31 Powerful Grading Software for Schools & 7 Tips to Implement Them

Grading student work can feel overwhelming for many teachers, with papers, projects, presentations, and tests to assess. Each assignment often has its rubrics and scoring criteria, adding complexity. After grading, you must report results to students and families. This process can feel endless, especially when aiming for accuracy and meaningful feedback. Incorporating AI in the classroom can streamline grading by automating routine tasks and providing insightful analytics, thus simplifying the process, saving time, and allowing you to focus on what matters most: helping students grow.
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One tool for achieving your grading goals is EssayGrader, a grading software for teachers that streamlines essay and open-ended assignment grading. It provides accurate, consistent feedback while saving valuable time.

Why Does Grading Feel So Hard?

woman looking sad - Grading Software for Schools

The Emotional Toll of Grading

Grading causes mental and emotional strain on educators. They face intense time pressures, make subjective judgments, and struggle to provide meaningful feedback. Tackling these challenges requires emotional resilience, yet many teachers report feeling overwhelmed and underprepared to manage their grading responsibilities.

One educator said, "I wish I could just give everyone a pass and avoid grading altogether." Another teacher shared, "I hate it. I really do. I feel awful saying that, but it’s absolutely the worst part of my job."

These quotes exemplify the emotional toll grading takes on educators and how many dread the task.

The Scale of Grading

The sheer number of assignments handed out in courses today can be staggering. Even the most diligent students may struggle to complete all the tasks their professors require. Instructors often feel the pressure as they have to assess hundreds of assignments, including:

Papers
Projects
Exams

The Importance of Timely Feedback in Student Learning

Providing timely feedback is crucial before students move on to the next unit or module. Even if you have complete autonomy to decide what work your students do, and even if you do contract grades or some version of upgrading, you still have to read/watch/listen to your students’ projects to offer your feedback on their work.

But indeed, that isn’t the reason it feels so hard? Cue guilt and anger. Don’t worry; you can let yourself out of the teacher-doghouse. It’s not you; it’s higher education. Let me explain.

The Timing of Grading

The timing of grading can exacerbate the stress educators feel about grading assignments. For example, many instructors find grading midterm projects more onerous than final ones. This is partly because of what I call the "Second-Half Squish." This is the time of the semester when I evaluate the midterm projects while giving feedback on the various stages of the final projects while teaching.

It’s no wonder I was not cheerful during this period despite how much pride I usually feel while working with my students on their ideas. The Squish, of course, feels worse the more “Scale” you’re dealing with.

The Pressure to Perform

Grading can feel like a sprint or a slog, which can emotionally affect educators. I hear there are unicorn faculty members who can spread out their evaluation of 100 projects evenly over two weeks to avoid getting burnt out.

Avoiding Burnout in Evaluation Flow States

I try to be this unicorn. I do. But once I’m in an evaluation flow state, I want to keep going to see the pile significantly reduce, and then I get burned out. And then, I avoid it because I associate it with burnout. And then, well, you get the idea. Again, this might be more relevant based on how much “Scale” you’re dealing with.

The Shame of Grading

This sentiment might be too strong, but I couldn’t think of another ‘s’ word for embarrassment. I mean that sometimes, especially when we are teaching a course for the first time and have little time to prep our courses, grading shows us that we failed. There’s nothing quite like sprinting or slogging through 100 students' projects only to realize you forgot to teach them.

Improving Your Feedback Practices

If you care about doing your job well, it can be incredibly dispiriting to see piece after piece of evidence that you bungled the assignment. If this happens to you, don’t despair. Make a note of what went wrong and what you’ll do next time to fix it. Then, move on. Of course, some faculty write it off as the student’s fault, but if most of them didn’t do well, that’s on you, my friend.

Are There Alternatives to Traditional Grading?

woman working on a laptop - Grading Software for Schools

Starting with a simple question helps to open up the conversation about grading: What exactly is a grade? At its core, a grade is a way for teachers to calculate and report student performance. It’s typically an accumulation of points (0 to 100) with corresponding letters (A through F, minus E). So, earn an 89 on a test, and your grade is a B+, for example.

The Historical Significance and Impact of Grades in the U.S. Education System

Grades have long been part of our education system in the U.S. (believed to date back to 1785, when Yale President Ezra Stiles gave four grades to his seniors). Grades have become “the main criteria in nearly every decision that schools make about students,” says Rebecca Feldman, a former teacher and principal. “From whether they get promoted to the next class or held back, to which course level a student should be taking, such as college prep, honors, or AP. It’s how many high schools tally GPA and student rank, and one of the main ways that colleges decide who they’ll even consider for admissions.”

“Grading is evaluation, putting a value on something,” says Denise Pope, Ed.M.’89, a senior lecturer at Stanford who runs a project called Challenge Success.

The Distinction Between Grading and Assessment: Pope's Perspective

Pope stresses, however, that grades are not the same as assessments, and to talk about grading, we have to distinguish between the two terms. “Assessment is feedback so that students can learn,” Pope says. “It’s helping them see where they are and helping them move toward a point of greater understanding or mastery. Grading doesn’t always do that, but assessment should.”

