Grading is at the crux of educational evaluation. It’s a major factor in designating student success, and it’s a vital skill that every educator needs to have firm hold of. Succinctly, grades represent the extent to which the learner has met the defined objectives. Teachers generally define these objectives at the beginning of the year, aided by benchmarks, such as statewide academic achievement standards. Grading is an emotionally laden procedure that implies more than the degree of compliance with the goals.
Before beginning to teach a class, teachers should think of and choose the grading criteria; students appreciate a grading system that is fair, consistent, and easy to understand. Grades serve the following purposes:
- Provide feedback to students on their rate of achievement.
- Help students evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses.
- Properly used (not inflated), grades serve as a positive motivating factor by rewarding students for their progress.
- Communicate student achievement to others, including potential employers and graduate schools.
- Select students for special programs (such as remedial or advanced).
You’ll be required to adhere to your school district’s grading policy, which will be provided to you. These policies may also differ from one district to another. You will find out that grading comes with its own set of challenges.
In order to make grading easier, there are several edtech companies that sell online grading tools. These tools will make sure that when you assess your students, you have all of the resources that you need to be successful. We decided to create a list of the 17 best online grading tools for teachers, so you won’t have to do a ton of research to find the one that works for you.
This app uses standards to measure student success.
Formative hopes to encourage students to learn from feedback and corrections. Educators watch in real time as students answer questions and can jump in and provide help.
A free electronic grading system for teachers.
This shared grading tool is great for assessing group work.
Allows all of the stakeholders in education to collaborate.
Mastery based grading app for the K-12 classrooms.
Save and share grading data with this easy to use app.
An easy way to record, save, and share student learning.
Save lots of time by assessing digital work on Google Drive.
Comprehensive standards planning, assessment tool that supports quality instruction.
This product is future of the grade book. Gradealyzer offers educators a single space to keep grades across subjects and even school wide.
Easy to use, assessment product for your classroom.
Powerful assessments to measure student learning.
Gamified student-response tool that can make assessment fun and competitive.
Turn formative assessment into a game show.
Simple, easy to use web-based clicker tool gives instant feedback.
Formative assessment tool that tracks achievement of benchmarks.
Did we miss any? If so, leave their names in the comment box below.
Grading contributes to promoting the students to catch up with other classmates. Thanks for sharing these tools, they are useful.
Thanks for the list. You can add Plickers as well.
Thanks for sharing. You can also add ScribeSense, an online grading and data analysis tool. ScribeSense autogrades handwriting from paper-based assessments/assignments!
Skooler – new to the US this fall, however, as a partner of Microsoft, Skooler is used widely across Scandinavia and in the UK.
Planning tool allows Ts to apply learning goals from national curriculum from drop down. Clicks to assign to all Ss or individuals. Notification appears in outlook calendar and inside the dashboard as well as parent portal to support parental engagement.
Homework is carried out inside Word, Excel, OneNote or indeed PowerPoint. Student completes task and within the document returns to teacher for grading.
In real time, Ts receive Outlook notification of work returned, opens, grades or comments and returns to Ss. Parents can see final assessment grade and comment.
All data pulls through to SLT reports. Accessible inside the Skooler platform. From a click of a button Ts and SLT/districts can see what goals have been completed, Students/groups/schools are performing – sophisticated analytics to support teaching and making more of Office 365.
Skooler is built inside the Microsoft API and we would welcome an opportunity to show you how we can save time for educators.
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