One of the hallmarks of modern student life is online grades. Unlike the pre-digital world I grew up in, most schools now maintain a running record of students’ grades in each of their classes. This can be a useful resource for students, tutors, and parents if they know how to check online grades effectively. On the other hand, if you don’t know how to check online grades effectively, you can easily wind up wasting your time and creating unnecessary frustration.
So in this article, I’m going to explain how to check online grades in such a way that leads to better academic outcomes for students and better relationships between students, parents, teachers, and tutors.
Students
The first rule of checking online grades is to actually do it. Some students simply forget to check. Others deliberately avoid checking. If you do this, you’ll miss out on critical data about your performance as a student.
However, the second rule of checking online grades is to do it sparingly. Don’t check compulsively, all the time. A couple of times a week is probably enough. The grades don’t get updated every hour, so there’s no reason to check multiple times per day. At best, compulsive grade checking will be a waste of time. At worst, it will give you anxiety.
The third rule is to know what you’re looking for. And what you’re looking for is surprises. Surprises are things like:
- Grades that suddenly went up or down
- Missing work or missing quiz/test grades
- You thought you turned an assignment in on time, but it’s marked as missing.
- You thought you did the entire assignment, but it’s marked as incomplete.
- You thought you did well on an assignment, but the grade is much lower than expected.
- You thought you aced that test, but you actually didn’t.
- You thought you failed that test, but you actually did well.
Most of these surprises will be upsetting. But you need to be aware of them so you can deal with them and learn from them. When a student is avoiding looking at their grades, it’s usually because they know the grades are low. They may know they have a lot of missing assignments, and they don’t want to face that problem head-on. But the sooner you take an honest look at your situation, the sooner you can get to work making a change. Teachers are generally much more forgiving if you address problems right away rather than a month or two later.
For missing work, you’ll often be able to resolve it by simply going into the school’s online portal, finding the assignment, completing it, and turning it in. If there are many missing assignments, make a list. For cases where you cannot find the missing assignment, you’ll need to ask your teacher about it.
For assignments with lower-than-expected grades or those marked as incomplete, the first step is to review the instructions. Did you do everything that was asked? Did you do everything in the way that they asked you to? If not, you might be able to make corrections or complete the assignment for a higher grade. If you still think you did everything correctly, talk with your teacher. If you’re confused about why you received the grade you did, you’ll need to ask for better feedback.
For missing tests and quizzes, you’ll need to speak with your teacher about finding a time to make them up. When you’re sure you’ve turned something in on time, but it’s marked as missing, you’ll need to ask about it. (Note: If you turned it in late, it won’t be graded right away, so be patient.)
Anytime you realize you need to ask the teacher about something, you should message the teacher immediately, and you should make yourself a reminder (a planner note or a phone alarm) to talk with them in class or during office hours.
And the last rule of checking online grades for students is don’t use them as your primary resource for learning about assignments. If you do, you’ll mostly find out about due dates after they have passed, and you’ll constantly be playing catch-up. Instead, use the school’s online portal and what the teacher says in class to learn about current and future homework. Record these assignments in a planner or on a to-do list. That way, you’ll usually be ahead of the game, and there will be fewer surprises when you check your grades.
Tutors
Before we get into how parents should look at online grades, let’s discuss how we here at Northwest Educational Services do it because the way our tutors check online grades is a good model for how parents should do it.
The first thing is, we check with the student. It’s an activity we do together. Thus, we’re not “spying” on their grades or coming at them with a list of missing work that we found by checking in their absence. Parents – this alone goes a long way toward eliminating any combativeness around discussing grades.
The second thing is, we make it clear that this is not an opportunity for us to judge or criticize them. We’re checking out of curiosity. And we also make it clear that we’re not actually curious about the grades themselves. Instead, we’re interested in the extent to which they’re engaging with learning and schoolwork, and we’re using their grades as data about these things. Are they keeping up with the workload and playing the game of school? Are they preparing for quizzes and tests? Are they doing as well as they would like to do?
And that last question really brings us to the issue of ownership. The student owns their grade. And that means they get to decide how to react to it. For some students, getting a C on a test is a disaster. For others, getting a C would be a huge accomplishment. So we don’t automatically assume any meaning when we see a particular grade. Instead, we might simply ask, “How do you feel about that?” And then let their response guide the conversation. If they’re not doing as well as they would like, we extend an open invitation to talk about it. We let them know that we’re here to help, but we don’t force-feed them advice.
And we don’t just look at “bad” or low grades. We look at all of them, every time. We don’t just troubleshoot the things that are going poorly. We also celebrate what’s going well. In particular, we celebrate improvements in productivity, engagement, follow-through, and learning. When we see improvement, we try to get the student to name what they did differently to reinforce the positive change. Done right, online grade checking is another opportunity to help students develop a growth mindset.
Parents
Parents should strongly consider adopting all of the practices I just described for tutors. But they should also be aware that tutors have it easier. The relationship between a parent and a child (especially a teenager) is typically fraught with far more emotional baggage than that of a tutor and a student. Checking grades together might feel like walking through a minefield, especially if you’ve developed a pattern of combativeness around school conversations. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.
As with students, you shouldn’t be checking all the time either. Once a week is plenty. And you have to be patient with the system and with the teachers, in addition to being patient with your child. Missing work doesn’t get graded and entered into the system the moment your child turns it in. So if your child says that a missing assignment is turned in and awaiting a grade, trust them, and let it go for now. If it’s still marked as missing a couple of weeks later, well, then you get to have a conversation with your child about what’s going on. But again, start from a place of trust. Assume that they’ve turned it in and the teacher just needs a reminder to grade it. Encourage them to talk with their teacher.
Getting to a place where you and your child can look at their grades together in a calm, productive manner will take practice. And it will only work if you’re genuinely curious and nonjudgmental. Your child may initially be very resistant to the process and hesitant to open up, especially if they’re struggling, but it will get better eventually. Remember, trust takes time.
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