How Can I Use Exploros for Grades?

Exploros gives teachers multiple ways to collect evidence of student learning throughout a unit. Some of that evidence may become a grade, while some may remain formative.

Students do meaningful work in Exploros by responding to prompts, analyzing sources, discussing ideas, using academic vocabulary, completing organizers, writing explanations, and applying learning in new contexts. Not every response needs to be graded. Much of this work is designed to help teachers see student thinking while learning is happening so they can clarify misconceptions, build on strong ideas, and guide instruction.

When grades are needed, teachers can use Exploros in flexible ways that fit classroom, campus, and district expectations. Common options include experience exit quizzes for daily grades, unit assessments for major grades, and selected scene work, writing, or projects as additional evidence of learning.

High-quality social studies assessment gives students multiple ways to demonstrate their learning. When deciding what to grade, prioritize evidence that shows students can meet the learning goals of the unit, such as:

When possible, avoid making a grade primarily about compliance, speed, or simply submitting a response. Instead, use student work to capture meaningful evidence of learning and use formative responses to guide feedback and next steps.

Most Exploros Learning Experiences end with a short, automatically graded exit quiz, usually with about five questions. These quizzes are a simple option for daily grades because they provide a quick check for understanding at the end of an experience.

Teachers may use each exit quiz as an individual daily grade or combine several quiz scores into one grade.

Unit assessments are a strong option for major or test grades because they measure learning across the full unit. They can be used alongside other standards-aligned evidence, such as a writing assignment, project, source analysis, or performance task.

Teachers may also choose to grade selected student work from an experience. For example, a teacher might score a written explanation in the Explain scene, a source-analysis response in the Explore scene, or an application activity in the Elaborate scene.

This is often more manageable than grading every response. Choose work that best reflects the learning goal and use a simple rubric, so students understand what strong work looks like.

One option is to use evidence from the first four scenes as 70% of an experience grade and the automatically graded Evaluate quiz as 30%.

For the Evaluate score, teachers can convert the quiz percentage to 30 points. For example, a student who earns 80% on the quiz would receive 24 out of 30 points.

Teachers may instead use the first four scenes as a 100-point learning evidence grade and record the automatically graded Evaluate quiz as a separate daily grade.

Teachers can use this as a simple whole-experience grade when it fits their grading expectations. The Evaluate quiz remains a separate, automatically graded daily grade.

The Elaborate scene often asks students to apply their learning in a more creative or in-depth way. These activities may be strong options for a separate grade because they can show students’ ability to synthesize information, communicate conclusions, and apply their learning.

For example, students may be asked:

Create a poster explaining Diez y Seis or Cinco de Mayo. You may do additional research in preparation. You can create your poster directly on the canvas below, or draw it on paper and upload a photo of it.

Teachers can use the sample rubric below or their own rubric to grade this type of Elaborate activity.

For teachers using Google Classroom, Canvas, or Schoology, grade passback can be enabled to make grading even easier. Grades from end-of-experience exit quizzes and unit assessments will automatically pass back to your gradebook.

There is no single required way to grade with Exploros. As you plan each unit, consider which learning experiences, assessments, and student products will provide the clearest evidence of progress toward your standards. Use formative work to guide instruction, and select meaningful evidence when a grade is needed.