Frequently Asked Questions:
For initial credit courses, the answer is 5–10%, depending on the course. Essays are supported by an auto-scoring engine that suggests a grade based on structure and grammar, but teachers must review and accept/modify the score before it shows for students. If a district wants to reduce the amount of teacher grading, they can customize projects, performance tasks, and lab reports out of the course. They can also enable completion grading, which will remove the requirement that teachers review essays before the score shows for students, but we do not recommend this for credit-bearing courses.
Credit recovery courses have little to no teacher grading.
Project-based CTE courses and AP® courses both require significantly more teacher grading. More than half of the activities could be teacher graded for project-based electives. For AP courses, roughly 25% of the activities are teacher graded. AP courses also require teachers to facilitate online discussions through Collaboration Corner.
Access your student's grades, view your student's activity, and then reference this chart:
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Green checkmark: Student chose this answer, and this answer is the correct answer (all tasks). |
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Red checkmark: Student didn’t choose this answer, but it is the correct answer (dropdown or multiple-choice task). |
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Gray checkmark: Student didn’t choose this answer, but it is the correct answer (checkbox task). |
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Red X: Student chose this answer, but it was the incorrect answer (checkbox task). |
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Gray X: Student didn’t choose this answer, and it is the incorrect answer (checkbox task). |
Note
Activities Not Counted
When instructional activities are "not counted toward grade," this means that by default, the score the student earns does not affect the overall grade for the course. These activities are designed so that students can explore new content and learn from their mistakes, without the additional pressure of a counted score. Students can continue on their coursework once these activities are completed. The gradebook available to educators will display a score of 100%, along with the alert, "This assignment's grade is not currently counted". The majority of these activities have embedded self-checks along the way, allowing students to self-correct before they get to graded assignments.
Educators always have the option of manually assigning a score to any activity. If a score is manually assigned by a teacher, the activity score will be factored into the student's course grade. This means a teacher can always assign a grade to a non-counted assignment, forcing that assignment grade to count towards the overall grade of the course.
Keyword Grading
If activities include keywords that are used for determining a system-assigned score, the student will earn a 0% if none of the keywords are included in the response, and will earn 100% if at least one keyword is included in the response. Educators can always override system grades by manually assigning a grade to the activity.
Please note that keyword-scored items are low stakes and do not contribute significantly to a student’s grade. Keyword-scored items are never used assessments. We encourage teachers to spot-check keyword-scored items, however, for effort and completeness.
Edit a System-Assigned Grade
Need to change the score of an activity? Click here to learn how.
| Task / Weight Category | Completion Grade | Automatic with Grade* (*default grading option) |
Teacher Supported |
|---|---|---|---|
| Educator-created Writing Prompt with keywords | 100% | 0% or 100% depending on keywords | Pending until an educator awards a score |
| Vocabulary | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) |
| Lecture and Lab Lecture | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) |
| Warm-up, Instruction, and Summary | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) |
| Journal, Study Questions | 100% |
0% or 100% based on keywords |
0% or 100% based on keywords |
| Online Content (with questions) | 100% | Earned percentage based on keywords for each question | Earned percentage based on keywords for each question |
| Online Content (without questions) | 100% | 100% (not counted toward grade) | 100% (not counted toward grade) |
| Practice* | 100% |
Earned percentage
|
Earned percentage
|
| Assignments, Wet Labs, and Virtual Labs* | 100% |
Earned percentage
|
Earned percentage
|
| Test Review and Exam Review* | 100% |
Earned percentage
|
Earned percentage
|
| Essays* | System scored | Pending until an educator accepts or modifies the system score |
Pending until an educator accepts or modifies the system score |
| Short Writing Assignments* | 100% | Pending until an educator awards a score. |
Pending until an educator awards a score. |
| Projects, Performance Tasks, and Lab Reports* |
Activities must be scored by teachers and will be marked "pending" in the interim. |
Pending until an educator awards a score. |
Pending until an educator awards a score. |
| Quizzes, Tests, Exams, and Lab Assessments* |
Earned percentage
World Language and CTE courses will give 100% for all assessments no matter the earned score. |
Earned percentage | Earned percentage |
= requires teacher grading.
Tips
*This page explains which category an activity falls in as well as some additional tips to consider.
Need to change the score of an activity? Click here to learn how. Journal activities and online content activities that have questions are, by default, given a zero score so an educator will need to change the score.