When she hosts professional development workshops to help schools rethink their assessment practices, she points out that the Latin root of assessment is assidere, which means to sit beside.

Assessment is assessing a student's understanding, what they don’t know and do know, and then determining what they need. “Sometimes a grade does that,” Pope says, “but a lot of times students have no idea what that grade means.”

The Ambiguity of Letter Grades: A Central Debate in Education

That’s what seems to be at the heart of the debate about grading and what rubbed me the wrong way when my son was in that math class: Students, teachers, parents, and college admissions officers have no idea what a letter grade — this thing we are saying is essential in a student’s school life — is saying.

The Question of Mastery: What Do Letter Grades Truly Represent?

Does an A mean a student has truly mastered that history lesson? Does the C+ mean the student was “sort of” getting the math they were learning, or did it mean they were an ace at math but just couldn’t keep a neat binder?

The Problems With Traditional Grading

The confusion starts with consistency, as in, there’s none. At most schools, there’s no consistency about what’s included in a grade or what’s left out, even among teachers teaching the same subject in the same school to students in the same grade at the same level. This creates “grade fog”— we’re unsure what the grade means because we ask A or C+ to communicate too much disparate information.

“It’s radically inconsistent from teacher to teacher,” says A.J. Stitch, Ed.M.’12, the founding principal of the Greater Dayton School, a private school in Ohio for kids from low-income backgrounds that doesn’t use traditional grades. “At public schools where I’ve worked in the past, most teachers had different approaches to weighting homework, classwork, quizzes, and tests.”

For example, he says, “a student may demonstrate mastery of content on a test, quiz, and classwork, yet still fails a course because the teacher decides to weigh homework 40%, and the student, for one reason or another, struggles in that regard. Obviously, that’s inequitable, and it illustrates the variation of weighted grade scales and how it impacts a student’s success or failure, regardless of whether they mastered the standards taught in the course. Sadly, I made this mistake myself as a young teacher, and as a principal I’ve seen too many teachers make this mistake, too.”

Rethinking Grading at Melrose High School

Jason Merrill, the principal of Melrose High School, where my son currently attends school, says this is one of the biggest reasons they started examining their teaching and learning practices and why they applied to become one of five schools in the multi-year Rethinking Grading Pilot program sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“Your son has eight teachers right now that all have their own way to grade. Completely their own,” he says. “The average kid often gives up trying to figure it out. Some teachers count homework, some teachers don’t. Some teachers grade homework, some teachers grade it as completion. Some teachers count large tests for a lot more than others. What we want to do is not have 85 different ways to respond to a fire alarm.”

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Feldman says they also don’t want to include non-academics in grades, things like:

Messy binders
Not coming to class with a pencil
One commonly factored in: late work

“A student who writes an A-quality essay but hands it in late gets her writing downgraded to a B, and the student who writes a B-quality essay turned in by the deadline receives a B. There’s nothing to distinguish those two B grades, although those students have very different levels of content mastery,” he says.

Traditional grading also invites biases, he says, especially around behavior. “When we include a student’s behavior in a grade, we’re imposing on all of our students a narrow idea of what a ‘successful’ student is,” Feldman says, and “you start to misrepresent and warp the accuracy.”

How Grading Systems Can Reward Effort Over Mastery

For example, a student who participates in discussions and always brings their pencil to class earns five points, but they get a C on the test. Adding the five behavior points lifts that C test grade to a low B range. Although students and parents are happy, the grade is a B and the student’s all-important GPA remains intact, this warping can create longer-term problems.

“You’re telling the student that they’re at a B level in content, and they’re actually at a C,” he says. “They don’t think there’s a problem, the counselors don’t think there’s a problem, and the student goes to the next grade level and gets crushed by the content. They had no idea that they weren’t prepared for the rigor of that class because they kept getting the message that they were getting B’s.”

Parental Confusion Over Skill-Based Grading

“It can be especially confusing for parents,” says Christopher Beaver, one of the assistant principals at Melrose High. “I knew what my own kids could do skill-based wise, but if I’m a parent and I don’t know what my kids can do because the teachers haven’t laid that out for me on a report card, then I can’t look at a report card and say, ‘See that. My kid is proficient at this skill or my kid is proficient at that skill,’” he says.

“I’m going to focus on something like the GPA because that’s all I have. And I’m going to assume, if my kid has a high GPA, that my kid’s skillset is at a proficient level. But that is not always the case.”

The Impact of Averaging

As a parent, I was confused earlier this year when my son’s overall grade in a class was low, even though he seemed to get the content. We looked online at the district's grading portal, and he had Bs and As. But then there was that one grade: a 44 on a test he didn’t have enough time to finish. That one low test score brought the whole grade down because of another impossible part of how we grade: averaging.

“We have this ridiculous system of averaging things out,” Pope says, “which doesn’t make any sense because the goal is to get students to learn material. Same with the case against zero, right? Why would you give a kid a zero? A zero is worse than an F.”

