There are three MAP scores entered in to Inform each year in School District 21. Two are entered in the Spring, just prior to the May SIP Reflection Institute Day, and the other score is entered in the Late Summer, just prior to the August SIP Team Planning Day and the start of the new school year.

These are described below. (In each example, ## represents the grade level.)

MAP-Math-## or MAP-Read-##
These scores are entered each spring. These are the students' actual overall reading and mathematics RIT scores from the testing that April/May.

MAP-MTMath-## or MAP-MTRead-##
These scores are entered each spring. They are Yes-No scores (1 or 0). They answer the question of whether or not the student met his or her target from the previous spring on this spring's testing.

MAP-PTMath-## or MAP-PTRead-##
These scores are entered in late summer and are considered fall scores. These are the Predicted Target (PT) RIT scores for the end of the current/new school year based on each student's performance the previous spring.

Tags: NWEA, Inform

In Inform, we annually upload multiple measures for NWEA's Measures of Academic Progress in Reading and in Mathematics. These annual measures are:

• MAP-Read-05--This represents the fifth grade (represented by the "05") Reading RIT score. This is a Spring assessment entered once annually in late May. These scores are displayed in Inform using the ISBE Performance Levels Proficiency Profile (Exceeds Standards, Meets Standards, Below Standards, and Academic Warning). At the time of this posting, the level at which each score appears is determined by the NWEA Illinois Alignment Study from 2011.
• MAP-MTRdg-05--This score is whether or not the student has met his or her Target Growth in Reading from 4th grade to 5th grade. Again, the "05" represents fifth grade. "MT" stands for "Met Target." This assessment is uploaded in the Spring following Spring MAP testing and based on the most recent year-to-year growth. If a student has met his or her Target Growth from the previous Spring, the score will be a 1. If he/she has not met Target Growth, the score will be a 0. Only students in third grade or higher who participated in the previous Spring's NWEA MAP assessment will be included in this query.
• MAP-PTRdg-05--This assessment is loaded in the Fall of the new school year after the previous Spring's MAP assessment. This score is the student's predicted score at the end of the current school year. In other words, this score is derived from the student's RIT score from last Spring with the addition of the student's predicted Target Growth from NWEA. (Previous RIT + Target Growth = Predicted Target RIT Score) The proficiency profile for this assessment is the same one that is used in the Spring, so teachers can begin looking at where students are likely to end the year (though, hopefully, with targeted differentiated lessons within engaging, authentic units, students will surpass these predictions).

So, how do you determine how much growth the student is actually predicted to make by NWEA if you want that information in addition to the student's RIT score from last Spring and the student's predicted RIT score for the MAP assessments that will be administered later this school year?

You can easily access all of these pieces of information by creating the following query in Inform. (You will have to repeat this procedure separately for reading and for math.)



The above query is written for "current" sixth graders (current in the 2010-2011 school year). Key selections include:

• Select "" Years
• Then, select the previous Spring's MAP RIT score (2009-2010--The year prior to 2010-2011)
• Finally, select the current Fall's MAP Predicted Target RIT score (PT) (2010-2011, the "current" school year)

Now, click the "Create Report" button. The resulting graph will display.



When the graph appears, click on either bar for the current school year's Predicted Target Growth assessment. Mouse over "Students in >" and select "All categories".

This will display a table with student information (pictured below). Each student will appear in two consecutive rows.



The scores are on the right side. All you need to do to compute their target growth amount for this year is subtract last year's RIT score (in the rectangle above) from this year's Predicted Target RIT score (in the oval above). The difference is the amount of growth that the student is predicted to show for the current year.

Tags: Inform, NWEA

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our work with each individual student in District 21, building leaders and teachers are meeting throughout this year to examine the growth of students with IEPs. For the moment, this analysis is being based on ISAT results because: (a) that is how the State assesses the District's performance and (b) ISAT data is well-understood and can help us become competent and efficient with this process. Of course, ISAT assessments are not an appropriate assessment for our students learning English, but their results are necessarily included in this analysis.

Moving forward, we look forward to using this same process with multiple meaningful assessments for all students.

Logging In to Inform
To analyze growth over time, we are going to use Inform. Teachers will login as members of their team, as they do to enter Core Academic and Core Learner Quality data in the PowerTeacher Gradebook.

• Elementary school teachers should log in as the fifth grade team's Mathematics teacher.
• Middle school teachers should log in using either the team's Self-Directed Learner or Quality Producer teacher.

Necessary Information before Analyzing
This analysis can only be performed for fifth through eighth grade students because students need at least two years' worth of ISAT data points in order to compute their growth.

To analyze this data, you will also need the ISAT Growth Expectations Chart. This chart, using the Meets cut scores that have been established by ISBE, provides information on what percentage growth a student will show from one grade to the next on ISAT. This chart includes three different definitions of growth:

• ISBE Growth (e.g., from the meets cut score in fourth grade to the meets cut score in fifth grade)
• Growth Plus Realistic (e.g., the above growth score + 25% additional growth)
• Growth Plus Ambitious (e.g., the above growth score + 50% additional growth)

The ISAT Growth Expectations Chart is a 3-page PDF that contains the following information:

• Page 1 includes data on 1-years' growth (e.g., from 3rd grade ISATs to 4th grade ISATs for current 5th graders)
• Page 2 includes data on 2-years' growth (e.g., from 3rd grade ISATs to 5th grade ISATs for current 6th graders)
• Page 3 includes data on 3-years' growth (e.g., from 3rd grade ISATs to 6th grade ISATs for current 7th graders)

On each page, in the three columns furthest to the right, you can see the values for each grade level of: ISBE Growth, Growth Plus Realistic, and Growth Plus Ambitious.

Setting up the Growth Query in Inform
For nearly all groups of students, we are going to focus our analysis on the Growth Plus Ambitious targets. Using a group of current sixth graders as an example, we are going to look at their performance over the past two years, from their 3rd grade ISAT scores to their 5th grade ISAT scores.

Use the picture below and the steps in-text that follow it to perform the growth query.

