FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: ASSIGNMENTS & GRADING
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the appropriate answer!
What type of assignment should I use?
How many assignments should I give to students?
When should I schedule assignments?
Is a group assignment mandatory?
Are group assignments fair?
Can I give students time to work on a group project in class?
Can I give one student in a group assignment a lower grade?
Should I give marks for participation?
What is a rubric?
HELP! My student has plagiarized. How do I respond?
What happens when a student goes on academic probation?
Does Continuing Education mark on a curve?
Can I assign all “As”?
Is it okay to give a failing grade?
What do I do if a student has not handed in an assignment?
How do students receive their final grades?
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WHAT TYPE OF ASSIGNMENT SHOULD I USE?
Deciding what type of assignment to use really depends on what you want students to learn, why and
how. In general, we encourage instructors to create assignments that assess students’ thinking and
ability to use knowledge rather than their ability to memorize content. It is okay to rely on tests for a
portion of students’ grades but not the majority of it.
There are a variety of ways to assess learning. Here are a few examples that instructors in Continuing
Education use:
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Learning journal
Reflective paper
Report
Case study analysis (great for groups)
Oral presentation
Book / article / resource review
Website search
Debate – Point/Counterpoint analysis
Leading a discussion (especially good for online courses)
Short answer essay
HOW MANY ASSIGNMENTS SHOULD I GIVE TO STUDENTS?
There is no magic number in terms of how many assignments to include in your course; it really depends
on the length of the course, its learning objectives and what you want to assess. Try to give students a
number and variety of way to earn grades so that all their marks are not dependent on one or two
assignments or one type of learning. Of course, this is easier to do for longer 30-40 hour courses than a
10 or 15 hour course.
The following are general guidelines only:
HOURS
40 hours
30 hours
20 hours
15 hours
10 hours
EVALUATION
4-5 evaluation components
3- 4 evaluation components
3 evaluation components
2-3 evaluation components
1-2 evaluation components
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Think in terms of grading
components rather than the
number of assignments.
Some of the grading
components will be major
assignments that are worth
a significant percentage of
a student’s overall grade
but others require quite
minimal work. For example,
one group project may
offer three opportunities
for grading: i) a written
report; ii) an oral
presentation; and iii) peer
evaluation marks. The point
is to evaluate learning but
not exhaust students who
are often juggling school
with work and family
obligations.
Sample breakdown for a 40 hour course
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Individual assignment (25%), i.e. report, self-reflection paper,
essay.
Group assignment (30%)
o Written portion
o Oral presentation
o Peer evaluation for groups (10%) - for group members
to evaluate one another.
Individual assignment (25%) – exam, short-answer exam,
article review, critique, presentation or ask students to lead a
discussion (especially good for online).
Participation (10%) - may be higher for online courses.
Individual assignment (25%), i.e. report, self-reflection paper,
essay.
Group assignment (30%)
o Written portion
o Oral presentation
o Peer evaluation for groups (10%) - for group members
to evaluate one another.
Individual assignment (25%) – exam, short-answer exam,
article review, critique, presentation or ask students to lead a
discussion (especially good for online).
Participation (10%) - may be higher for online courses
WHEN SHOULD I SCHEDULE ASSIGNMENTS?
In general, students like to receive some feedback early on so try to schedule one assignment before the
mid-way point. This will ease their anxiety about how you grade and whether they are able to meet your
expectations.
IS A GROUP ASSIGNMENT MANDATORY?
No. Giving a group assignment is optional, though many instructors use them to encourage
collaboration and help students to develop their teamwork skills. Teamwork is part of the workplace and
learning how to work effectively in groups is an essential skill. In fact, teamwork skills are listed by the
Conference Board of Canada (2000) as essential to enter, remain and progress in the world of work.1
1
The Conference Board of Canada (2000). Employability Skills 2000+. Retrieved March 25, 2010
from http://www.conferenceboard.ca/Libraries/EDUC_PUBLIC/esp2000.sflb
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ARE GROUP ASSIGNMENTS FAIR?
