Grading Guidelines
Faculty at ECC have quite a bit of freedom in designing courses (provided all course outcomes are met - see the courses menu to the left), but sometimes it can be good to know what is typical at a school. What follows are some rough guidelines for what faculty do at ECC.
Grading Categories
Each instructor establishes their own grading breakdown, but here are some typical categories.
Attendance and Participation (0% to 10%)
- In a developmental course, attendance is critical to student success. Therefore, many faculty members put some weight on attendance. This is less common in college-level courses.
- To encourage participation, you may wish to include participation points in your grading breakdown. This can include a record of student participation in class activities, or periodic short assessments during class that are collected.
Homework (10% - 20%)
- Homework should be assigned regularly, preferably one per class period or section in the text.
- If you use an online homework system (e.g. MyMathLab, Connect, WebAssign, etc), homework assigned is graded by the software.
- If you don’t use either software application, homework is assigned from the textbook or through a homework handout. Faculty members have different methods of awarding grades for homework. Several methods are given below:
- Check all answers for all homework and grade accordingly
- Spot check answers to selected questions for all homework and grade accordingly
- Periodically check homework for completion
- Check homework for completion on paper and correctness in the system
Quizzes (15% to 20%)
- Quizzes are usually short (3 to 10 questions) and assess student understanding of recent concepts taught in class.
- Some faculty members give daily quizzes. These quizzes may serve the purpose of assessment but also as a measure of attendance.
Exams (40% to 55%)
- Exams usually carry the most weight of all the grading categories.
- In most lecture/discussion classes, exams are given at the end of each chapter covered. In some college-level courses, multiple chapters are combined on a single exam. This is not recommended for developmental courses.
- Depending upon the concepts covered by an exam, exams include about 20 to 25 questions.
Labs (10% - 15%)
- Some classes have associated labs that are above and beyond normal homework.
- This is most common for college-level courses.
Final Exam (20% to 25%)
- Most final exams are comprehensive. (Some exceptions might be a course with disjoint topics such as Mth125, where a final unit exam could be considered appropriate.)
- Check with your course coordinator (see the appropriate page under the courses menu) to find out about any specific details regarding your course, like a required department final.
Example Breakdowns
Point Grades
There are two grading schemes to choose from: point grades and weighted grades. With a point system, you assign a total number of points to each assessment. When overall course grades are calculated, a point in one category is equivalent to a point in any other category. This is helpful for some students, as it equates a point on a homework assignment with a point on a quiz or exam.
Below are two examples of point grading schemes. Keep in mind that these are just examples, and your own system does not necessarily need to match one of these.
Example 1 (developmental) |
|
Grade Categories |
Weight |
Attendance/Participation |
30 |
Homework |
100 |
9 Quizzes (20 points each - lowest dropped) |
160 |
7 Chapter Exams (100 points each) |
700 |
Cumulative Final Exam |
200 |
Example 2 (developmental) |
|
Grade Categories |
Weight |
Chapter Tests (7 @ 80 points) |
560 |
Quizzes and Homework Checks |
80 |
Graded Homework Assignments |
160 |
Cumulative Final Exam |
200 |
Example 3 (college level) |
|
Grade Categories |
Weight |
10 Homework Quizzes (20 points each) |
200 |
5 Exams (100 points each) |
500 |
4 Labs (25 points each) |
100 |
Cumulative Final Exam |
200 |
Weighted Grades
With weighted grades, each category of assessments is given a weight as part of the students' final calculated grades. Within each category, it is most common for each item to be weighted evenly, though this is not required. The system can be a bit more flexible, as it allows additional assessments to be added in categories, without the overall weighting of each category changing.
If you're considering giving periodic "pop" quizzes, this category would allow you to weight those quizzes for 10% of the overall grade, regardless of how many quizzes you end up giving in class.
Below are two examples of weighted grading schemes. Keep in mind that these are just examples, and your own weights do not necessarily need to match one of these.
Example 1 (developmental) |
|
Grade Categories |
Weight |
Attendance/Participation |
5% |
Homework |
10% |
Pretests, Worksheets, Quizzes |
15% |
Chapter Exams |
50% |
Cumulative Final Exam |
20% |
Example 2 (college level) |
|
Grade Categories |
Weight |
Homework |
10% |
Quizzes |
15% |
Projects/Labs |
10% |
4 Unit Exams |
50% |
Cumulative Final Exam |
25% |