1. Choose the Student Performance Gains query (11) from the pull-down menu.
2. Choose either Reading or Mathematics.
3. Choose "All" from the Year pull-down menu. (To show growth, we need to look at ISAT scores from multiple years.)
4. Choose "IEP" from the Target Group pull-down.
5. Click the "Get Assessments" button.
6. Choose the Base Test for the analysis based on the students' current grade level and the number of years of growth you want to measure. Use the information on the ISAT Growth Expectations Chart as a guide for this.
7. Choose the Target Test based on the same factors as above.
8. Using the ISAT Growth Expectations Chart, enter the Tolerance Threshold percent from the Growth Plus Ambitious column.

Click the "Create Report" button, and analyze your data!

Tags: Inform

For 2011-2012, we will be using the same process as we have in past years for closing out each trimester for grades 3-8, verifying grades, and publishing report cards. The one change that will take place this year is that, with the opening of the Parent Portal, middle school students will no longer receive specific, separate Mid-Trimester Progress Reports.

Mid-Trimester 1

• October 6 - Mid-Trimester Date
• October 14 - Mid-Trimester Progress Reports Go Home (No more Mid-Tri Progress Reports in Grades 6-8)

Trimester 1

• November 22 - End of Trimester 1
• November 28-9 AM - Grades Due--Academic Grades, Learner Quality Grades/Marks, Comments Due in PowerTeacher Gradebook
• November 28 & November 29 - Verification Period--School offices will print & distribute verification sheets. Teachers make corrections to verifications directly in the Gradebook.
• November 30-9 AM - Final Grades Due--All corrections must be complete by teachers in the Gradebook by 9 AM.
• November 30 & December 1 - Report Card Printing--School offices will print & distribute trimester report cards.
• December 2 - Report Cards go home with students (Grades 3-8) at the end of the school day.

Mid-Trimester 2

• January 20 - Mid-Trimester Date
• January 27 - Mid-Trimester Progress Reports Go Home (No more Mid-Tri Progress Reports in Grades 6-8)

Trimester 2

• March 2 - End of Trimester 2
• March 5-9 AM - Grades Due--Academic Grades, Learner Quality Grades/Marks, Comments Due in PowerTeacher Gradebook
• March 5 & March 6 - Verification Period--School offices will print & distribute verification sheets. Teachers can make corrections to verifications directly in the Gradebook.
• March 7-9 AM - Final Grades Due--All corrections must be complete by teachers in the Gradebook by 9 AM.
• March 7 & March 8 - Report Card Printing--School offices will print & distribute trimester report cards.
• March 9 - Report Cards go home with students (Grades 3-8) at the end of the school day.

Mid-Trimester 3

• April 20 - Mid-Trimester Date
• April 27 - Mid-Trimester Progress Reports Go Home (No more Mid-Tri Progress Reports in Grades 6-8)

Trimester 3
Timeline will be published when the final day of school is determined in the Spring.

Please remember that do to the impact of attendance, we would ask the following two things of all staff members:

• Please do not enter grades between 9-9.30 and 1-1.30 if at all possible.
• Please remember to LOG OUT when you are done using PowerTeacher, particularly after taking attendance.

As we move forward with the opening of the Parent Portal this year, and as we anticipate the process of moving our Primary teachers in to PowerTeacher and the PowerTeacher Gradebook, we are excited about the potential of capturing high-quality detailed assessment data that can be used to differentiate instruction for all students across all grade levels and classrooms.

Tags: Report Cards, Gradebook, Grades

Over the years of PowerTeacher Gradebook use and training, teams and teachers in District 21 have become quite proficient with creating assessments, entering scores, and even analyzing student performance within the PowerTeacher Gradebook. One facet of being highly proficient with the Gradebook is to know and be able to use the time-saving tricks that can make one more efficient and more accurate in her or his use of the Gradebook.

The most critical "secret" to high levels of efficiency with the PowerTeacher Gradebook, as is true with most other pieces of software, is to realize the power of the contextual menu. Contextual menus are hidden all over computer programs to provide the user with a handful of the most likely to be used choices right where they are needed and right when those options will assist the user.



Contextual menus are activated by right-clicking in different spaces within the program. (For general information on right-clicking on a Mac, see this Modern Pen post. For specific information about setting up your MacBook's trackpad to right-click, read this Modern Pen post.) In most applications, the items that are available in the contextual menu also exist in the menus that appear when you click on the menu bar options within that software at the top of the screen in the white bar (picture below).



One of the most important of these options in the PowerTeacher Gradebook is the "Fill" command. The "Fill" command has two primary uses to increase efficiency in using the Gradebook:

• To quickly enter scores when all or nearly all of the students on the team have scored the same on a particular assessment. This would typically occur when using a rubric or when entering an assessment like an exit slip when you may only be categorizing the performance as either meets or does not meet.
• To ensure that all students have a mark entered in each assignment. When using the Gradebook to record student assessments in a differentiated learning environment, most of the time, only certain students will participate in each assessment. As a result, on each assessment, many students will not have scores. The "Fill" command can allow you to easily mark those students as not having participated in that assessment. This improves communication with parents and other school staff members who may be viewing that child's scores in PowerSchool. When something rather than nothing is entered in each cell, parents and other staff members no longer need to guess whether an empty cell means that the student did poorly, did not take the assessment, was not supposed to participate in the assessment, or simply did not complete the assessment.

How do I use the Fill command?
1. Create the assignment in the Gradebook and enter the scores for all of the students who did participate in that assessment.

2. Right-click in the column header with the assessment's title for that assignment in the Gradebook. The contextual menu will pop-up. (Pictured below.)


3. As pictured above, choose "Fill Scores" from the contextual menu, and the Fill dialog box will pop up as pictured below.


Select the options you would like, and then click OK. You have just filled in lots of scores, very quickly!

UPDATE--21 October 2011--From a Pearson employee on the PowerSource PowerSchool Support site today: "In general: Any assignment where the student is only marked as "ex" only and not having any score will not appear in the parent or student portal." So, if you consistently use "EX" for students who did not participate in an assignment, then parents will not see that assignment, and they will just see those assignments that apply to their son or daughter. (Exception: If you give a student a score and exempt him/her from the assessment, the score will still show up with the noted exception!)

This updated information makes the combination of our scheduling by team, with teacher-created groups as necessary within teams, and the Parent Portal work very well for everyone, hand-in-hand!