Establishing a Group Structure
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Take time to introduce yourselves and learn who is
on your team.
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Discuss structure, i.e. do you want to rotate
leadership, share it or choose someone to lead?
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How will divide up the group roles? Will you take
turns taking minutes or will one person do this?
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Discuss how you will handle conflict if it arises.
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Let each person share his/her thoughts before
major decisions are made.
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Appoint a process facilitator each meeting whose
job is to ensure everyone has an equal chance to
share and that the conversation does not get off
track.
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Set aside some social time in front of the meeting
or at the end for people to chat.
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Start and end team meetings on time.
Determine how you will communicate and make
decisions if someone is absent.
While students usually enjoy group
assignments, many of them worry about how
others’ work will impact their grades. We
receive a lot of complaints from students
that group marks are unfair because
someone didn’t pull his or her weight or one
person dominated the process. If you are
using a group assignment you need to
actively monitor the group process quite
closely and help students to deal with the
dynamics of teamwork in the process of
completing the assignment rather than to
complain at the end. This means they have
to learn to deal with conflict, communicate
effectively, set realistic benchmarks and
expectations, and learn to share. This is the
most important part of a group assignment.
A positive group experience involves setting up an effective group process and outlining the
expectations and guidelines for participation
As an instructor, you may want to check in regularly with individuals to ascertain how a group is
functioning. People will often tell you about problems in confidence but don’t have the skills to do this
in the group itself. Checking in can be as easy as sending out an email to students asking how the group
process is going. Students will tell you if problems are brewing.
To help equalize the participation marks, you can add a peer evaluation component to the group
assignment where students get a chance to evaluate their peers as well as themselves.
CAN I GIVE STUDENTS TIME TO WORK ON A GROUP PROJECT IN CLASS?
Absolutely – Continuing Education students are all busy adults who often find it difficult to meet outside
of class time. You might consider giving them an hour of group time at the end of a class for several
weeks or dedicate a certain number of classes to group work. It depends on what the assignment
requires and how you have designed your course. You need to balance time for group work with
covering course content.
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By giving students time to work in class, you can take a coaching role and help them to work through
any group challenges they may have. This models positive teamwork skills.
CAN I GIVE ONE STUDENT IN A GROUP ASSIGNMENT A LOWER GRADE?
Yes - you can assign a lower grade to one person if there is a good rationale for it. For example, if one
group member has handed in work that is plagiarized and the others did not know, you might decide to
penalize the individual and not the group.
SHOULD I GIVE MARKS FOR PARTICIPATION?
This is really up to you. Some instructors believe that participation is an expectation and philosophically
oppose giving marks for this. Other instructors give marks for participation because they want to
recognize contributions to the class and give a small incentive for attendance. In general, we suggest you
don’t allocate more than 10-15% of student’s grade to participation for classroom courses. For online
courses you may decide to make participation worth more because you really don’t have a course
without student engagement in the discussion board and Adobe Connect Meeting sessions. It can more
difficult to build a learning community online and the added incentive gives students clarity about what
is expected.
It is easier to be objective about participation in the online environment because you can search each
discussion thread by the student name and pull up a list of her or his comments. You can physically see
the participation at a glance and assign weekly participation marks accordingly. If you do not know how
to do this, please review the Discussion Section in the D2L Tutorials.
WHAT IS A RUBRIC?
A rubric is a small, irritating hand game where you try to achieve the impossible and match up colors on
one side of the cube – oh – not THAT rubric….
A rubric is a tool that outlines what you are assessing or looking for when you mark and a range of levels
for marks usually on a point scale. Putting together a rubric takes some of the guessing out of marking
and helps to clarify your expectations for students. Personal judgment is still involved but it is a more
conscious and transparent process for teacher and student alike. A rubric is helpful for everyone but
especially useful if a student is contesting his or her grade.
Although it takes time to set up a good rubric, it will save you time marking in the long run…and there
are some excellent tools available to help build rubrics.
