As part of active blended learning, students often complete partial assignments for which they receive a partial grade. For an optimal learning process, it’s important that they also receive feedback.

Simplified grading for partial assignments
You may currently assign partial grades on a 10-point scale, but it’s worth asking yourself why. Such a precise scale often requires a lot of deliberation. For instance, a 7+ indicates that the submitted assignment is slightly better than merely ‘sufficient’. A 10-point scale can also lead to lengthy discussions with students. All of this costs time, while qualitative feedback is actually more valuable for the learning process.

So how can you save time? For partial assignments, consider using a 3-point scale instead of highly precise grades. For example: 0, 1, or 2 points.

• 0 = not completed
• 1 = sufficient
• 2 = very good 

A general estimate of the assignment’s quality is much simpler and, in most cases, perfectly justifiable.

Use the 10-point scale only for the final course grade, by mathematically converting the different grades on the 3-point scale to a 10-point scale.

Additional tip: Provide feedback first, grades second
Once students receive their grade, they often lose interest in the accompanying feedback. This is a waste of the time and effort you spent creating it. Consider giving students access to their feedback first, possibly even having them reflect on it, and only then releasing their grades. Read more about how to set this up below under Digital Support.

Digital support
With the tool FeedbackFruits Assignment Review, you can configure assignments so that feedback and grades are published separately. See these instructions for setting up the publication method for feedback and grades.

A second option is to add another step in the assignment for which students give each other feedback (FeedbackFruits Peer Review). You can then provide your own grade after the peer feedback.