Tags: Grades, Gradebook, PowerTeacher

The most fundamental key to unlocking deeper levels of student learning is to provide students with learning experiences that are authentic--challenging, engaging, differentiated challenges that have a real purpose beyond the classroom and school to impact the community and world and that have a real audience, again, beyond the classroom. Such experiences still rely on the same curriculum, but when teachers approach it as collaborative professionals whose role is to support and facilitate learning rather than to provide information, learning can be much deeper and longer lasting than in a traditional environment.

For the third consecutive year (2009-2010 & 2010-2011), District 21's new instructional staff members have recorded a podcast to both publicly commit to authentic and relevant learning experiences for students and to share their ideas with the community of learners that is made of 21st Century educators worldwide.

> 2011-2012 Staff & Authentic Instruction Podcast

Tags: Classroom Instruction, Podcast

One feature of Inform that teachers began to discover during the 2010-2011 school year was the "Student Profile." Based on the elements of Inform that District 21 currently uses, this has two main components:

• Historical Grades, which are imported from PowerSchool after grades are stored at the end of a trimester
• Assessment Overview, which provides a snapshot in the form of a table and in the form of a graph (default)

At first glance, this seems like a great tool to quickly view a student's performance, but there are some important caveats for one to consider when examining the Individual Student Profile.



First, the good news... From this two-pane presentation, you can answer the following questions:

• On the whole, does the student meet standards, not meet the standards, or have a significant mix of meeting and not meeting standards?
• Does the student's performance according to her/his teachers match what is presented by the assessments? In other words, does a student who primarily earns As and 4s on report cards also typically meet standards on the range of assessments used throughout District 21?

Now, the caveats of which one must be aware when examining this display:

• Each assessment is presented as being of equal scope and importance. This is, of course, not true. Some assessments are one-minute reading fluency assessments while other assessments (NWEA, ISAT, ACCESS) are lengthy, comprehensive assessments taking 40 minutes to 1 hour.
• The assessments represent a mix across assessment areas--reading, writing and mathematics assessments are all included and, in the future, additional assessment areas are likely to be included as well. As a result, this provides a very general view of the student on-the-whole, rather than a more actionable, specific view.
• The line graphs connecting the "average" points do not mean anything. While the "average" points do represent the average on each assessment, there is no relationship between those average points across assessments. They should not be connected. A line graph suggests changes over time. These assessments are not given in a consistent manner over time that would be represented in a such a way at any time.

So, what should you do to take advantage of this individual student performance display without making bad assumptions about what the data actually says.

• Get an overview of the student's performance on assessments during his/her career in District 21. Does she/he mostly show green or red? Are the assessments very far from (very high or very low) the top of the yellow shaded "above/below" rectangle in the background of the graph?
• Switch from graph view to table view. Sort the assessments by clicking on the column headers. Do you draw the same conclusions about student performance that you found when looking at the graph?
• Look at the grades pane on the right. How does the student perform based on his/her grades?
• If the student is in middle school, how is his/her Learner Quality performance? How do Learner Quality and academic performance compare? (Similar? DIfferent?)

The Individual Student Profile is another interesting and potentially useful way to capture a snapshot over time and across assessments and assessment areas to describe a student. Use this tool to gauge a simple overview of a student, in general, but do so cautiously.

Tags: Inform, Data Analysis

As we prepare for the start of the coming school year, we have already rolled PowerSchool up to 2011-2012 (from 2010-2011) and done the same with Inform. As a result of this, the year will now default to 11-12. So, how do you analyze last year's information now?

It's quite easy, and with two steps, you can still analyze the performance of your students from last year--including those who have moved on to middle school or high school for the 2011-2012 school year. These two minor modifications will take place in the left pane of a regular Student Performance Summary query as pictured below.



After logging in to Inform and launching a new query, choose the Subject Area as you normally would.

The next two steps are pictured below and marked with red ovals. Both are noted in text below the image here.



Change the "Year" from the current year (11-12) to last year (10-11).

Change the pull-down for "Enrolled As Of" from "Today (i.e. Currently Enrolled)" to "Test Date (i.e. All Tested)".

Make the rest of the selections for your query. Click on the "Create Report" button, and you will see your results from last year.

Tags: Inform

As CCSD21 begins the official district-wide roll out of Inform, our data analysis tool that works in conjunction with PowerSchool, it is also critical to provide comprehensive support, particularly on days when schools across the District will be involved in high levels of Inform use, such as Institute Days and when School Improvement Teams meet during the summer.



On days like Institute Days, beginning with the May 27th (2011) Institute Day for Data Analysis and Reflection, we will ask individuals in schools to access support with Inform by following these steps:

• If you have a question about Inform or a problem with it, first be sure that you have carefully re-checked your steps against any directions (including screenshots) that you may have been provided.
• If you still have questions, please contact a member of the school's instructional leadership team who was involved in planning the Institute Day or SIP Team event.
• Then, if the school leader is unable to answer the question or resolve the issue, he or she will contact the Central Office Inform Support Team via a special email address.
• Once your email has been sent, please open iChat. Be sure that the volume on your computer is open part of the way.

• We will respond to the emails in the order that they are received, and we will respond back either via iChat or email. Using iChat, we may need to screenshare, and if we do, we will also be able to communicate via the built-in microphone and speakers in the MacBook.

At other times during the year, when you have questions related to Inform, please direct those via email or phone to: Tracy Crowley, Janelle Hockett, Jason Klein, and/or Sue Werneske.

Tags: Inform, Support, Data Analysis

Changing your password for either an individual user account for someone with school-wide or district-wide access (i.e., jason.klein) or for a team account from PowerSchool (i.e., 6asci) is easy to do in Inform. As a matter of fact, you can do it before you even go IN to Inform!

On the login screen to Inform (as pictured below), there is a link in the lower right corner of the login dialog titled, "Change Password". (Circled in red below)



Click on that link, and it will take you to a page that looks like the picture below.



Simply enter your username in the top row. Follow that by entering your default password in to the Old Password text box. Then, enter the new password once in each of the next two text boxes.

Click the "Change" button, and your password has been changed. Login to Inform with your new password, and you are all set and ready-to-go!

Tags: Inform

Much of the underlying data in Inform is pulled from PowerSchool. This includes demographic, course, and academic grade information for students. Along with this information, the teacher of record for each course is pulled from PowerSchool. Unfortunately, the teacher's password does not automatically pull from PowerSchool and PowerTeacher Gradebook. (We hope this feature will appear in a future update of Inform!)