Rethinking Grading Scales and Fairness

The “case against zero” idea is that when using a 0-to-100-point scale in grading, a student should never receive a zero, even if they didn’t turn in an assignment. Sounds odd, given that a zero for not turning in work is how we’ve long operated. However, as author, Doug Reeves wrote in 2004 in “The Case Against the Zero” in Phi Delta Kappan, “assigning a zero is disproportionate punishment.” Why? Because mathematically, with a 0-to-100 scale, failing a class is more likely than passing a class. Think about it. Each letter grade is 10 points:

A is 90-100
B is 80- 89
C is 70-79
D is 60-69

The Disproportionate Impact of a Zero

But the scale’s one failing grade, an F, spans not 10 points, but 60 (0 to 59). The result is that a zero disproportionally pulls down an average, making it much harder to pull a grade significantly. A student with two 85s, for example, is averaging a B. If that student gets a 0 on one assignment, their average drops to 56, an F. Even if the student gets 85s on the next two assignments, their average only jumps to 68. So, four Bs and one zero mean the student’s average overall grade is a D+.

Penalizing Early Struggles

This average especially penalizes students who start a semester slower and have lower grades. Even if they figure out the material and fully master content later, averaging won’t necessarily reflect what they truly know. In his book, Feldman gives an example of a student who, coming into ninth grade, had never learned to write a persuasive essay. The ninth-grade teacher gives an assignment early in September, revealing this student’s writing inexperience.

“The essay gets a D-. But it’s early in September, and you, as the teacher, provide instruction and guided practice with feedback,” Feldman writes. The students' writing improves, and their grades increase with each new assignment. They are doing A work. However, when the grades are averaged, that early D- drags down the overall grade, and though the student has mastered persuasive writing, their A drops to a B-.

The Stress of Grading

Add Stress to the Mix Beyond the problems with how we grade or what a grade means, Robin Loewald, Ed.M.’19, an English teacher at Melrose High, also worries about how grades affect student mindset, especially for middle- and high-schoolers. “Grading in general is tough because of the expectations for students with college applications,” she says. “There tends to be a lot of stress around grades and the minute difference between a 93 and 94. In truth, it’s hard to really delineate the difference between those two numbers in terms of student understanding and mastery of the subject.” Pope focuses her work extensively on the stress students take on trying to chase “good” grades and the extrinsic motivation, driven by external rewards, that takes over.

In an op-ed she co-authored in February for The Hechinger Report about the furor over ChatGPT, she wrote that instead of asking how to stop students from cheating using bot programs, we should ask “why” students are cheating in the first place. Chasing those good grades is part of that “why.”

The Negative Impact of Grades on Student Stress and Motivation

“We have this real system of you need to get the grades and the test scores in order to please your parents, go to college, get the merit scholarship, get a good job, whatever it is,” she says. “There’s this extrinsic motivation that’s tied to grades, which adds to student stress, and in some cases can lead to really unhealthy practices like perfectionism or great anxiety, paralysis. And it could also really turn kids off. ‘Well, I got a C so I’m bad at math. I’m not a math person so clearly, I shouldn’t try anymore.’”

The Burden of Grading Complexity

As Feldman said during an interview in 2019 with the Harvard EdCast, for students, even attempting to follow the range of grading practices each of their six or seven teachers follows can be stressful. “For the student, it adds to my cognitive load,” he says. “I not only have to understand the content and try and perform at high levels of the content, but now I also have to navigate a grading structure that may not be totally transparent and may be different for every teacher, and particularly for students who are historically underserved and have less education background and fewer resources and understanding of how to navigate those really foreign systems. It places those additional burdens on them, which we shouldn’t do.”

Are There Alternatives to Traditional Grades?

If traditional grades say little about a student’s mastery of the material, are often inequitable, and can add more stress, what are better ways for teachers and schools to capture a student’s skills and understanding of the material? And given the long history of using numbers and letter grades, are schools ready to change?

In 2005, Chester Finn Jr., M.A.T’67, Ed.D.’70, then president of the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, told The Washington Post that “high schools will keep using them if college admissions offices keep requiring them, which they likely will.”

But nearly two decades after Finn made that observation, it’s clear that some schools, like my son’s, are ready for change and have ideas for achieving it.

Breaking Free from Traditional Grading: The Greater Dayton School's Innovative Approach

At the Greater Dayton School, Stitch says their ability to work outside the structure and limitations of a public school gave them the liberty to design whatever grading scale they thought was best for kids. They chose not to use the A to F scale. “The traditional grading system is not aligned to learning outcomes,” he says. “Traditional grading is one-and-done in terms of you’ve learned the content, or you haven’t, and the grade you get is the grade you get. A better grading system allows for multiple attempts of content mastery.”

This is why his school uses only two grades:

Mastered
In progress

The Benefits of Unlimited Learning Opportunities and Personalized Pacing

Students have unlimited chances to learn the material and become proficient. They also learn at their own pace, and the school’s standards are broken into kid-friendly “I can” statements so parents and students know exactly what skills a student “can” do and which skills they are working on.

A few years ago, Melrose High started allowing students to redo their work if their grades were below a certain number. The idea was that learning shouldn’t be punitive; it was about mastering content, even if that took more than one try.

As Merrill says, “At the end of the day, we want all kids to learn. We don’t want to prove that they don’t know something. We want to be like, you need to do some work to retake this again to show us that you do know it.”

Loewald says the school’s English department also has an extended revision policy for writing assignments. Students can meet with their teachers to edit, revise, and resubmit their writing work. She allows students to modify almost every assignment.

