Some Web Gradebook Category Questions
15.November.2008 09:37 Filed in: PowerSchool
Here are responses to some recent questions that are quite timely right now...
“I understand that the default categories will be with us forever if we don't get rid of them now....However, if we don't delete those, will they just cause extra clutter but won't truly hurt anything?”
>>>Yes, extra clutter is exactly what they will be. "Visual clutter/confusion" is what I've called them in every school. Of course, having these categories in our category list will make us more likely to use those categories (the old, traditional, default ones) because they are comfortable. As we’ve discussed, though, they do not provide us with any additional significant information that we can use to guide instruction and to do analysis of students' work. Rather, switching over to meaningful instructional categories, does provide us with a very, very powerful tool for realizing:
- District 21’s Professional Learning Community Goals
- Each school’s School Improvement Plan Goals
- What needs to change in our curriculum/Power Standards and with the instruction of our curriculum
- Response to Intervention
- ELL Restructuring
- Refined and improved assessment and instruction practices
- Differentiation for students that is targeted and effected
- Higher levels of learning for students and job satisfaction for teachers!
“Also, if a team adds or renames a category (to a power standard, skill, unit like VTM, etc.) and then needs to change it down the line because it is no longer applicable - power standards change, topics change, etc. - will those categories now be permanent and not able to be deleted like the defaults?”
>>>As of right now, once grades are stored, the existing categories are locked in, but new categories can be added at any time. I would say that this is very likely to happen given everyone’s recognition on November 4th of the need for ongoing changes to the Power Standards. Additionally, this will always be the case since we should, each year, create some categories in response to the needs of our students that year. (Those categories may not be needed the following year.)
A related response is, “How are we going to change the Power Standards without using them?” I'm assuming that Pearson will have to fix this in PowerSchool at some point. I'm already doing the once-a-month requests for fixing this through PowerSource, our Support portal. Others have also requested the ability to delete categories that have stored grades. If they don't fix it, we’ve got some other ideas for how we can handle this technically.