As a result of how the teacher information is pulled in to Inform, we still have to set-up each teacher from PowerSchool in Inform.

To use Inform, teachers will login with the following PowerTeacher Gradebook accounts.

Elementary Schools:

• Team Math Teacher (who views all students on the grade level team)
• Team Communications Teacher (who views all English proficient students on the grade level team)
• Team ESL Teacher (who views all English language learners on the grade level team)

Middle Schools:

• Team Self-Directed Learner Teacher (who views all students on the team)
• Team Math Teacher (who views all students on the team with the exception of students who are in the Double Accelerated Mathematics program)

• Team Communications Teacher (who views all English proficient students on the team with the exception of the students who are in the Accelerated Communications program)
• Team ESL Teacher (who views all English language learners on the team)

Staff members who are not assigned to teach a course in PowerSchool (such as the Principal, Learning Coach, and School Psychologist) have access with a specifically created individual user account.

As a reminder, all staff members and teams are expected to change their Inform passwords and to keep them confidential in accordance with the CCSD21 Staff Internet and Technology Acceptable Use Policy.

Tags: Inform

At the Board of Education Meeting on April 28, 2011, the final day of school for the 2010-2011 school year was officially announced. As a result of the snow days in early February, the last day of classes will be June 8, 2011.

Based on that information and considering that school offices will need to print Trimester 3 Report Cards and 2010-2011 Power Standards Summary Reports for all third through eighth grade students this year, the following timeline for final academic grade, Learner Quality, Power Standard, and comment entry in the PowerTeacher Gradebook will be as follows:

• Tuesday, May 31st--All Academic Grades, Learner Qualities, Power Standards, and Comments due in PowerTeacher by 3.30 PM. (Middle school offices will be able to print verification sheets after school.)
• Wednesday, June 1st--Elementary school offices will be able to print verification sheets upon arrival to school in the morning. All third through eighth grade teachers verify Academic Grades, Learner Qualities, Power Standards, and Comments. Teachers make any changes that are necessary themselves in the PowerTeacher Gradebook.
• Thursday, June 2nd--All verifications must be complete and changes made by 3.30 PM. (Middle school offices will be able to queue Report Cards and Power Standards Summary Reports after school.)
• Friday, June 3rd--Report Card and Power Standard Summary Report Creation & Printing. (Elementary Schools will be provided with a schedule as to who can print when. Middle schools can print from already queued report cards. Middle schools cannot queue report cards between 8 AM and 3.50 PM.)
• Monday, June 6th--Report Card and Power Standard Summary Report Creation & Printing continues.
• Tuesday, June 7th--Report Cards and Power Standard Summary Reports must be complete and distributed to teams.
• Wednesday, June 8th--Report Cards and Power Standard Summary Reports are sent home with students on the final day of classes.

Tags: PowerTeacher, Grades, Report Cards

In 2010-2011, we will be using the same process as we have in past years for closing out each trimester, verifying grades, and publishing report cards.

Trimester 1

• November 29-9 AM - Grades Due--Academic Grades, Learner Quality Grades/Marks, Comments Due in PowerTeacher Gradebook
• November 29 & November 30 - Verification Period--School offices will print & distribute verification sheets. Teachers can make corrections to verifications directly in the Gradebook.
• December 1-9 AM - Final Grades Due--All corrections must be complete by teachers in the Gradebook by 9 AM.
• December 1 & December 2 - Report Card Printing--School offices will print & distribute trimester report cards.
• December 3 - Report Cards go home with students (Grades 3-8) at the end of the school day.

Trimester 2

• March 7-9 AM - Grades Due--Academic Grades, Learner Quality Grades/Marks, Comments Due in PowerTeacher Gradebook
• March 7 & March 8 - Verification Period--School offices will print & distribute verification sheets. Teachers can make corrections to verifications directly in the Gradebook.
• March 9-9 AM - Final Grades Due--All corrections must be complete by teachers in the Gradebook by 9 AM.
• March 9 & March 10 - Report Card Printing--School offices will print & distribute trimester report cards.
• March 11 - Report Cards go home with students (Grades 3-8) at the end of the school day.

Trimester 3
Timeline will be published when the final day of school is determined in the Spring.

Please remember that do to the impact of attendance, we would ask the following two things of all staff members:

• Please do not enter grades between 9-9.30 and 1-1.30 if at all possible.
• Please remember to LOG OUT when you are done using PowerTeacher, particularly after taking attendance.

Finally, please note that the PowerTeacher Gradebook now includes an electronic verification solution that we may begin testing this school year with specific teams and/or schools.

Tags: PowerTeacher, Grades, Report Cards

With the 2010-2011 school year, new grade scales have launched that are consistent District-wide from 3rd through 8th grade for Academic grades and Power Standards. Additionally, we continue to have a consistent grade scale for 6th through 8th grade for our Learner Qualities.

Academic Grade Scale (grades 3-8)
A - Advanced
B - Proficient
C - Developing
D - Deficient
W - Academic Warning

Power Standards Scale (grades 3-8)
+ - Mastery
> - Progressing toward Mastery

Learner Quality Scale (grades 6-8)
4 - Performance is consistently at a high level & achieved independently
3 - Performance is often at a satisfactory level & achieved independently
2 - With help, performance is at a satisfactory level
1 - Performs with partial success while requiring help

Tags: PowerTeacher

The revised CCSD21 Power Standards have been posted on the District 21 website. For core academic teachers in grades 3-8, these Power Standards also appear in your PowerTeacher Gradebook within each of the core curricular areas’ gradebooks.

Tags: Power Standards, Curriculum

One teacher has already inquired about a comment made during one of the videos in Unit 4--Assignments in the SchoolTown course. It was noted that teachers can actually mark a Power Standard on an assignment without giving any score for the academic grade on that assignment. Here’s how:

• Create the assignment as you normally would
• Assign the appropriate Power Standard(s) to the assignment
• Click in the regular academic grade of the assignment
• In the menu bar at the top of the screen, go to Tools > Fill Scores and fill all of the cells (each student) for that assignment with an “EX” for marking the assignment Excused (See below--Notice the Comment to further clarify for colleagues and parents.)
  

• Then, expand the Power Standards by clicking the S in the Assignment Column Header, and enter the Power Standard performance for each student on any Power Standards that have been assessed.