The Power of Revision: Enhancing Student Learning and Reducing Anxiety

“I think that the process of learning through revision is really helpful and allows there to be less pressure on the initial submission of work,” she says. “Students are graded on rubrics and can use those rubrics to guide their revisions of assignments. The only assignments that I do not allow students to revise are their reading checks since those are things we talk about and reference in the class in which they’re due.”

Refining the Retake Policy: A Work in Progress for Competency-Based Learning

Merrill says the school’s revision policy is a work in progress; it needs revision because there is too much variation in what students can redo. “We are working to build a single, consistent retake policy. If we de-emphasize the weighting for formative assessment and practice materials, such as homework and classwork, then we can have a retake policy that addresses summative assessments only,” he says.

The Shift to Competency-Based Learning: A New Approach to Student Evaluation

Caitlin Reilly, Ed.M.’14, recently became a deputy principal at Revere High School, located just north of Boston and part of the state’s Rethinking Grading Pilot. She says the school is moving toward a full competency-based model. Although there’s a variation on how competency-based is defined, it generally means that instead of evaluating students as proficient based on the amount of time they spend on a subject, 58 minutes for factoring polynomials or three years taking a foreign language, time allotment is shifted to how well students can define what they know about a subject. And those competencies aren’t vague; a school spells them out.

The Benefits of Competency-Based Learning: Promoting Equity and Transparency

“For us, competency learning is a matter of equity for students because it makes apparent to all students, what are you working toward?” says Reilly. “Where do you not yet have the skills? What support do you need? And students should be seeing their progress to the standards of the course. Knowing that is incredibly important for all students, versus the hidden game of school when you have this letter grade, and you don’t know where it’s generated from, or you have a test that you got 10 points just for writing your name.”

She says one of the areas Revere High is working on with the grant is rethinking report cards. Their current approach mimics, in some ways, what elementary schools typically do, which is to include comments about student strengths or areas that need improving in their work habits, not just the letter grade.

They are working on transitioning course grades from a single letter to a proficiency report on course competencies. “Our current report card is a one-pager that has letter grades, but for every class students have, there’s a habits-of-work box that includes the four habits-of-work that we assess: active learning, respect, collaboration, and ownership,” she says.

“For each habit, there’s a scale of proficient, some proficiency, or not yet proficient, with rubric-defined criteria that guides the understanding of what it is to be proficient in each category.” In that way, it’s not just a teacher’s general “sense” of which category to pick or a parent’s guess as to what each habit means.

Exploring Alternatives to Traditional Methods

As I talked to educators about other ways to rethink how we grade, some suggested dropping the lowest grade in a class or not grading assignments done early in a semester. Many mention not grading homework but instead allowing that work to be a place where students can figure things out and make mistakes, especially when new concepts are introduced. Others talk about doing away with the 0-to-100 scale.

In Melrose, Loewald says the English Department has already shifted to a 1-to-4 scale. “A four meaning the student is exceeding expectations, three is meeting, two is approaching, and one is developing,” she says. “It’s much more accurate in terms of assessing student learning to use a smaller scale.”

Feldman says that any change around an entrenched topic like grading requires “investment in teacher understanding along with policy development in order to change practice around grading.” My son’s school has already jumped on this train, with a core group of administrators and teachers examining current practices and testing out some of the changes they want to make.

A Collaborative Approach to Educational Innovation: Teacher-Led Experimentation

“They’ve all set goals for themselves and are participating in regular coaching,” says Melanie Acevedo, the district’s director of instructional technology and personalized learning. “They come to a meeting once a month and talk about what’s working, what’s not working. They are a group that’s trying things out. They’re being the people that are booted on the ground, really experimenting so that we can come back to the bigger faculty and say, here are some things that people have tried. Do you want to try that? We’re building this idea from the staff and from the teachers because they’re the ones that know best.”

One of the things Melrose High isn’t doing, at least not yet, is blowing up the entire grading system or even doing away with traditional A to F grades. Instead, says Merrill, they’ve set a goal so that by next fall they have “a very clear, consistent, transparent grading practice and policy in place for all teachers,” he says, and can answer questions like:

How do we assess kids?
How do we communicate that?
How do kids know where they stand?
How do they reflect and retake or do revisions?
How do we count homework?
Is that grading equitable?

“There are so many pieces that go into it,” he says, “but we’re not looking to make any of our kids a trial.”

Luckily, there’s broader interest in “rethinking grading,” as the Massachusetts pilot is called. Sales for Feldman’s Grading for Equity book are robust enough that he’s working on a second, updated edition, and, he says, “I am not any less confident that this is one of the most important levers that schools and districts can use to not only improve student achievement, but also reduce achievement and opportunity disparities.”

Rethinking Grading: A Potential Solution to Teacher Retention Crisis

Rethinking grading may keep some teachers in the profession longer. “We’ve heard, and we have some data, that this work actually increases the likelihood that some teachers would stay in their district,” Feldman says. “We see a real crisis in the retention of the teaching force. Knowing that there’s a learning opportunity that can engage them more directly with why they went into teaching in the first place, and gets them more excited about teaching, I think is really important.”

