Grades and Plans

Glossary

The following list of terms are commonly used thoroughout the Grades and Plans website.  They are presented here to give you a 'feel' for the term... and perhaps, how it's used, why it's needed, and what other terms might be similar.
  • Category: This is the term used by Grades and Plans for a collection of a portion of a Class's grades that are to be weighted equally.  The concept here is that a Class may have several Categories of grades which are weighted differently when computing the composite grade. An example is a Math Class having three Categories; Classwork, which accounts for 25% of the grade, Homework another 25%, and Test/Quizzes the remaining 50%.
  • Class: The term Class, as used by Grades and Plans, is meant to be an entity which is associated with a collection of grades for which you wish to compute an average for a given Student.  It is usually synonymous with a Subject (e.g., Language Arts, Science, PE, etc. ), but could also represent a judgmental entity (e.g., Behavior, Teamwork, Attitude, etc.) or simply a time period, such as 'P2-MWF' (2nd Period Mon/Wed/Fri).
  • Database:  Webster's defines it as "a collection of organized, related data, esp. one in electronic form...), which is what we mean here.  Your paper Gradebook is also a database, as is your collection of Lesson Plans... provided they're 'organized'?
  • Element: In the context of a Lesson Plan, Grades and Plans uses the term element to represent a portion of your plan. It can contain a single section, or a group of sections of the Plan. Drawing an analogy to a Letter, Element 1 would be the Header (which includes the date, return address, reference, etc.), Element 2 the Greeting, Element 3 the Body, etc.
  • Item: Grades and Plans uses the term Item to mean an entity which receives a grade.  Examples of Items: "Pgs 48-49, Prbs 5, 7, 9", "Quiz Chap 3", "Test 1", etc.  Items are associated with both Classes and Categories.
  • Method: Grades are "scored" using a variety of metrics.  The metric could be a  letter grade (the proverbial A, B+, C-,...), a number (10, 78, 97,...), Pass/Fail (P/F), simply a 'check mark' indicating it was submitted, etc.  Each Item must have a Method association so that Grades and Plans knows how to interpret the grade.
  • Scale:  Grade scales are needed to convert grades from one Method to another.  The obvious example is:  A=100-90, B=89-80, etc., so an 84 would be a B   But what's an A-?  A "P" or "F"?  When averaging, Grades and Plans converts all non-numeric Grades to a number, computes the average, then converts the resultant to a letter grade.  For example, given certain Scales, the grades (B+, 56, 8, Yes, Fail, Incomplete)  might compute to an average of  81%, which equals a B-.


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