Now, only the Power Standards will “count” for this assessment, which will not impact the academic grade at all.

Tags: Grades, Power Standards, PowerTeacher

PowerTeacher Gradebook 2.2 is now open--and with Power Standards built-in! The new Gradebook functions as the day-to-day collection tool that serves as the foundation for a host of CCSD21 Projects & Initiatives from recent years: core curriculum frameworks, Power Standards, grading practices, and more.

While the Gradebook is almost entirely unchanged, teachers can now assign 1 or more Power Standard(s) to specific assignments and track Power Standard performance across the year.

• Teachers can still give “regular” grades on individual assignments as they’ve always done
• Additionally, teachers can collect data on Power Standard performance on specific assignments
• Regular collection of Power Standard data across the year allows for powerful data to inform instruction and powerful, accurate, stress-free reporting to parents at the end of the year

To support teachers with this enhancement, a revised PowerTeacher & PowerTeacher Gradebook course has been created in SchoolTown. Teachers can log in today to participate in that course.

• Updated Course--SchoolTown now includes an updated PowerTeacher Course with immediate, on-demand training that will support teachers in being successful with Power Standards in the updated version of Gradebook.
• In SchoolTown Course, Two Critical Units--Units 3 (Categories) and 4 (Assignments) are the staff learning priorities due to enhancements in the Gradebook. (***This will make parent reporting easy and team conversations powerful!***)
• Nearly all of the units in the PowerTeacher Course are the same as they've been for over two years. These will not need to be viewed by most staff members. New staff will want to participate with the foundational units, as needed.

Finally, if you have questions about how to login to PowerTeacher, your school principal (and MS Asst Principals) has that information!

Tags: PowerTeacher, Grades, Power Standards

As we began the 2009-2010 school year, we asked new teachers and administrators to consider what it meant for learning to be relevant in our classrooms in order to best prepare students for their futures. As we now begin the 2010-2011 school year, this year’s new District 21 staff members are also considering what it means to make learning relevant.

New certified staff members to School District 21 believe that authentic and relevant learning is:

• Content is meaningful to students
• Students make connections between new concepts and those that they already know
• Learning that can be generalized across many different environments
• Focused on problem solving
• Learning in which students are not only consumers, but also producers of, knowledge
• Practical and applied
• Learning in which students and teachers are all learners
• Collaborative
• Learning that inspires questioning and creativity on the part of students
• Learning that connects the past, present, and future
• Learning that teaches and requires empathy

New Staff Orientation Podcast 2010-2011

New Staff Orientation Wordles 2010-2011

• Group 1
• Group 2
• Group 3
• Group 4
• Group 5

Tags: Classroom Instruction

As we began the 2009-2010 school year, we asked new teachers and administrators to consider what it meant for learning to be relevant in our classrooms in order to best prepare students for their futures. As we now begin the 2010-2011 school year, this year’s new District 21 staff members are also considering what it means to make learning relevant. Specifically, three guiding questions are providing direction for their thoughts:

• WHAT is relevant and authentic learning?
• SO WHAT? Why is it important for learning to be relevant and authentic?
• NOW WHAT? What are you going to do to ensure that learning in your classroom and/or with your students is relevant and authentic this year?

During the workshop, we will use multiple tools to help us capture and organize our thinking. Among these, groups will be using Wordle to summarize the thoughts of the group:

• Wordle

Finally, participants will create a podcast articulating what they will do to ensure that their students benefit from relevant and authentic learning throughout the school year! This podcast will be posted on The Modern Pen following the workshop.

Other Resources discussed for teachers to consider include:

• ISTE NETS for Students
• ISTE NETS for Teachers
• Integrating Technology Planning Template

Tags: Classroom Instruction

Like being a star athlete, a great singer, or a super-effective classroom teacher, there are very important fundamentals that must be followed in order for one to be successful in any of these fields. Often times, these fundamentals are completely transparent to observers, except for the most expert. The same is actually true of the use of spreadsheets. While PC Mag has acknowledged that mastering Microsoft Excel can take years, some very basic fundamentals make an enormous difference in what can be accomplished with a spreadsheet.

Some important rules for successful spreadsheet use include:

Working Environment

• Spreadsheets on Screen--Spreadsheets are designed to be used on a computer. It’s not to say that we never print spreadsheets because we do at times, but 99% of the time, we work with a spreadsheet in the most efficient manner on the computer rather than for how it will look for printing.
• Normal View--Always use Normal View (View > Normal) for data entry and manipulation.
• Toolbars--Select View > Toolbars > Standard & View > Toolbars > Formatting. Most importantly, also select View > Formula Bar, which will show you exactly what is really in each cell as you select it.
• Workbooks & Worksheets--Don’t be afraid to use multiple worksheets within a single workbook. Label them carefully.

Layout

• Columns & Rows--Columns are for data fields/variables. Rows are for records.
• Header Row--Row 1 should always be used as a header row. Headers should be short and descriptive. Each column should have a header.Depending on the spreadsheet’s purpose and audience, headers may be free of spaces.
• Align Data within Columns--Whether it is left-aligned, centered, or right-aligned, depends on the data in the column, but all data within a column should be aligned.
• Separate Distinct Data--It’s not difficult to split data in to separate columns from a single column (i.e., split “last, first” to two columns--“last name” and “first name”), but it’s even easier to push data together from separate columns in to a single column (i.e., from “last name” and “first name” to “last, first”.) So, keep separate data separate from the start.

Content

• Grab Starting Data from Elsewhere--Teachers, support staff, and administrators all have the ability to export data from PowerSchool. Get your IDs, Names, etc. from there!
• Student IDs--ALWAYS use student id numbers for each student when collecting data on students. Typically ID numbers will fill Column A or Column B.
• Use Columns/Fields for Categorizing, Not Colors--People like to organize their spreadsheets by color. This is fine. Do not only organize by color. Rather than represent a category within a spreadsheet by color-coding cells, use a new column, create the proper field, and categorize that. Data can then be sorted, counted, analyzed using that.