He says teachers don’t want to be the bean counters or police officers they often become when grading. “The five participation points every day. The, you turned it in late one day, so you lose 10% or you turned it in two days late so 20%,” he says. “None of us went into teaching to do that.”

Can You Use Technology to Grade More Objectively and Consistently?

man working on a laptop - Grading Software for Schools

Artificial Intelligence plays a critical role in transforming learning and education. One of the most underrated areas where AI is making an impact is grading. Automated grading systems powered by artificial intelligence (AI) have revolutionized the exam evaluation process, increasing accuracy and efficiency. Traditional manual grading methods are time-consuming and susceptible to human errors and subjectivity. In contrast, automated grading systems offer a reliable and objective approach to assessing exams.

Natural Language Processing: The Backbone of Automated Grading

Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms enable automated grading systems to analyze and understand written responses. By employing machine learning techniques, AI can assess the following, providing valuable insights into students’ understanding of the subject matter:

Quality
Coherence
Relevance

Pattern Recognition: Targeting Common Errors

AI-powered systems can recognize patterns in student responses and identify common errors or misconceptions. This functionality allows educators to pinpoint areas where students may be struggling and tailor their teaching strategies accordingly.

Adaptive Learning: The More You Use It, The Better It Gets

AI-based grading systems can adapt and improve over time. By analyzing vast amounts of student data, these systems can identify areas of weakness and develop personalized feedback and recommendations for individual learners. This personalized approach enhances the learning experience and helps students progress at their own pace.

Feedback Generation: Enhancing The Learning Experience

AI algorithms can generate detailed feedback for students, highlighting their strengths and improvement areas. This feedback not only guides students but also saves educators’ time by automating the process of generating individualized feedback.

Accuracy and Efficiency: How Automated Grading Systems Improve Exam Assessment

Consistent and Accurate Evaluation

AI algorithms can recognize patterns and evaluate responses based on predefined criteria, ensuring consistent and impartial grading.

Instant Feedback

Automated grading systems provide students with immediate feedback, allowing them to promptly understand their mistakes and areas for improvement.

Enhanced Efficiency

Automated systems can process exams at a faster pace than manual grading, reducing the workload on educators and freeing up their time for other important tasks.

Reduces Burnout

By automating the grading process, educators are relieved from the daunting task of evaluating a large number of exams within a limited timeframe, reducing the risk of burnout.

Ensures Fairness

Automated grading eliminates subjective biases that can arise from human grading, promoting fairness in the assessment process.

Transform Your Grading Workflow with EssayGrader's AI-Powered Tool

EssayGrader is the most accurate AI grading platform, trusted by over 60,000 educators worldwide. It reduces the time it takes to grade a single essay from 10 minutes to just 30 seconds, a 95% reduction with the same reliable results. Key features include:

Replicate and set up fully custom grading rubrics
Grade essays by class
Bulk upload essays for efficient processing
Detect AI-written essays with our AI detector
Summarize essays instantly with our Essay Summarizer

Used by teachers from primary schools to college professors, EssayGrader has helped educators grade over half a million essays. Save 95% of your grading time while providing high-quality, specific, and accurate feedback in seconds.

Experience faster grading and superior feedback with EssayGrader’s grading software for teachers. Start today and transform your workflow with AI customer support!

5 Strategies for Leveraging Technology for Grading and Feedback

1. Embrace Digital Grading Platforms

Say goodbye to cumbersome stacks of papers and hello to the convenience of digital grading platforms! Explore online tools and software solutions that allow you to efficiently grade:

Assignments
Quizzes
Exams electronically

From dedicated grading apps to learning management systems (LMS), myriad options are available to suit your preferences and workflow. Features include:

Customizable rubrics
Automated scoring
Instant feedback

Digital grading platforms empower you to streamline the grading process, save time, and provide more detailed and personalized feedback to your students.

2. Enhance Feedback Delivery With Multimedia

Break free from traditional written feedback's limitations and embrace multimedia's power to enhance communication and engagement. Utilize audio and video recording tools to provide verbal feedback that is more:

Personalized
Expressive
Nuanced than written comments alone

Consider incorporating screencasting software to narrate your feedback while highlighting specific student work areas in real time. By leveraging multimedia feedback, you can cater to:

Diverse learning styles
Deepen student understanding
Foster a stronger connection between you and your students

3. Foster Collaboration With Online Discussion Forums

Create opportunities for collaborative learning and peer feedback through:

Online discussion
Forums
Virtual classrooms

Utilize platforms such as discussion boards, chat rooms, or video conferencing tools to facilitate:

Meaningful discussions
Debates
Peer reviews among students

Encourage active participation, critical thinking, and respectful discourse as students engage with each other’s:

Ideas
Perspectives
Feedback

By fostering a collaborative learning environment, you empower students to:

Take ownership of their learning
Support each other’s growth
Develop essential communication
Collaboration skills for success in a globalized world

4. Utilize Automated Assessment Tools

Streamline the assessment process and gain valuable insights into student performance with automated assessment tools. Explore adaptive learning platforms, quiz generators, and online assessment tools that offer:

Immediate feedback
Personalized learning pathways
Data-driven insights into student progress

To identify areas of strength and growth for individual students or the class as a whole, leverage features such as:

Auto-grading
Analytics dashboards
Predictive modeling

By utilizing automated assessment tools, you can make informed instructional decisions, differentiate instruction, and provide targeted support to meet your students' diverse needs.

