The "G" Word- Grades

Grades!

If you are a teacher, then you must hate the "G" word. I know I do. There's no easy way about it, but I did find three amazing Google Sheet hacks to help me through this process because... I. AM. LAZY. 

Hack 1

My district requires very detailed comments that are super long, and they also require some participation grades now due to Covid-19. So, what do I do... For the participation, I have my students complete the work. They have been since week 7. Students check off work that they have completed- It doesn't matter the grade, it's just if they completed it. They aren't very good at actually checking the boxes, but I know who has been turning in the work for the most part. If we continue Distance Learning next school year, I will be much better about this... 

Basically, just put in your assignments, and then go to "Insert," and click "Checkboxes." Done and done. If you want to get super fancy, you can start protecting the row from each student so they each have their own, and I did that in the beginning but I got... well you know... LAZY. So, now I just trust that the kids aren't deleting their friends checks... 🙌

Hack 2

For the comments, I use an amazing sheet by @shaunyk. I just happened to come across his YouTube video one day, and it's a life savor! Basically, you put in the logistics: Student names, boy/girl, an opening and closing comment. Then, you fill in the next tab with the "high comment, medium comment, low comment, etc." for all the subjects (and behavior). Here's the video to explain how it works. 

Here's a screenshot of the magic maker. Basically, you enter the name, gender, and some letters that correspond to the next tab. It's. Just. Magic. 

After inputting all the information, It makes a wonderful LONG comment at the end like this.

It has been a pleasure teaching Christina this school year. This quarter Christina has done a lot of nonfiction work in Reader's Workshop. In the beginning of January, she was reading and researching biographies. Unfortunately, Christina has not completed the research outline which is impacting her score in reading, but she did complete a speech about her famous person. Currently, Christina is reading about controversial issues and will have a debate towards the end of the month. Christina is reading below a 5th grade level, and struggles with reading comprehension. Christina would benefit from reading Raz-Kids at home for a minimum of 40 minutes and then take an assessment to monitor her comprehension. In Writer's Workshop, Christina has completed her Informational Book about a famous leader during the Trail of Tears Era, but she struggled to turn in all elements of the book for a perfect score. Christina’s writing has greatly improved through the Writer’s Workshop lessons; however, she often has many errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I also noticed that Christina copy/pasted a lot of the work from multiple sources. One way Christina can show success in Writer’s Workshop is to do the work in her own words, take notes during lessons, and complete the writing goal for the day. Christina would benefit from completing all assignments and homework. In Math, Christina has worked hard to improve her memory of math facts this year. Christina often requires one on one support when learning new concepts and can have difficulty remembering new processes. This quarter, Christina worked on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions. Christina has not fully grasped the concept of these math topics, and she needs some extra help moving forward. It would highly benefit Christina to continue to practice her math facts nightly and review 4th and 5th grade concepts during spare time along with completing the homework to enhance the skills of that day's work. In Social Studies, Christina has improved on writing historical fiction, and she is able to take historical facts from her research and apply it to her writing and projects. In Science, Christina has worked hard to grasp the concepts, but she has had difficulty understanding reasoning for her claim, and how earth systems interact with each other. A suggestion for Christina is to stay focused and work hard. Christina has improved her behavior this school year; however, she needs frequent reminders to be attentive during instructions and lessons, and she needs to improve her cooperation in group settings. A suggestion for Christina is to work on voicing feelings and opinions and listening to others for next quarter. Also, she should work on any missing or low scored work. Lastly, she should not procrastinate on assignments anymore to be successful in middle school. Christina can complete any missing or low scored work to improve grades. Be sure to keep up to date on PowerSquare and our website: www.tinyurl.com/2020grade5.

Christina (me) is not the best student LOL

Hack 3

As for the grading, I like to use the Add On for Sheets that imports the Google Classroom Grades. The extension is called Gradebook, and I LOVE THIS ONE. You have to pay for it, but it is completely worth it. I was able to send my parents and students weekly reports with this app, and they really LOVED knowing their grades. I was very transparent with our workload, and this Extension made that possible. Next year, I plan to use "Weighted Grading" now that I am more familiar with the extension, but for this year, we just did total points. Plus, their new beta "Term" option is really nice too! I can organize the terms for specific grading periods which Google Classroom cannot do right now. So, Woo HOo!

The best part about this extension is you only have to name your classroom and how you want your grades to be imported/calculated. Then you just click "import from Google Classroom." It literally does everything for you. It inputs the assignments, the grades, the student names, etc. Then, you can email parents the report. You just have to input the parent email addresses (There's a legal issue where it doesn't copy parent emails, only students). The reports can get rather long, so I ended up making my own with ALL the Google Classroom Courses my students take since we are departmentalized. (That will be a different blog post).

I hope this helped a little through this last stretch of the 2019-2020 school year. It's been a tough one! Hang in there!