Canvas Not Dropping Lowest Scores

[mollykwilkinson]

Hi,

I have an assignment group that contains a handful of assignments all worth the same amount of points. I have added a rule to drop the 2 lowest assignments. I have given 1 assignment so far from this group, which a few students did not turn in. I would expect their grade to not be impacted due to the drop the lowest 2 rule, but in the grade book it still shows a 0 for the assignment group total (not just the actual assignment, but the assignment group), which is impacting their overall grade. How can I fix this?

Thanks! 

[crafte]

Hi @mollykwilkinson since you are dropping the lowest two scores, you will need to grade three assignments before you will see the rule take effect. Please see the guide on how to create rules for assignment groups. 

[Ron_Bowman]

@mollykwilkinson -

I just tried it out in my playground to make sure It worked the way I thought.  With the drop x lowest selected, there has to be at least 2 assignments with a grade before any are dropped.   I tried dropping 2 lowest with 4 assignments, and one score was dropped after the second score was entered.  There has been a lot of discussion on how this feature should work.  It is one of those areas that everyone has their own idea of how they want it to work.

Just for your information, if the assignments are worth different points, the assignments that are dropped are the ones that result in the best grade for the student - that is all the possible scenarios for dropping the grades are considered and the one that results in the highest grade is the one used.  There are cases where it seems like Canvas is dropping the wrong grade.

Ron

[Ron_Bowman · Accepted solution]

@mollykwilkinson 

To expand on what @crafte posted.  If you look at the page referenced it has the following in the blue are at the top:

"When using the lowest or highest score rule, an assignment group must include at least one score, plus the number of dropped scores and the number of assignments that should not be dropped. For instance, if you have a rule for dropping three scores and one Never Drop assignment, you would need five student scores in the assignment group to have all three lowest or highest scores dropped."

it is written in (to me ) a manner that is not really clear as to what happens.  All depends on how you would interpret parts of it.  The last sentence tells you if you want everything in the rules to apply then you need that number of assignment (3 dropped, 1 never drop is 4, and Canvas will require at least one score if you have put restrictions on keeping or dropping scores so 5 scores minimum required for everything to be met - that I follow)

The first sentence takes a little extra and it explains what I posted earlier.  The assignment group must contain at least one score(if drop and never drop are used).  Therefore (as my test iindicated) you need at least 2 scores before any are dropped.  In other words with the drop rule in effect, you are required to have at least one assignment grade.  if you are dropping 3 lowest grades, then the first grade entered is kept.  After the second grade is entered, the lowest grade is dropped.  After the third grade is entered, the 2 lowest grades are dropped.  After the fourth grade is entered, the 3 lowest grades are dropped.

Ron

[mollykwilkinson]

Thank you both for your help! It seems like I will need to add a couple more assignments in order for grades to be dropped. Have a great day!