Tips

• Use a Mouse and/or Tab and/or Return--When doing significant and/or extended work in Excel use a wired mouse plugged in to your laptop to make work more efficient. Better yet, for data entry, use the Tab key to move to the next cell to the right in a row and the Return key to move the next cell down in a column.
• Right-Click--When you “right-click” in Excel a contextual menu will pop up with a number of options that you can apply to the selected cell, column, or row.
• Plan Ahead--Before beginning to work in your spreadsheet, consider what fields you are going to use, how your records are going to be used, etc. This will help you visualize how your schedule ought to be laid out and will make your organization of rows and columns much easier.

Tags: Excel

Even with great tools, such as the PowerTeacher Gradebook and Inform, spreadsheets remain the most critical of tools for success in collecting and analyzing student data. Whether we are collecting data before uploading it to Inform or we are exporting it from the Gradebook to graph, spreadsheets are used to systematically collect, sort, manipulate, and analyze data. Currently, School District 21 does utilize Microsoft Office. Staff members who are using Windows PCs are typically using Office 2007 as we begin our transition to the new Office 2010. Staff members who are using Macs are using Office 2008.

AtomicLearning.com (which requires a username and password) features great tutorials on Excel 2008. These tutorials are broken up in to three different sections of tutorials:

• Intro (76 tutorials)
• Intermediate (86 tutorials)
• Advanced (85 tutorials)

That’s right! There are a total of 247 tutorials on AtomicLearning.com about Microsoft Excel 2008 alone!

In addition to all of the resources in AtomicLearning.com, there is also built-in support available right in the application itself. Microsoft, like Apple, has included a lot of information to provide help and support to end users right on the desktop from within the application itself. Simply select Help from the Menu Bar at the top of the screen as pictured below.



Either enter your search terms in the Search text field or select Excel Help from the menu and then search for more information.

“But wait, there’s more!” The Microsoft Office for Mac website also has great resources for learning more about how to use Office products, include Excel 2008.
Microsoft.com/Mac Office 2008 How-To Courses

Tags: Excel, AtomicLearning

One of the most powerful, easy-to-use tools for newcomers and advanced users to Microsoft Excel is the AutoFilter. The AutoFilter allows you to quickly and easily sort and or select certain data from either a pull-down menu or by custom defining your search criteria. Enabling the AutoFilter is as simple as clicking on AutoFilter in the Data > Filter > AutoFilter menu command from the Menu Bar as pictured above. Once the AutoFilter is enabled, you will see arrows in the header row of each column on the right side of the column as pictured below.



By simply clicking on the arrow, it will open up a new menu as pictured below.



Choosing from this menu, will allow you to only see the rows, or records, that you have selected. Choosing the Custom Filter option will allow you to specify exactly what data you would like to see. For example, you could choose to see all students who scored a 90 or higher on a particular assessment. While your other data will appear missing, it will really still be there. It is just hidden--or filtered out.

When you have filtered a column, the arrows in that columns header will appear blue. To unfilter, simply choose the Select All option from the pull-down at the top of that column, and all of your data will re-appear.

Simply by following our steps for entering data using Excel best practices and by using the AutoFilter, you can uncover all kinds of very important information about your students!

Tags: Excel

While instruction and assessment should continue through the last day of school, the reality of sending report cards home with students on June 7th, the final day of school, requires that we “close our gradebooks” prior to the last day of the trimester at the end of the school year.

Beginning with Trimester 3 of the 2009-2010 school year, students in grades 3-5 will receive their report card, which includes Academic Grades, Learner Qualities, and Comments, and a separate Power Standards Summary Report. Students in grades 6-8 will receive both documents beginning at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. While the parent/student documents have changed, teacher entry in the PowerTeacher Gradebook has not changed at this time! (Though, Power Standards data collection may look very different next year with this summer’s major PowerSchool upgrade!)

For more information on how to use the PowerTeacher Gradebook, please visit the CCSD21 PowerSchool Support Site. (You will be prompted for your Active Directory username and password to enter this site.) Specifically, elementary teachers will want to review the Elementary School Report Card Learner Quality, Comments, and Power Standards Entry document if you have questions about this process.

For the close of the 2009-2010 school year, the final grade timeline for Grades 3-8 looks like:

May 27, 2010--9 AM
All grades (Academic, LQ, Power Standard) and comments must be entered and completed in the PowerTeacher Web Gradebook by teachers throughout District 21. Then, Technology Office staff members will store grades district-wide, and following that, school secretaries will print verification sheets and distribute those to teachers.

June 2, 2010--9 AM
Teachers will have finished reviewing Academic Grades, Learner Qualities, Power Standards, and Comments. Any corrections that need to be made are made by the teacher or team directly in to the PowerTeacher Web Gradebook by the 9 AM deadline on June 2nd. At this point, Technology Office staff members will store grades district-wide, once again, and following that, school secretaries will begin printing report cards in an order determined by the Technology Office. Report card printing will continue through June 3rd.

June 7, 2010
All students leave school (and the 2009-2010 school year!) with their Trimester 3 Report Card and Power Standards Summary Report.

Tags: Report Cards, PowerSchool, PowerTeacher, Web Gradebook, Grades

Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs appeared in Lisle, Illinois, today in a workshop sponsored by Midwest Principals' Center. A number of District 21 Central Office administrators attended, and throughout the day, I (Jason) am "live blogging" my notes on her presentation through The Modern Pen. Approximately, every sixty minutes, I will publish an update to what we're learning here.

9.25 AM--The School Calendar
Already this morning, Dr. Hayes Jacobs has made the connection between how a doctor does and should do his or her job and how a teacher does or should do his or her job. She has repeatedly commented on how the current traditional school calendar has nothing to do with learning. She did correctly point out that the current school calendar is rooted in the industrial revolution of the late 19th Century in the U.S. She did not go on to state that it is not an agrarian calendar. (If it were based on an agricultural society, the kids would be off in September and October to help with the harvest and in school during the summer when there's not much to do except hope you have the right mix of rain and sun for your crops!)

While Heidi did not talk about this, here it is... Why is there no school in the summer as a result of the Industrial Revolution? It was too hot for the machines in the factories to operate during the summer, so factories were closed. Employees (parents) were home, and the children of working class parents could be home with them. Heidi's suggestion--There should be a "summer semester", not summer school. According to her, students in Canada have 195 days of school. Students in Western Europe typically have 205 days of school. Students in Japan have 220 days of school. Students in the U.S. typically have about 175 days of school. Who is going to learn more?

Our curriculum is really written for a 300-day school year. We have to pick what is really important. We need to use Power Standards.


