You're describing here a different problem, which I know from talking to teachers also causes them stress. The people who make the software cause this problem, not the teachers themselves. They often don't have a way to avoid this and they aren't the ones deciding what software is used.

I assume the simple way to avoid it would be to not create an assignment in the system ready for grades to be entered until you actually have grades to enter. While a way to put an assignment in a state that it doesn't affect overall grades would be good and annoying if missing, it doesn't seem like something that's impossible to work around.

But if you don't create the assignment, then it doesn't show up in the calendar, and if it doesn't show up in the calendar (even if it's in 28-point bold font with a date next to it on the main page) then students claim they didn't know there was an assignment due!

One can create 'fake' assignment-like pages with the assignment details and then enter an event into the calendar that's not linked to the assignment-info-that's-not-the-assignment-so-it-won't-show-in-the-gradebook, but then you can't have the rubric for grading built onto it because only assignments can have the grading built in, and then you need to turn the assignment itself on at some point and make sure students know to submit there since it'll be a different link than the assignment-thats-not-an-assignment so you'll still have blank grades until the thing's graded, because you can't submit files through not-an-assignment pages.

I've tried this and several other iterations.

The system simply needs to differentiate between a grade "not yet posted" and a zero. I'm not sure why this observation has not been made by LMS software designers.

I don’t think it’s the people that ‘make’ the software. It’s the people that decide what software to make.

Seconded. Showing "F" as a placeholder for pending data entry is a very, very bad idea. Equivalent to a hypothetical email software that autofills "Fuck you" if you don't type anything.

When I was teaching, grading took so incredibly long that there would be periods of time (read: nearly always) where I was simply behind entering scores. I typically did 10 to 12 hour days plus a good 6hr day most Saturdays, and usually a few hours Sunday. I only caught up on student vacations.

To be clear, the problem is not just being behind entering scores, it's entering base assignment info into the grading system and then being behind entering scores. I'm not sure what prevents teachers from creating the assignment in the system once they have scores to enter, so the time during which it would be erroneously affecting a grade is minimized, but a lot of teachers to not seem to do this.

What I don't understand is why, given that they must see the problems this creates as they eventually roll downhill to the teachers.

The software we used to have (Aries Portal) did not have a "ready to publish" state on entered assignments (at least, not back then). As soon as the assignment was entered, it was immediately affecting grades. I did not have high hopes for usability testing or anything really. You could, at the time, access student info that, as a teacher, you should not have access to (discipline records, for example) with basic url tampering.

As noted before, on Canvas and Moodle, can't have student uploads for assignment without an assignment created, and some won't link correct calendar settings without an assignment.

Whenever I got into that situation, I’d use a kitchen timer. Divide the total amount of time I had for that assignment by the number of students. Set the timer for that amount. Read as much of the assignment as I could, and then just guess the right grade.

I made it clear to students that if they felt the grade was wrong, or they wanted more detailed feedback, I’d be happy to read it again. I grade quickly and mistakes do happen, I’d tell them.

I’m not gonna grade 100 papers over three days for $2/hour. I am happy to do it for two students for free.

Most of the time students don’t even look at the feedback anyway, so I’d rather let the ones who care ask proactively.

Or you were giving too much work, and it was reflecting and multiplying on your side.

What would have happened if you gave the amount of work that would have reflected on you a normal amount to grade, assuming an 8 hour day/5 day week?

Simply put: why do you punish students, and then complain (and not do your work) when you assign too much, by your very own standards?

For me, to give an amount of work for students as to not extend my week beyond 40 hours would have meant no more than 45 minutes of non-instruction time per day. Lesson planning for one day typically took longer than that, aided by the fact as I taught three courses. So, out the gate, there is no time for homework, assessments, projects, student help outside class time, tracking grades, reaching out to parents when kids need some more support, dealing with disruptive students, etc.

More simply put, if I had only given out enough work as to keep me at 40 hr/wk, there would have only been end of unit tests with no retakes that were only multiple choice (still would have gone over the 40 hr, but it would still have to happen) and any disruptive students would have been walking around campus (because I was not allowed to send them to the VP or detention as there was no room) where I would face liability if they came to harm (which was a real possibility - we had a kid murdered 5 feet off campus once, stabbed to death).

Man, I am so thankful for my career in development.

Wow, things have changed since I got out of school (HS grad 2000).

I remember being drowned in homework. And after getting out, I heard my former teachers complain just how much work they had to put in to keep up. (I did a stint substituting not long after.)

My question fell on deaf ears: why assign so much homework, if it reflects back on you x $number_of_students ? And homework also tends to select for families that can help with the homework load (moderately high income, free time, stable family, 9-5 jobs). If your kids and their parents fall outside that, they're probably going to do badly.

But still, there's technological ways to reduce your own personal load. Every hour past 40/week is billable free time. And unless it's a significantly rare event, you probably shouldn't be doing this, or negotiate for more money reflecting your higher workload.

You could also potentially get rid of homework completely. The students are already spending 8 hours in classes. And if 5 teachers add their hour in, that's a 13 hour day for students. Pretty sure that's not deemed as healthy with regards to sleep. But from the article, it appears the 'better' answer is that teachers and instructors are leaving in droves.

Just realized the way I worded it was unclear. I did not give out 45 minutes of homework for them per day, it was that I had 45 minutes to do everything I needed to do per day outside of classroom instruction if I wanted a 40 hr work week. Homework is the easiest to get rid of, and more and more schools are doing just that, even though independent practice is critical for learning.

I'd love to see a shift to top rated lectures viewed at home, and classroom time as a time for "homework" where students work to practice the topics of the lecture with the assistance of the teacher to patch up holes in understanding. Leveraging this methodology with some automatic grading, and I think teaching would be a better experience. Granted, this requires the students to do the lectures at home which has a whole slew of problems.

This. The number of errors my son's teachers commit is appalling, and he's in a top 50 hs in the country.

But how does this work in the future. Weekly report cards in elementary. Daily live updates in high school. To a single final 100% determining your ap credit / college course?

Sounds like millennials have taken their need for instant gratification and the system is coddling them.

The problem is not about updates being infrequent, it's about updates being wrong or partially applied for days at a time.

If the official way to check grades is online (and it is, by school policy and pointed out in every teachers's take-home documentation and in the open house nights where you meet your child's teachers), then I would rank accuracy first with timeliness a distant second.