Student Enrollment + Course Assignments

[Clayborn R]

First let me say that I hope all have a fantastic day today. Now to the meat of the matter.

I've got a Student table joined via an Enrollment table to a CourseSection table. Also, I've got a Course table which describes the course & possibly the assignments that the course should expect to be performed by each student, due dates, max grade, class attendance, etc.

My goal is to generalize the recording of the Student's grades.

I'm trying to figure out a construct that allows the Enrollment Table or another closely tied table to copy, use or reference the Course assignments as sort of a master that each student enrolled in a course can be tallied against.

Simply adding a bunch of AssignmentGrade fields to the Enrollment table makes the Enrollment table become specific to the course - that's not the objective.

Ideally, because the Course table wants to be generic, then a separate CourseAssignments table is actually needed so that each Course can have a varying list of assignments and types of assignments (quiz, homework, papers, attendance dates).

This additional level of abstraction has got me stumped. Your advice & suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Ender]

Welcome Clayborn!

You're on the right track. You need a CourseAssignment table (or CourseSectionAssignment table, if the assignments are specific to each Section,) and an EnrollmentAssignment table, where each record is the assignment and grade for a student's Enrollment. The grading scale info (like highest possible score,) would be kept in the CourseAssignment table, along with the assignment description, date assigned, and date due.

You will likely need a script to populate the EnrollmentAssignment table when things are assigned to the class.

[Clayborn R]

Thanks for the welcome and the reply. I'm trying to see thru the fog, so bear with me.

The CourseAssignment table (which defines the Assignments assigned for the Course - max grades only - not enrollees scores) relates to the Course table by ID_Course.

The EnrolleeGrade table is a join table which connecting a 2nd table occurence of the CourseAssignment Table (via the same ID_Course) AND the CourseEnrollment table. Each record of the EnrolleeGrade table can be populated with a Student's grade, timestamp for when papers were turned in, attendance, etc.

The CourseAssignment Table needs to have a counter for each assignment or meeting date. Then the EnrolleeGrade record would match the record in the CourseAssignment table via ID_CourseAssignment. Or something like that. Now I'm confused.

It seems that there is a missing level of abstraction that I can't put my finger on. If each record in the CourseAssignment table contains something like: AssignNum, DateAssigned, DateDue, AssignDescr, max grade, etc, how does the EnrolleeGrade suck that info into a record?

I'm thinking out loud, but I guess in the EnrolleeGrade layout, there would be a portal into CourseAssignment table with the Assignment records that match the course. Then a new layout or portal could be opened that shows all the Assignment data necessary to score the Student's peformance (the grade, was it late, etc).

Is this making sense? What's the gaping hole that I'm missing?

Thanks again.

[Ender]

You're close.

You would probably use an EnrolleeGrade portal on a CourseEnrollment layout. So for a particular student Enrollment, you can enter scores for the assignments that that student is assigned. As I hinted at before, you'd probably want to populate the EnrolleeGrade table for all enrollees for the class as things are assigned.

Now, about showing the related Assignment details, simply make sure there is a relationship between the TO of EnrolleeGrade that is used for the portal, and a TO of CourseAssignment. Then insert the detail fields of CourseAssignment into the EnrolleeGrade portal.

You should also consider that teachers are used to entering scores in a list format, where the names of students are listed in one column, and the score for the assignment is listed in the next. This would mean using the relationships from CourseSection to EnrolleeGrade (or possibly adding another TO,) and entering scores through a portal of EnrolleeGrade or using Go To Related Records [ Show ] to jump the the records, then do the data entry in a List View. (Actually, teachers are used to more of a spreadsheet kind of gradebook, but that is more complicated.)

[Clayborn R]

Thanks for the additional support. I've got to go put these suggestions into code. I should have something over the weekend.

Thanks again.