades back into the Blackboard Grade Center. In the Course Management section of your course page, the kitchen, go to the Grade Center, then in the Full Grade Center, 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 Center, 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 Center, in the action bar, click on Manage, then on Column Organization, and 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 on 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 on the right. 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 on Submit to save the changes. Now you're done. Go to CUNY First and copy the grades from the Blackboard Grade Center Weighted Total column. Copy them into the Grade Roster in CUNY First. Yay!