5. Encourage Self-Assessment and Reflection

Empower students to take an active role in their learning journey through self-assessment and reflection activities facilitated by technology. Provide students with access to:

Digital portfolios
Self-assessment checklists
Reflection prompts

Through these, they can:

Track their progress
Set goals
Reflect on their learning experiences

Encourage students to review their:

Graded assignments
Analyze feedback
Identify areas for improvement independently

By fostering a culture of self-assessment and reflection, you promote:

Metacognitive skills
Self-regulation
Lifelong learning habits that are essential for success in the globalized world

31 Best Grading Software for Schools

students in a classroom - Grading Software for Schools

1. EssayGrader: The Fastest Grading Software for Teachers

EssayGrader is the most accurate AI grading platform trusted by 60,000+ educators worldwide. On average, a teacher takes 10 minutes to grade a single essay. With EssayGrader, that time is cut down to 30 seconds. That's a 95% reduction in the time it takes to grade an essay with the same results.

With EssayGrader, teachers can:

Replicate their grading rubrics (so AI doesn't have to do the guesswork to set the grading criteria)
Setup fully custom rubrics
Grade essays by class
Bulk upload of essays
Use our AI detector to catch essays written by AI
Summarize essays with our Essay summarizer!

Our AI tool helps primary school, high school, and college professors grade their students' essays.

Save 95% of your time grading school work with our tool to get high-quality, specific, and accurate writing feedback for essays in seconds with EssayGrader's grading software for teachers. Get started for free today!

2. Canvas Teacher

Canvas is for teachers on the go! It features opportunities to grade, communicate, and update students on their assignments. Teachers can easily see which students have handed in or are missing assignments. Easily give feedback right through your phone! The best part? It’s all free!

3. Easy Grade

Easy Grade assists in grading papers and tests on iOS. You can customize how to grade a test by changing point values. You can also round scores with a click of a button. This app is supported on an iPad as well! It’s free to download with a few in-app purchases to enhance the experience.

4. QuickGrader

This free grading option is fully customizable and features:

Half-point values
Adjustable grade scales
Decimal values
Plus/minus grading
Super user-friendly

5. Groovy Grader

Groovy Grader is a free digital slide grader! It will replace your paper grading calculator.

6. Grades – Grade Calculator

Have you ever asked a student what grade they need to receive on a future exam to raise their final grade for the class? This app calculates what a student needs to get on the next test to hit target grades and GPA. It’s a free companion for both teachers and students!

7. Gradework Pro

The app includes features such as:

Automatic grade calculation
Attendance tracking
Student performance summaries that can be emailed out to families

There is a one-time fee of $19.99, but the app is ad-free, and this price includes everything within the app (no in-app purchases).

8. Grade Grid

Grade Grid can convert number grades to letter grades for free! The grading scale is customizable depending on the assignment.

9. GradeMe

Yet another free digital EZ grader! This one has excellent reviews!

10. Showbie

Grade up to 10 student assignments simultaneously with the accessible version of Showbie! Showbie also contains a digital grade book.

11. Viper

Viper will scan your students’ work and detect plagiarism. The app has a small price, but districts or institutions can purchase a plan through Viper to ease this burden.

12. ZipGrade

ZipGrade will grade multiple-choice tests in just minutes! You just have to scan the test with your phone. It is free to download with a few in-app purchase options!

13. BookWidgets

BookWidgets allows teachers to make assignments that students complete and return via the app to be automatically graded. Teachers can follow student activities live and provide feedback after completing assignments. There is a small fee of $9 monthly, but a big discount is available if multiple teachers want to use it!

14. Flubaroo

THIS IS A MUST! Flubaroo is a FREE add-on to Google Forms/Sheets that lets you quickly grade and analyze student performance on various assignments. With Flubaroo, you will be able to quickly:

Identify students in need
View average scores
Analyze questions most missed
Share scores with students via email or Google Drive
Many more

15. Formative

Formative allows teachers to assign tasks and watch students complete them in real time from their device.

16. QuickKeys

This freebie allows teachers to grade assignments without WiFi! You can also push out quizzes to students directly if they have devices. Bonus: QuickKey syncs with Google Classroom and exports grades into a grade book!

17. WISE

You can test with WISE, and your assessments will be automatically graded. You can also give feedback to students through this free app.

18. Thinkwave

Thinkwave is a free online gradebook on which to input student data! Students can even directly upload homework to the app for grading.

19. JumpRope

JumpRope is a free app for standards-based grading only. If your district uses standards-based grading, this one is for you!

20. Schoology

Not only can you store grades in Schoology, but you can also give video feedback! There is so much to say about this app that you just NEED to check out their website ASAP!

21. Alma

The draw to Alma is the lesson planning features and the grading aspects – AND that it’s FREE.

22. TeacherEase

Teachers can communicate with students and provide feedback on assignments using traditional or standards-based grading. You can also tell parents about a student’s progress via the app. There is a fee associated with Teacherease, but many districts get discounts.