9.35 AM--The Role of Technology
"When I picked up the NY Times this morning, it was already out-of-date. If I want up-to-date information, I go to the Internet--on my computer or on my phone. Teachers say, 'I don't really use technology.' What if I went to a doctor and he said, 'Yea. I've heard of the X-ray.'" (Everyone laughed nervously at this point!)

"Kids go out in to the 21st Century, and then, they go to school." Our schools are not designed for our kids' futures, looking out five or ten years. "If we want kids engaged, let's at least be in the 21st Century. We're almost 10% of the way through it."


9.35 AM--The Definition of Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum Maps have three basic elements:
- Content
- Skills
- Assessment

Curriculum mapping is:
- Calendar-based
- Focused on the operational curriculum
- Housed and revised electronically to provide direction (like an online map)

Curriculum maps are framed by essential questions that are based on key concepts, enduring understandings, and big ideas--like District 21's concept-based curriculum. Why? People retain more when they have these deep understandings.

9.50 AM--The Role of Technology in Curriculum Mapping
The move from Professional Learning Communities to a Global Learning Community--Curriculum mapping software and online collaborative tools allow people to work together and share expertise and units across time and space.


9.55 AM--Why map?
To solve specific problems in a school or district to:
- Gain information
- Avoid repetition
- Identify gaps
- Locate potential areas for integration
- Match with learner standards
- Examine for timeliness
- Edit for coherence


10.05 AM--How do we map curriculum?
The information below will be published in the new book that Dr. Hayes Jacobs is working on...

Short-term upgrades--"Revision and replacement" of dated curriculum and assessment types with more vital contemporary forms. Every teacher should upgrade at least one thing each year. For example, we replace a paper with the development of a documentary or a podcast. Begin using e-mail or Skype to collect information. These replacements should be technology-based for our current and future students!

Long-term upgrades--"Versioning" is the creation of new versions of the programs and structures within our schools as institutions. This is like coming out with an entirely new operating system for a computer. We should do this every few years.


10.40 AM--Electronic Portfolios
In Rhode Island, students are responsible for completing an electronic portfolio to prove their knowledge and skills in the standards areas prior to graduating from high school. This was implemented six years ago, so students graduating from high school now will have work from middle school and high school in their electronic portfolios. Today, kids begin collecting this work in the primary grades. There are between 15 and 18 school districts currently participating in the Rhode Island Electronic Portfolio System based on the quick glance that I just completed with a Google search. With a web-based electronic portfolio, it is very easy to "see" and "hear" student growth within a particular standard over time. We saw a demonstration of a particular student from a Rhode Island elementary school. You do not need to be a reading specialist to see her growth from year-to-year. You do need to be a reading specialist and use other assessment tools, too, in order to determine if she is "where we want her to be" with her reading and if she has shown "as much growth as she should have shown".


10.50 AM--Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum maps should allow us to "zoom in" and see actual lessons and "zoom out" and see the big picture of what we're teaching more generally with fewer specifics. This should work just like an online map, such as Mapquest, which allows you to very quickly and easily see more-or-less detailed.

What are the questions that we have at our table about curriculum mapping? (Rosemarie and I are sitting with five other people...)
- Do we need to purchase some version of software to do curriculum mapping? (Two individuals at our table use Atlas Curriculum Mapping Software.)
- What type of school culture do you have? Does it promote these type of deep conversations that focus on curriculum and learning?
- We need to think about the difference between what teachers teach and what students need to learn and have learned?


11.00 AM--Questions from the Crowd
- What is the role of homework? "Students need to be doing the work, and families need to learn how to provide the right environment for this (time and space and student responsibility). In sports and music, you do drill and practice when it is necessary and where it is diagnosed. You only do drill and practice when someone does know how to do this differently. If you do have the skill and do drill and practice, it's called busy work. Prior to drill and practice, there should always be a diagnosis of our need for drill and practice. When a teacher marks up student work, who is getting better at the work? When we do the work for the student, we are not teaching."

"How do schools combat an anti-intellectual element that exists in American society? Parents say that they do not want their children to be too smart, to be nerds. This is different than how culture surrounds students and schools in other countries."

"We should set-up student/parent homework centers rather than use study hall. Parents and students come together and get support in helping students with their homework at school, after school."

How do we target the needs of individual students?
- The students' ages
- The students' stages of development
- The students' learning characteristics
- The students' communities
- The students' aspirations
- The students' needs (background knowledge, skills, social/emotional)


- Our District is embarking on a PLC initiative, and we're going to devote lots of time to analyzing data. How do we also have time for curriculum work? "I believe that they are not at all exclusive, but mutually dependent. You need to be doing both of these together. Your data may show you that your map needs to be re-drawn. The map always need to be revised. Analyzing student assessment data should be a major time saver when done in conjunction with instruction. Likewise, if we just look at curriculum mapping without ever paying attention to student data how do we know if the map is taking us where it should be. The Latin root of the word curriculum is curricula, which means course. What is the course that each child will travel to learn the articulated skills and content (knowledge/concepts)?"

- How do you get started with introducing curriculum mapping with your staff? "Mapping occurs at the building-level because that's where you improve performance. It cannot occur at the District-level. The District may coordinate communication and provide resources and support, but it is a building-based problem. So, what should happen within a building? First, we need leadership teams in each building. Structure conditions that will make a difference in planning for and initiating the curriculum mapping process. These conditions will need to be based on the specific needs of the students and teachers in a particular school. This will vary from school-to-school. Then, the school needs to create meaningful opportunities for participants to be involved. Finally, long-term professional development plans must be put in place to support the process of curriculum mapping and the technology needs of the teachers with mapping and instructionally moving forward."


***
Gail Forshall just posted a really interesting comment. One of the powerful facets of online curriculum mapping would be how people in building-wide roles can integrate instruction in a meaningful and effective way. Additionally, in that setting, core academic teachers and other educators can shift the focus of meeting from what we are doing to how we are doing it and how we are differentiating instruction for individual students. This is where the real action is in creating new opportunities for kids to learn more.
***


11.35 AM--What is a concept? Why are they so important for curriculum mapping?
Given that we have a concept-based curriculum in place in District 21. This part ought to be good for District 21...

