Google Classroom is always evolving and Google for Education is always adding new features. The latest features added to the line up are Locked Quizzes and a Gradebook. Both of these features are in Beta, and you can sign up to participate in the beta here. I’ve been able to use it with my classes and I think that it makes managing grades in Classroom a lot easier.
In Canada the Grades feature is called Marks, so now that I have access to Marks I have a new button at the top of Classroom. My experience so far has been great! Marks allows you to:
- Work offline – just keep hitting enter and it moves to the next student.
- Quickly see which students have not completed an assignment.
- Weight assignments and show students an average based on the weightings.
Here’s an example of one of my classes that I’ve been using this feature with. We can immediately see that all of the marks are easier to view and all appear in one place.
One feature that I’m really excited about is the ability to add weightings. I’ve been trying this out in my Grade 11 class, and they now get to see a summary average (if you choose) along with the weighted average. I had to do some math as we have two different categories that our marks go into. Here’s how I did it:
| Category 1 (30%) | Category 2 (70%) | Category 2 Weighted (x by 0.7) |
| Tests – 30% | Tests (60%) | Tests (42%) |
| Quizzes & Classwork (30%) | Quizzes (21%) | |
| Online Assignments (10%) | Online Assignments (7%) | |
| 30 + 42 + 21 + 7 = 100% |
This allows us to have the grades weighted properly in Google Classroom so that the students see a representative mark. The only obstacle that I have come up against is that we cannot currently split into terms or semesters. The only solution that I see is to make multiples of each category, which are all weighted by term or semester as well as by the category, which seems like a lot of work to me.
However, I’m enjoying the fact that students can see which category their work is in, and it’s really easy for me to assign a category when I create an assignment.
Once an assignment is graded and returned the students can see their average update straight way in their app, which they say is really useful for them to keep track of their overall grade.
As the Gradebook feature evolves, I’m confident that more features will be added, and it will become easier to export marks from it, and integrate it into other tools, but now that we can also import Forms marks into Classroom this is quickly becoming my go to tool for storing and calculating marks in my classroom.
Check out Google for Education’s newest EDU in 90 video to see all the features of Gradebook within Google Classroom and get a live demo.
Chris Webb is an experienced Math and ICT Teacher based in Montreal, Canada. As well as being a High School classroom teacher, he loves geeking out with Google Sheets, Apps Script and Awesome Tables. He is a Google in Education Certified Innovator, Trainer and Educator, and is also a member of the EdTechTeam Canada Extended Team.
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Best Maritime universities says
Thanks for this interesting blog
Lynda Pettitt says
i am a gen ed teacher and want to have separate grades for math, spelling, etc. It seems that all assignments are thrown into one sheet. Is that true or am I missing something?
Sameeksha says
Hi, I only want to enter grades and take attendance. How do I do that?
Ryan says
This is in beta right now yea? Any chance it will be rolled out in time for next school year (August)?
Anonymous says
Allow a calculation (eg. a formula) to be allowed for data entry.
eg. I mark a math test and add up all the question point values. This works on my Google Sheet because it is a cell. The Google Sheet cell would be my calculator. (I type in the last question on the test first because I enter the numbers starting with the last page… student got 2 on the first question …etc…and student got 1 on the first question.)
=2+4+6+2+1
Or, if my Google Sheet values could be transferred up to Google Classroom for an existing assignment… match up the title and upload the grades from sheet to Google Classroom.
Thx.
Marcel Ursem says
Do you think it will be possible to grade with letters instead of numbers?
Charlie Hammond says
is there an ability to add descriptive grades such as Pass, Merit & Distinction instead of numeric grades?
Rebekah Chonjo-Boateng says
Hello is it possible to create one google class and have different grade books for each class?? For example, I teach all subjects to one group of students all day. I would like to have a grade book just for their science assignments, and another for math, another for reading, and so on. Is it possible to do this??
Kristin Pease says
We have separate term grades at my school. Can I use google grades to set different terms?
Jose Encinas says
There needs to be a function where I can see the overall grades for each individual category. For example, I want to know the overall grade that a student has in just his Assignments which are weighted at 25%. For Google being such a huge multi-billion dollar company and with such advanced technology these days, such a simple function should not be a problem and should already be in place without having to request it.