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HELP! MY STUDENT HAS PLAGIARIZED. HOW DO I RESPOND?
Continuing Education’s policy about academic honesty aligns with the University of Calgary’s policy.
Unfortunately, with information widely available on the Internet plagiarism is more common that you
think, either because students are intentionally doing it or because they don’t understand how to use
information and when to reference.
How you respond to plagiarism may depend on whether you believe it was intentional or not. It is
important that students understand it is considered a serious offence in academia and can lead to
probation and even expulsion. We also know, however, that many adult learners are returning to school
with a high school education that was earned years ago and may not really understand how to write a
good paper or how to reference.
Here are some suggestions on how might deal with plagiarism:
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Hand the work back unmarked, explain what the problem is and ask the student to rewrite.
Give the student an opportunity to rewrite and explain that she or he will still lose some marks.
Give the student a failing grade and explain why. Students always have a right to contest a grade
and you can direct them to this policy.
Give the student a failing grade and recommend the student be put on academic probation (we
actually do this so you have to let us know).
Let your Program Manager know what is happening in case you need some help and so that we can
track whether this is a first or repeated offence for a student. The goal is to help students learn how to
write well and to avoid plagiarism. Most student are horrified and don’t do it again but if they do, we
need to intervene.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A STUDENT GOES ON ACADEMIC PROBATION?
Continuing Education can put a student on academic probation and determine the conditions and
duration based on the offence. This is determined by the Program Manager in consultation with the
instructor and after a meeting with the student. For example, conditions of probation might outline that
a student’s assignments for the next term are submitted to the Program Manager for review to ensure
the student has understood what plagiarism is and how to write a properly referenced paper. At that
time, if the student demonstrates that he or she has corrected this error, we can lift the probation. If a
student breaches the conditions of the academic probation outlined, then further steps will have to be
taken.
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DOES CONTINUING EDUCATION MARK ON A CURVE?
No – students are assigned grades that you deem fair and reasonable, not on a bell curve.
CAN I ASSIGN ALL “A’s”?
Technically you can give all your students an “A” grade but we encourage you to think about how it
affects the integrity of your course and students’ motivation. Many adult students work hard to earn
good grades and feel motivated when their work reflects the extra work they have put into their
assignments. Some instructors build in a margin for excellence in their rubrics so that students who go
above and beyond are recognized.
IS IT OKAY TO GIVE A FAILING GRADE?
Yes – if a student has submitted inadequate or incomplete work, then you have to assign an appropriate
grade. Giving students a rubric outlining your marking guidelines will help to clarify expectations and
will give you a rationale for how you assigned grades should a student contest his or her grade.
While we do want to maintain academic standards and rigor, the broader goal at Continuing Education
is to help students learn. If a student hands in a lousy assignment, you can delay assigning a grade, offer
some feedback and invite the student to resubmit the assignment. Sometimes this is a student’s most
valuable lesson!
WHAT DO I DO IF A STUDENT HAS NOT HANDED IN AN ASSIGNMENT?
Students must complete all assignments to receive a passing grade. If a student has not submitted an
assignment, hopefully she or he has spoken to you about it and you are able to negotiate an appropriate
extension. In this case, submit the student’s final grade as “incomplete”. When the student has
submitted the assignment and received a grade, send an email or call your Program Coordinator or
Program Manager so we can submit a “Change of Grade” form and update the student’s records.
If you have not received an assignment and the student is not responding to your communications,
submit the final grade as “F” and this usually motivates students to finish things off and get this
changed.
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HOW DO STUDENTS RECEIVE THEIR FINAL GRADES?
We used to mail a transcript record to students but this is not anymore. Students now view their final
grades through the Student Portal (My ContEd) on the main Continuing Education website. They are
usually posted within a week of when you submit them to us. Note: If you use Desire2Learn, students
can easily track their progress but they don’t actually see the final grade on the site.
If you have other questions about assignments or grading please let us know and we
can add them to the Instructor Resources website.