Best Practices: 3 Methods for Grading Assignments

Today we're continuing the “Best Practices” blog series. Written by Open LMS’s very own Learning Solutions team, the Best Practices series is a bi-weekly feature highlighting best practices for Moodle™ use inside and outside of the traditional classroom.

In today's post, Open LMS Instructional Designer Rebecca DeSantis highlights successful methods for grading assignments.

You’ve configured your gradebook and built your course. Now it’s time to master grading assignments. Here are three methods you can use to grade assignments in Joule 2:

1. Individual Assignment

Click the assignment link on the front page of the course. This will take you directly to the submitted assignments. Alternatively, you can reach this same page by navigating to the gradebook’s “Grader” report and clicking the link for the assignment.

Once on the page, you can grade assignments by clicking the “Grade” link. If you attached a rubric to the assignment then you’ll click the “Rubric” link. You can save some time by downloading all assignments as a zip file. Don’t forget to take advantage of the optional settings to filter only those that require grading and allow quick grading to input grades directly into the table.

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2. Grader Report

You can quickly enter grades into the “Grader” report by turning editing on. Once you edit a grade in this report it overrides the grade from the activity interface. Therefore as a best practice, we recommend that you do not grade here initially.

3. Joule’s “Needs Grading” Report

The “Needs Grading” report is one of the many powerful reports available in your Joule platform. This report will display real-time data of submitted activities and assignments that require grading. To save time use the many available filters: grade, category, sections, activities, activity type, group, and user. Once you generate the report you’ll see a listing of the submissions that need grading. Simply click the “Grade Now” link, review the assignment, enter a grade and feedback, and attach any response files. It’s that simple!

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To learn more about grading other activities in Moodle™, subscribe to our Open LMS Video Channel on YouTube and view our Learning Solutions playlist of tutorials.

Rebecca DeSantis is a former Senior Instructional Designer for Open LMS.