Group Weighted Grade Book

The group weighted grade type requires some changes to the grade book.  First, it indicates the group of each complete lesson by an additional column:

The running average of each group is also displayed beside the running average of the course:

Finally, the user may want to focus in on the lessons of a single group.  At the top of the grade book, each group is shown with its weight.  Each group also has a focus button, so that you can easily see the progress of a single group:

Happy Planning

Group Weighted Grading

Scholaric offers two group-weighted grade formulas:

  • Group-point weighted - a grade is calculated from a set of weighted lesson groups,  which themselves will be graded by a point-weighted formula.
  • Group-equal weighted - a grade is calculated from a set of weighted lesson groups,  which themselves will be graded by an equal-weighted formula. 

In short, each group is scored, and the grade is a weighted average of the groups.  The difference between the two is how the score for the group is calculated.  

For example, for Astronomy, you may specify these groups:

  • lessons: 30%
  • tests: 50%
  • observations 20%.

Group-Weighted Grading Terms

Below, the following terms are used:

  • Group-weighted Grade Type is a grade type which uses group-weighted grading.
  • Lesson Group is a name given to a group of lessons which will be graded as a whole and assigned a weight.
  • Weight is the value that a group is given, determining how much of an impact a group has on the final score.

Setup of Groups and Weights

These group-weighted grade types require an extra step of setup - defining the lesson groups for a course and their respective weights. This can be done for any course using either group-point weighted or group-equal weighted grade types.  First, you must make the course use that grade type:

Note that a menu to change grade type now appears on the course menu in the planning grid. Once the course uses a group-weighted grade type, the menu changes, allowing you to edit the group weights:

The report card has this capability as well, but in either case, the course must have a group-weighted grade type.

Clicking on this brings up a new dialog:

The dialog shows all of the groups you have created, and creates one named Lessons if you have not created any.  For each group, you must supply a name, a weight, and indicate if it is the default group.

The weights must add up to 100%, or the displayed total will turn red and updates will be disallowed.  The picture also has a red weight for the default group, because the default group cannot have a zero weight.

To set the weight of existing groups, just enter the weight.  To add a new group, like Observations in the example, click the Add Group button.

With all groups weighted correctly, the last thing to do is select a proper default group.  With all this done, click the Update button.

Deleting a weight

When editing existing weights, the Delete button is enabled.  Clicking this resets the group's weight value to zero.  The weight will be deleted on the next update.

If there are no other courses using that group, and no lessons referencing the group, the group is deleted as well.

Assigning a Group to a Lesson

With the group weights set up, you can assign lessons to their groups.  For a group weighted course only, the lesson dialog shows a group field:

The selection control displays only the groups which have a weight for the course in the current period.  Scholaric automatically selects the group you labeled as default for this course.

Happy Planning

    One Millionth Lesson Giveaway

    Scholaric is nearing one million planned lessons for homeschoolers:

    To celebrate, I'm giving away one year free subscription to Scholaric.

    To enter, you must:

    • Create a lesson on the day Scholaric hits 1,000,000 lessons - you don't have to create the actual 1,000,000th lesson.  No matter how many lessons you create, this gives you one entry.

    Note that you can be an exiting customer, or sign up for a new trial.  No purchase is necessary.

    To get up to two additional entries, you can:

    • Between now and the 1,000,000th day, promote giveaway on Twitter with this tweet and add a comment below.
    • Between now and the 1,000,000th day, promote on Facebook with this update (coming soon) and add a comment below.

    Winner will be picked at random, and any funny business will get you disqualified.  My decision is final of course.

    Happy Planning, and thanks for the help in getting to a million!

    Course Menu Update for Grading

    The coming release of group-weighted grading will have an updated course menu - adding the ability to change the grade type.  Here you can see the additional grade types:

    Previously, the only place you could change a grade type was in the report card, which only was available if there were completed lessons.

    Happy Planning

    Scholaric 2012 in Review

    The Good
    The Bad
    • Two of the three major development efforts (transcripts and group-weighted grading) did not get released.
    • More videos were a goal, and I created a total of 1 new video.
    • Fell short of my goal of 1,000,000 lessons planned.
    • Marketing page still needs to be redone.
    The Ugly
    • Major outage of Scholaric (along with half the internet) - part of an Amazon web services outage.
    • Blog became slow to process to new posts, and went completely down for a few days.
    • Payment system was unavailable for 2 days in December.
    I am excited about the coming year - there are so many ways in which Scholaric can and will be better, and I can't wait to get them to you.

    Happy Planning

    Where do Scholaric Users Come From (in 2012)?

    Here is a map of U.S. usage in 2012 (darker = more usage):

     

    The top states being:

    • Missouri (yay)
    • North Carolina
    • Texas
    • Florida
    • Washington
    • California
    • Arkansas
    • Illinois
    • Virginia
    • Georgia

    And the top cities (by metro area):

    • St. Louis, MO (yay)
    • Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
    • Portland, OR
    • Washington DC
    • Greensboro/High Point/Winston Salem, NC
    • New York, NY
    • Raleigh-Durham, NC
    • Atlanta, GA
    • Ft. Meyers, FL
    • Kansas City, MO

    So why isn't your state/town listed here?  Tell your friends about Scholaric, and try to unseat the champion!

    Thanks for a great 2012, and Happy Planning

    Scholaric Maintenance Tonight

    I will need to take down Scholaric tonight for some maintenance.

    There is a critical Security in the software Scholaric is built upon.  Ordinarily, releases do not make Scholaric unavailable, but this time, it must.  I apologize for the down time during this busy planning season, but this is a critical patch.

    I expect this to start at approximately 9:00 PM Central Time, and last less than an hour.