Grading got you stressed? Teachers in Google Classroom can now click "Excused" and call it a day

Teachers using Google Classroom have a new tool to manage student grades more flexibly and clearly. Starting today, the platform allows marking individual assignments as “Excused,” excluding them from a student’s overall grade calculation.

The “Excused” feature is straightforward: teachers simply select the relevant assignment for a specific student and mark it as “Excused” within the Google Classroom interface.

This feature is designed to help students navigate common challenges they may face during their academic journey. One such challenge is student absences, which can be caused by various factors such as illness, family emergencies, or other unforeseen circumstances. With this feature, teachers can accommodate legitimate absences without penalizing the students’ grades, which can help reduce students’ stress and pressure when they cannot attend classes.

Teachers can also drop the student’s lowest-performing assignment, providing a safety net for students who struggle with a particular topic or task. The application of this feature could be endless.

Starting December 12, 2023, Google Classroom will gradually roll out this feature to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains over the next 15 days.

This feature is available for all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts.

Overall, the “Excused” feature adds a valuable tool to Google Classroom’s grading system, offering increased flexibility and potentially improving the learning experience for both teachers and students

More about it here.