Before we get into the details of how to set up Grades, there are some important considerations for you to know.

Students will see percentages

This is an area where Canvas has less flexibility than other systems. Regardless of whether you set your gradebook to show points or percentages, students will see their total grade as a percentage of 100%. As an instructor, you can set your view to show either one. However, you may find that for clarity of conversation with your students, that it makes sense to grade by percentage as well. Fortunately, the features of the Grades tool take care of much of the calculation for you.

Managing "zero" grades/ungraded items

Students have access to a "What-if" tool that allows them to forecast their grades in the course. When Canvas calculates the student grades and the what-if scenarios, it treats empty grades differently than a zero. If you finish grading an assignment, and leave a student's grade empty, then their view of their grade will be very different from their actual grade.

To avoid some pretty uncomfortable conversations with students, we recommend:

Once you've completed grading an assignment, mark any assignments that were not turned in as a zero (0). Add the zero to the gradebook. If a student turns in the assignment at a later date, then you can update the grade to the correct mark.
Don't rely on "Treat Ungraded Items as Zero." That changes your view as the instructor, but doesn't impact the underlying calculations of percentage grade.

Using Letter Grades, Points, etc.

All that said, the Canvas gradebook can track grades using many different schemes. You can enter and manage letter grades, grade by points, track assignments as complete/incomplete, etc.

Create a Grading Scheme

Since Blake operates on a 4.0 grading scale, you can use the existing grading schema already setup for your division. Or you plan to setup a different grading schema, you will want to confirm with your PK-12 Chair and Division Director. It takes some effort to set up, and you will need to do it for each of your courses.

Once set it up, in your gradebook you will see the percentage the student has earned and in small print to the right, you will see the 4.0 equivalent. This will be very helpful when it comes time to enter grades in Blake's system at the end of the quarter.

When students look at their grades, on the right side of the screen will be their current percentage in the course and in parentheses to the right of that will be the 4.0 equivalent.

In the next video, we will walk through how to set your course grading schema.