Grading By Hand

At long last, you can now use Flubaroo to grade questions by hand! If this option is selected, you can insert any score for a question you like. This is great for short-answer or other open-ended questions that you need to review before assigning a score.

Here's how it works:

1) For any questions you wish to grade by hand, select "Grade by Hand" from the drop-down menu in Step 1 of grading.

Also use the second column to select the maximum point value for the question. In the example below, "6" shows that the question can be worth anywhere from 0 points to 6 points.

2) After grading completes, these questions will have no score in the Grades sheet (the cell will be blank). This is the equivalent of a score of 0 points. So, you will need to enter a score, after reviewing the student's submission. When you enter your score, the student's total score will update immediately and automatically in the Grades sheet. Also, the summary of grades and grade report will update automatically as well.

In the example below, the first student received 4.5 / 6 points, the second 5.2 / 6 points, and the third 0 / 6 points. The remaining students have yet to receive a score.

3) As an alternative to entering scores in each cell of the Grades sheet, you may instead (and will probably want to) use the "Grade Questions by Hand" option in the Flubaroo menu. Note that this menu item will only appear if you selected "Grade by Hand" in Step 1 of grading.

4) Once selected, a window will appear that will allow you to easily review the student's submission, and enter both a score and notes that will be emailed to the student.

This window has 5 easy steps:

  1. Select the next student to grade using the left and right arrow buttons.

    1. Tip: You can quickly jump to a particular student and question by clicking in the cell for that student & question (in the Grades sheet), and then selecting "Grade Questions By Hand" from the menu!

    2. Pick the question to grade. Only questions marked with "Grade by Hand" in Step 1 of grading will appear in this list.

    3. Read the student's submission.

    4. Enter any (optional) notes for this question, which will be sent to the student when you email out their grades.

  2. Enter a numeric point value (starting at 0). Click "Set Grade" when done.

    1. After applying the score, the next student will be automatically loaded. Once you've moved through all students, Flubaroo will start over again at the first student.

    2. If you prefer to grade all questions first for each student, you can tell Flubaroo to instead load the next question for the same student. There is a checkbox for this in the "Flubaroo > Advanced > "Advanced Options" menu.

5) Want to refer to your rubric or other notes while grading? No problem. Just enter them as your answer key (before grading), and then click the blue "review answer key" link in the window. They will appear for your reference like this:

Note that your rubric / answer key will not be emailed out to students when you email grades, even if you select "Include Answer Key" as an option.

That's it!

Navigation tip - Click on the cell for the question and student you want to grade and Flubaroo will start there when you open Grade Questions by hand. This is helpful when you need to start someplace besides the first student.

Important Notes and Caveats:

    • Rather than typing their whole submission into the assignment form, students could just submit a link to a Google Doc or photo containing their submission (i.e. an essay). You will be able to click a link to their document in the Grade by Hand window, to open it easily.

    • If you have one or more "Grade by Hand" questions, the student's final grade can't be known ahead of time by Flubaroo. As such:

      • Students will not be highlighted in red in the Grades sheet if they're below the passing score.

      • For "Grade by Hand" questions, their columns will not get highlighted in orange if most students get the question wrong.

    • If a student re-submits a "Grade by Hand" question, any previous score and teacher notes you entered will be erased when you re-grade. You will need to grade their new submission and enter new comments (if any).