Weighting assignments within Category Weighting

[Jaxonchristopher]

If I change the weighting of a grade within the category weighted grades... how does that affect the weight of the other grades in the system? for example if my test Category is 40% of the final grade and I have 4 tests then I would assume that each test is 10% of the final grade. But if I decide to weight one of my 4 tests at .5 then does that change the other 3 tests to become worth .11666?

[JeffG9]

That is not how Category Weighting works. If the Test category is worth 40% of the final grade that means that the average of all assignments in the Test category are 40% of the final grade for that Reporting Term.

If, for example, your tests are 100 points each and a student scores:

76, 87, 100, and 66 than the Test Category score is 329/400=82.3%. That 82.3% will then be 40% of the Reporting Term grade.

If you weight one of those tests at 0.5, the percentage will be Points Earned / 350.

[Jaxonchristopher]

I really appreciate your response and this is honestly hard for me to wrap my brain around being an English teacher and all... So to super simplify the math, let's say my student got a 100, 100, 100, and a 0 on the tests. Their average for the test category will be a 75 and then 40% of their final grade will be calculated at a 75 if my test category is worth 40%. I want to tell my students what the effect size of one test is. Like "If you take a zero on one of these four tests is then you are getting a zero on _____% of your final grade." Would that answer not be 10% of the final grade if its 1/4 of 40% of their grade?

[JeffG9]

@Jaxonchristopher

I was also an English teacher, which is why I always used a Total Points system. MUCH easier to work with, and if you give a set amount of points per quarter, like 1000, than a 100 point test would indeed be 10% of the grade for the term.

In theory, sure, if you always give four 100 point tests than one would be 10% of the term grade. But as Math and I are enemies, I could be wrong. 🙂