23. Gradebook Wizard

Gradebook Wizard is an app that helps teachers create and manage grade books. It allows teachers to:

Easily record, track, and calculate student grades
Streamline the grading process in multiple ways

A Teacher's Time-Saving Tool

It will enable teachers to easily record student grades for assignments and exams and track attendance and homework completion. The app automatically calculates student grades based on the weighting of different assignments and exams, which saves teachers time and reduces the risk of errors. Gradebook Wizard generates reports that teachers can use to:

Track student progress
Communicate with parents
Identify areas where students are struggling

24. Planbook

Planbook is an app that helps teachers:

Plan, organize, and schedule their lessons
Create and manage lesson plans

Grade assignments, quizzes, and exams
Keep track of student performance

Planbook also allows teachers to customize the app to match their specific needs, such as:

Creating their grading scales
Weighting assignments and exams
Adding custom categories

25. Google Forms

Google Forms is a tool that can be used to create:

Surveys
Quizzes
Other types of assessments

It can be used in the classroom to create quizzes or tests that students can take online. This can be helpful for grading, as it allows teachers to:

Quickly and easily grade multiple-choice
Short-answer questions

Google Forms also offers several features to enhance the grading and feedback process:

Provide instant feedback to students, helping them identify areas for improvement
Easily share quizzes and tests with students
Track student progress efficiently
Create self-grading quizzes to save time and effort in grading

26. Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms is a web-based application that allows users to create:

Surveys
Quizzes
Other types of assessments

Microsoft Forms can be used in the classroom to:

Create online quizzes or tests
Quickly and easily grade multiple-choice and short-answer questions
Receive instant feedback on student performance
Share quizzes and tests with students effortlessly
Track student progress
Utilize built-in analytics to monitor progress and identify areas needing additional support.

27. Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a web-based learning management system created by Google. It allows teachers to:

Create, share, and manage assignments, quizzes, and resources online
Provide feedback
Communicate with students
Track student progress

Google Classroom also allows students to complete and submit work online, which can help teachers quickly and easily grade student work.

28. iDoceo

iDoceo allows you to:

Quickly grade your students
Schedule assignments, reports, etc.
Track upcoming events or deadlines
Keep statistics that can help you understand your students’ progress.

29. Socrative Teacher

Socrative Teacher is an app that instantly grades quizzes, assignments, etc. It takes a lot of time off of your hands and makes teaching faster and simpler.

30. Teacher Gradebook

Teacher Gradebook is a way to easily:

Keep track of grades
Keep up with your schedule
View past attendance
Keep a class diary

31. Alma Gradebook

This app is a great way to keep track of your student's grades, schedules, assignments, etc.. Here are a few of its features:

Standards-Based Gradebook
Standards Tracking
Supports any standards (including custom)
Supports any rubric (including Custom)
Blended Learning
Differentiated assignments
Personalized Learning Schedules
Google Classroom Integration

Why Universities Need Digital Grading Software Now More Than Ever

teachers working on desktop - Grading Software for Schools

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed institutions to switch to remote learning virtually overnight. What was once an unfamiliar approach to teaching and learning became the only way to deliver education safely. As a result, both students and instructors faced enormous challenges. For example, the sudden transition to online classes brought issues like information overload and technology troubles to the forefront. Digital grading software can help address some of these challenges.

Digital Grading Software Helps Lighten the Load

Information overload affects both students and instructors. Assignments, attendance, test scores, and peer reviews are only the beginning of what an instructor processes at any given moment. Weighing and analyzing all the data in assigning grades consumes energy and time you could use on pedagogy and connecting with your students.

Streamlining the Grading Process and Improving Efficiency

Fortunately, digital grading software can help minimize the steps usually associated with grading so instructors can regain their time and bandwidth to focus on teaching. Digital grading software like Crowdmark makes it easy to enter grades and scores quickly and effectively. It also makes it easy for teachers to provide grade delivery via email, so students can know when an assignment is complete by logging into their computer at any time.

Electronic Grading Software Makes Information More Readily Accessible

Staying organized is another challenge that plagues both students and instructors. Even in this digital age, it’s not uncommon for teachers to stare at tall stacks of papers or thick folders ready to burst.

Enhanced Organization and Accessibility

Digital grading software like Crowdmark can help you stay organized and prevent you from being overwhelmed by files. These cloud-based tools allow you to store your data and files to access them anytime, anywhere, and from any device. It is possible to eliminate the paper clutter that makes organization a challenge.

Improving Student Organization and Accountability

These tools also help students stay organized and accountable. With all assignments stored in one centralized hub, they can access projects and feedback 24/7. You and your students will know where to find everything, and the danger of an instructor can minimize the risk of misplacing their work.

Digital Assignment Submission Can Provide Effective Two-Way Communication

Tools such as email and Zoom have proven useful for maintaining communication between students and teachers, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, technical constraints can limit communication and feedback.

A digital grading tool, like Crowdmark, provides a happy medium. It is designed solely for student-teacher interaction and communication, meaning you won’t compete for real estate in your students’ inboxes.

