How do you assess your students? How do you let them know about their progress? How do you motivate or encourage them? 

You may have been thinking about various solutions to these issues, as dealing with students is not as easy as it may seem. 

Individual tutors and educational companies are so much into remote learning, trying to make the most of its advantages. Would you also like to know more and use better ways of grading and awarding in digital? 

In that case, let’s get deeper in this article, providing information relating to:

1. Alternatives to Grading
2. Leaderboards in the classroom
3. Digital Badges in the classroom

Dialogue 1:

“Hey, what have you got?”

“Ah, it’s 78, and I don’t know how, why, when.”

“Oh, that’s bad, though mine is 98. I am happy to be through with exams.”

Dialogue 2:

“Hey, what have you got?”

“Oh, there was a little problem, and my teacher clearly wrote on my paper what that was. Hopefully, I won’t make the same mistake in my future studies.”

“Got you! I had three mistakes, but one is still unclear to me, so my teacher told me that we will discuss it later, I guess after the exams are finished.”

These two samples of student-student conversations tell us what kind of attitude can be towards education. And it’s just a part of it. In the first example, students are happy to finish the exams, the second one is especially happy for the high mark, but the importance of knowledge is not emphasized, unfortunately, as it seems like after grading they will learn more and especially from their mistakes.

The second example tells wholly another story. There is no word connected with numbers, although one of the students is happy to have made clearer his/her mistakes. The other one is looking forward to discussing the issues that occurred in the writing. The latter means that studying will go on and the students will acquire a better knowledge of the subject than in the first example.

Alternatives to Number/Letter Grades

Sometimes students get high marks due to their communication skills or cheating. The opposite occurs as well. In the end, some people think of themselves as “smart” based on their grades. This can result in misunderstandings. Besides, many students start learning for the grade and do not primarily get knowledge. So we should come up with more reliable and better ways of grading a student such as:

• Leaving immediate feedback: The student can get written or oral feedback from the instructor without any numbers or letters, then she/he can try to correct what was wrong.

• Analyzing the work: When the student is through with the work, she/he may think about what the next step is and what she/he is taking from this lesson. So the important point is not to think about the grade, but to analyze what has been done and what has been achieved. 

•  Pass/Fail: Students either pass or fail the regular checkups, exams, tests, etc. They do not think of getting a higher mark than the other classmate, which may help them concentrate on several extracurricular activities as well. They do not think about cheating or learning topics by heart, instead, they try to understand them.

• Self-Assessment: This way of grading can be considered as one of the best assessments. Students keep their awareness of their progress. They are more motivated to learn better and grade themselves higher. This is also the honest way of assessing.

• Digital Portfolios: Students get the chance to put their works on a digital platform. For example, if you have read a book and written analysis, you can freely put that work on your portfolio. Besides, this can be a good possession for future educational programs.

Remember: Giving up letter/number grades altogether is not effective, as it has a big disadvantage, which is the loss of competition. Students may not learn that hard if they know that they are not going to be graded. So it would be better to collect a few letter/number grades along with the above-mentioned or other ways of your own. 

In educational institutions leaderboards play such an important role as the academic progress is measured based on it. Academic awards are addressed based on the leaderboards as well. So it plays an extremely important role in teaching and learning. 

After a task, a game, a module, students get to see their results on the leaderboard and find their names in the list. But how does it affect the student’s progress and further learning process? 

The leaderboard:

• creates competition: The students, whose names are placed on a board automatically, get enthusiastic about improving their position. This is when the competition among other learners arises. And competition always leaves its good effects with the appearance of growth.

• develops students’ time management skills: Sometimes leaderboards are made in a way that takes the time in which a student has reached a point into consideration. So leaderboards can be formed according to the measurement of the spent time and right answers. This means that students also begin managing their time properly, not wasting time on important thighs and completing the course faster than ever. 

• motivates students: As in the badges case, here also, leaderboards are motivational. Students long for being the first, or at least in top positions, in the classroom leaderboard, which created motivation to go for it. 



• increases attentiveness: Let’s go back to the 1st point. Competitive students become more alert towards everything as the slightest inattentiveness can result in unwanted outcomes. 

When your students complete your module successfully, you can show them a badge, indicating that they can go ahead and cover other materials as well. Digital badges in education can be like a coin, star, sun, and many other creative designs can be created, depending on the specific theme of your classes. Besides, an educational badge contains a table where some requirements to get that badge are included. And when the student gets it, it becomes more visible what progress she/he has recorded. 

Khan Academy, Hubspot, Semrush, Skillshare, and many other websites offer digital badges along with several courses and modules. 

Digital badges in education allow the students and teachers to know what steps have been taken, finalized, and succeeded. But there is more than that.

Educational badges:

• are appreciative: On getting a badge, and visually having it on the screen of a mobile device or computer, students feel inspired, and appreciated by the teacher, as it shows everything done in detail, and can even contain a short, supportive statement of going forward and opening other badges for them. 

• are motivational: Students get motivated to learn more and perform better during the class due to the badges. They see how many badges are left which lets them work even harder to reach others as well. 

• can be used as a certificate: These badges are quite beneficial for further use, as they can serve a student as a sort of certificate, proof that they have completed the given course.

• increase success: If we take a look at the 2nd point, we can conclude that later motivated students will become more enthusiastic about new courses, skills, classes, professions, etc. which will increase success in their further activities in diverse spheres of life and work.

• inspire: Students can get inspired to see what they have acquired, how many badges they have collected, what success they have made, and so forth, which again motivates them. 



Stick with us: encourage and motivate your students every minute!

Do you want to experience digital badges? Or maybe you want your best students to be on the top of the leaderboard. What about leaving immediate feedback? Well, you can reach all of these above-mentioned and even more with the Tutor Platform.

Take a look at the points mentioned below to make it clearer what advantages you will come across while working with the Tutor team. 

• Tutor Platform offers all in one place. Do all of the above-mentioned and even more without changing your domains, pages, windows, venues, etc. every time you want to deal with something new. 

• Your students can see their badges after finishing a course on their pages.

• You can change the names of your badges based on your topics, wishes, opinions, etc.

• Giving badges to your students can be based on the fulfillment of the material or even attendance. 

• Students can look for and get excited by seeing their names on the leaderboard.

• The students with low scores will also be shown on the board with the number of their places taken.

• You can include gamification elements in your interactive materials to engage students more.

• Grade your students automatically. But you can also grade them manually while reviewing. 

• Following from the previous point, you can analyze the work, leaving wholesome feedback. 

• You can grade your students based on their attendance, completion of materials. You can even install any type of grading you want.



• Save your time and work more.

Try out the benefits of digital badges

If you want to make your grading more encouraging, then our leaderboards and badges are the exact way to go. Contact our well-prepared team to integrate them in your teaching processes.