Students need to know their standing in a course and understand their ability to succeed or recover given the opportunities remaining. Sometimes students don’t get the feedback that they need in time to make a good decision about whether they should drop a class or not.

From Advice from advisors and student success professionals

The instructor is responsible for providing timely feedback and a clear and documented grading structure so that students know how they are performing in a class and understand what that means.

Consider giving your students a mid-course self-check in order to verify that they know how they are performing at this point in the term and know how to use the provided tools to find that information. To make it easier, we're providing a sample mid-course self-check quiz QTI file that you can import into your own course.

Want to see the quiz first? It's added into this course so you can experience it from the student perspective: Mid-course student self-check (resource for faculty)

THE "WHAT-IF" TOOL

The What-if tool allows students to attempt to calculate their total grade by entering hypothetical grades for assignments in the future. For example, a student might use the tool and identify: "in order to achieve an A in this class, I need to score at least 10 points on this 12 point quiz next week.” Students have found this tool valuable in usability studies provided the grading schema used by the instructor is transparent and straightforward. An instructor can preview the What-If scores feature by entering Student View, then opening the Grades tool, and finding the What-If feature. As you enter scores in the Score column you will note a change in overall score in the top right.