Gradebook Profile Preferences

Overview

The preferences screen is split into two parts, Grading Preferences and Display Preferences.

The first section is Grading Preferences. This is a set of some of the most important features in your Gradebook.

The grading options can be changed at any time during the school year, but be very wary of doing this.

Once this option is changed, any course which has this profile will recalculate the student grades in their courses according to the new grading type.

This can and will change student scores drastically. With that being said, you can always just change the setting back to its original value and then grades will be recalculated back to their original value.

This is found via Gradebook>Profiles>Click the "Open" button to the right of the profile>Preferences.

Grading Preferences

• Marking Period Grading Type: Total Points or Category Weights.  
  • If you select Total Points then each category is considered the same in weighting. Your homework is considered just as important as your quizzes with this setup.
    
    
  • If you select Category Weighting then each category is assigned a different weight to determine the marking period grade. For instance, your homework can be worth 25%, while your quizzes can be weighted 75%, in order to stress their importance.
    
    
• Calculate Category Averages by: dictates how categories are averaged in the Gradebook. This is critically important if you use the Category Weighting grading type as it will affect the average of each of your categories.  
  • With this option set to Total Points, the categories are averaged based on the earned and attempted points of each assignment. 
  • With this option set to Assignment Count, then the category average is based on the sum of all assignment scores for a category divided by the number of assignments. 
  • This field will also affect the Total Points grading type:  
    • With this option set to Total Points, the marking period grade is determined by the earned points of all assignments divided by the earned points. 
    • If it set to Yes, then the MP grade is determined by the sum of all assignment scores divided by the number of assignments.
• Unit Averaging by Assignment Count is the same theory as the Category Averaging by Assignment Count.  
  • The only difference is that this field does not affect grading in any way. This is purely for the averaging of units in your Gradebook.
• The "Value for Incomplete" and "Value for Missing" fields tell the Gradebook what grade to give to a student if they are graded with a Missing or Incomplete on an assignment.
• The "Use Weighting on Assignments" field dictates whether you want to allow yourself to give extra emphasis to an assignment by adding weighting to it. This option will be discussed at more length under the Assignments chapter.
• The final field for Grading Preferences is "Use Gradebook Alpha Grade on Post Grades screen" 
  • This field tells Genesis whether to translate your Gradebooks numeric grade to the school's alpha grade scale, or to use the alpha grade scale in your Gradebook.  
  • The Post Grades screen "Update All Scores" feature will use the alpha grade that you have specified in this option.

The mathematical formulas are as follows:

Category Weighting Formulas:

• Category Scores: Category Average * (MP Weight / 100) = Category Score.
• Marking Period Final Grade: ((Sum of Category Scores) * 100) / (Sum of Category Weights)).

Total Points Formula - With Assignment Count set to Yes:

• (Earned Points / Attempted Points) * 100

Total Points Formula - With Assignment Count set to No:

• (Sum of all assignments / Number of assignments)

Display Preferences

These fields dictate the look and feel of your Gradebook.

• The Round Numbers To option allows you to dictate how your grades are rounded. 
• The next set of options affects the Gradebook spreadsheet screen. 
• The field Display Letter Grade allows you the option of showing a letter grade next to a student's current marking period average.
• Display Point Totals will optionally show you the student earned and attempted points for the marking period. 
• The fields for Abbreviations of Incomplete, Missing, Absent and Exempt dictate how those grades are displayed on your spreadsheet screen while the Sort Assignments By field is your default sort for assignments. 
• The Display IEP, Medical and 504 icons dictate whether a small icon is displayed next to the student name for any of those needs.
• There is a couple of fields in here that dictate behavior and display in the Gradebook.  
  • One such field is Default Value for Parents Module. This field defaults whether an assignment should be automatically shown in the Parents Module on assignment creation. 
  • Another field is Generate Sequence Number when creating assignments. If you would like a sequence number for your assignments, Genesis can automatically create one for you when you are creating assignments. This value ups the top sequence in the database for your class by ten each time you enter the Add Assignment screen. 
  • The next option dictates the display of a particular screen print. The screen in question is the Student Assignments screen, where you are looking at each assignment for a given student. If this screen print is used, then this field will tell the print out whether to show a class average for each assignment.
• The "Hide MPs where course subsection does not meet" option will hide any MP where a course does not meet during its course length. For instance, if you have a FY Gym course that only meets MP1, MP3 and MP4, the MP2 tab will not appear if this field is set to Yes.
• Show Student Average in Parents: If NO, will shut off the student's average for assignments. Will display as 20/20 instead of 20/20 80%
• Show Class Avg on Student Assignment: Will display class average for each assignment when assignment printout is created by the teacher via Gradebook>Student>Assignments screen. Does not impact the parent portal.

There are also fields which control the display of the icons next to the student names.  The fields are:

Assignments factored into MP Grades

The table below allows you to redefine the assignments that are factored into each Marking Period Grade.

The column on the left is the MP Grade and all checked boxes in the same row are the assignments that will be factored into that MP grade.

By default, the MP grade will only use assignments in the same MP to calculate itself.

Do not change this setting unless you need to include assignments from a previous MP into a future MP.