Digital Grading Software Tightens the Feedback Loop

One essential benefit of digital grading software is that it offers students and teachers a tighter feedback loop. In a previous post, we mentioned how and why feedback loops are critical in learning.

Fostering Student Engagement and Learning

For a feedback loop to be helpful, teachers must provide fast and actionable feedback, to which students can immediately respond. With software like Crowdmark, students receive feedback and comments on their grades when an instructor finishes grading via email.

Tracking Progress and Facilitating Communication

Seeing when an instructor finishes grading an assignment allows students to track their progress better. For example, a student who needs to communicate requests or any other communication with their instructor now has the email time stamp to act quickly and stay motivated.

Be Sure to Add a Digital Grading Solution to Your Strategy This Year

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, remote education is now becoming a mainstay, which means an increased reliance on college grading software and digital tools for all teaching activities.

Overcoming Communication Challenges

Grading will be no different. Without a physical classroom, engaging with students and communicating with them on their performance matters will be more complex. However, a digital grading tool will eliminate or minimize many obstacles this new normal will present.

7 Best Practices for Grading Tech Integration

students working on a laptop - Grading Software for Schools

1. Choose the Right Grading Tool

Curriculum Alignment: Does your AI tool align with your curriculum? Ensure the AI tool fits your class well.
Integration Capabilities: Select tools that integrate seamlessly with your existing learning management systems for a smooth workflow.

Grading software for schools can make anyone's job more accessible, but not all of these tools will fit your needs. Start by selecting a program that aligns with your curriculum and seamlessly integrates with your learning management system. This will make implementation more accessible and help you achieve your educational goals.

2. Set Specific Parameters for AI Grading

Define Expectations: Clearly outline what the AI should look for in student submissions to ensure alignment with your grading criteria.
Adjust Settings: Customize the AI’s settings to handle various assignments appropriately, from essays to technical problem-solving.
Define expectations clearly: Focus on things like a clear thesis statement.

Grading software for schools uses artificial intelligence to evaluate student work. However, this technology needs guidance to produce accurate results. Before using your new tool, establish clear expectations for the AI to follow when grading student submissions. This includes defining specific criteria to look for in student work, such as a clear thesis statement for essay assignments. You should also customize the program’s settings to suit different assignments.

3. Blend Human Expertise With AI Capabilities

Automated First Draft: Let AI handle your first draft grading of the objective.
Personal Oversight: Prioritize applying your own expertise to provide nuanced feedback on more subjective or complex student responses.

AI grading software can help you tackle the difficult task of grading. Start by letting the program evaluate student assignments. This will give you a solid understanding of the performance of your class and help you identify common areas of improvement. Next, review the AI’s feedback and use your expertise to provide targeted notes to each student.

4. Optimize Feedback with AI Assistance

Immediate Feedback: Use AI to respond promptly to students, which is crucial for their learning and adjustment.
Constructive Details: Employ AI’s ability to give detailed feedback, helping students understand their strengths and areas for improvement.

One of the most significant advantages of using grading software for schools is the speed at which it evaluates assignments. With AI tools, you can provide students with immediate feedback on their performance. This quick turnaround allows learners to grasp concepts quickly and improve while the material is fresh. AI can help you optimize your feedback with detailed, constructive notes beyond simple right or wrong metrics.

5. Educate Students on AI Grading

Understanding AI: Teach students how the AI grading tool works, demystifying the technology and setting realistic expectations.
Guidance for Improvement: Advise students on effectively presenting their work to meet AI grading criteria while maintaining originality and critical thinking.

Dispelling Misconception

As with any new technology, students may need clarification about AI grading tools. To ease their concerns, provide them with a basic understanding of how the program evaluates assignments.

Maximizing AI Grading

This will help them set realistic expectations for their performance and alleviate anxiety about ‘being graded by a robot.’ You should also guide how to improve their scores when using AI tools. For instance, students should know to outline their responses and avoid vague language clearly.

6. Regularly Update and Refine AI Tools

Stay Current: Keep the AI system updated with the latest data and algorithms to maintain its grading accuracy.
Iterative Improvement: Continuously refine the AI tool based on feedback and results to meet educational goals better.

Grading software for schools is only as good as its data. Over time, the information used to assess student performance can become outdated. To ensure your AI grading tool continues to provide accurate results, regularly update it with new data. Be sure to continuously monitor the program's feedback and refine its settings based on the results to improve its alignment with your educational objectives.

7. Ensure Ethical Use and Data Security

Privacy Matters: Choose AI tools that adhere strictly to educational data privacy regulations.
Security First: Ensure robust security measures are in place to protect sensitive student data.

As with any technology that collects and analyzes student data, ethical use and security are critical factors when implementing AI grading tools. Before selecting a program, research to ensure it adheres to educational data privacy regulations, such as FERPA, and has a solid reputation for protecting sensitive information.

Save Time While Grading Schoolwork with EssayGrader's Grading Software for Teachers

EssayGrader is an AI grading tool that helps teachers evaluate student essays. It eases the burden of grading by providing accurate feedback in a fraction of the time it takes for teachers to do so manually. On average, a teacher takes 10 minutes to grade a single essay. With EssayGrader, that time is cut down to 30 seconds. That’s a 95% reduction in the time it takes to grade an essay, with the same results.

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