Currently, Heidi is describing how we would teach SYSTEMS across traditional subject-based academic disciplines. For the concepts, we write guiding questions, which she calls essential questions. Regardless of terminology, at the end of the unit, students will develop their essential understandings in response to their ongoing study of these questions throughout the unit. In planning the unit, we identify the content and skills that will be taught. Some choices do need to be made at this point. Of course, we should identify our assessments prior to beginning the unit.

***All assessments should have a noun. The students should be asked to create a product or do a performance. Good assessment is:
- A demonstration of knowledge/skill
- Observable
- Evidence of student knowledge/skills
- Clearly defined for students with rubrics, checklists, and/or right and wrong answers

A short side rant from Heidi just ended. Bottom line:
"Kids need to be talking to learn--vocabulary and content. Our classrooms are too quiet!" (She's right about this! - JK)


12.50 PM--Back from lunch & learning again
We're back underway. About 50% of the people in the room work in schools and school districts that are using electronic mapping software. Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs is going to log in to one teacher's map from one of these actual schools, and we're going to improve her map this afternoon while we work on our own maps. Now, we're reading pages from Coaching Protocols for Developing Quality Curriculum Maps. We are reading more about:

- Content-Content begins with a concept, such as systems, patterns, or interdependence. "If we do not use a concept to initiate our content entries, then what we have are random facts..."

- Essential Questions-Essential questions are engaging for the students, include the concept, aligned with standards, and tied to the assessment(s).

- Precise Skills-Desired or targeted proficiencies that are defined with the use of an action verb.

- Targeted Assessments-Targeted assessments always take the "form of a tangible product or a temporal performance. As assessment is something we can observe, so our entries must take the form of a noun."

Now, we are back to Dr. Hayes Jacobs at the front of the room. She is showing us the curriculum maps of a school in Westchester, New York that she has accessed via Internet Explorer. She has made the blanket statement that these pieces of software all have quality behind them. Clearly, she is not selling a particular piece of software. She believes in the idea that underlies the use of such software. These pieces of software include State Standards from around the country, so a teacher can pull a standard directly in to the curriculum map.

Instructional Aside from Dr. Hayes Jacobs
"We need to teach math as a language. Look at this curriculum map. Do you see these action verbs? Translate, translate, translate. The kids have to define their math vocabulary if they are going to understand the math."

1.22 PM--Master Class
We are now going to participate in a Master Class. We are going to look at Emily's class. (Emily is a teacher who is here today from some Chicago-area school who uses curriculum mapping software.) What is going to happen in the Master Class? Heidi is going to interact with Emily on improving her Curriculum Map. Our job, as audience members to the Master Class, is to take notes on Heidi and Emily's interactions--as they apply to us and our situations! Then, we are going to be able to transition back to our own map and revise it based on our notes of what we've learned from them.


My notes for me based on their interactions--

Emily wants to focus on her assessments. I think that most of our teachers would pick out assessment as the area that they would also pick first from among the choices of content, guiding questions, skills, and assessments.

They are focusing on the level of specificity that she has used in writing completing her curriculum map. This reminds me of when we look at an assignment as teachers and someone (usually not the person who wrote it) says, "What does this mean?" Often times, as teachers, we don't know what we are looking for in kids' work. If that's the case, how do the students know what we are looking for? As Heidi just said, "Teaching cannot just be in the heads of teachers." For teachers to implement really profound classroom instruction, they need to be able to articulate exactly what they are doing and why with different students. Once again, Heidi just said, "I don't know what you mean. I don't understand what you are thinking and doing from seeing this." This is an underlying premise of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards process, too. Teachers have to write detailed entries because if they cannot articulate what they have done and why, then, so the thinking goes, they are not going to be able to communicate it to students either.

Heidi felt that the soft-spot in this Curriculum Map actually proved to be her content. Heidi believes that the development of guiding questions, what she calls essential questions, will significantly help this. How many classrooms in District 21 are effectively using guiding questions today? What's more--we even have the advantage of having concepts built right in to our curriculum.

1.45 PM--Mapping Software
***Want to know more about what software is available? Curriculum Designers: Mapping Software


2.00 PM--How do we begin working with mapping?
Consider a range of different types of professional development venues, including different strategies for different people. Keep in mind that curriculum mapping is easy for teachers to be resistant to... Mapping requires teachers to share their actual units and assessments. You need to consider individuals' readiness for curriculum mapping and with technology in how you create your professional development. These various groups may include:
- Hands-on labs
- Small workshops
- Work sessions
- Online courses
- Focus on data; Use of "Mapping Mentors"


2.25 PM--How do you make decisions about curriculum and teaching?
Who decides what gets taught? When do they make these decisions? How? Heidi recommends that these decisions are made by a single, site-based council. Agendas focus on short-term upgrades and long-term upgrades. To help with long-term upgrades, you may very well implement task forces that oversee the long-term upgrade. Once it is created and implemented, that task force disbands.


2.35 PM--Two Types of Curriculum Mapping
Diary Mapping--Like a doctor's chart or an athlete's training log, you record exactly what you have done. This will give you a record that you can use when you analyze student assessment data to determine which strategies did and which did not.

Projected Mapping--This is like a coach's training plan in that you articulate out what you intend to do in your units and lessons.


2.40 PM--Mapping Benchmark Assessments
Benchmarks can be designed on multiple levels: State tests, District assessments, and classroom assessments. Schools identify the skills that need to be developed and assessed. The most powerful benchmark assessments are developed locally by teachers. Benchmarks should occur when it makes sense within the scope of instruction. Benchmark data should be used to guide further differentiated instruction. As a result, benchmarks are necessarily different for different students.


Conclusion
The day just finished with a very funny YouTube video that Alan November shows, too. It is about the movement of technology from the scroll to the book. It is in Norwegian, but there are English sub-titles. (Remember, you can only watch this from outside District 21.)

As the hours count down until we begin to print the new intermediate report cards, one of the consistent questions that has arisen among teachers is, "What prints from PowerGrade and PowerSchool as a student's academic grade on the report card?" The answer is that the letter grade from the letter grade scale is what prints. Percentages do not print. This traditional "90, 80, 70, 60" scale is depicted in another post with an indication of the pluses and minuses that also exist in the scale. For Learner Qualities in the elementary schools, the "X" will simply appear when a teacher wants to express a specific concern. Comments will appear as they are entered. Also, the absence and tardy information does appear on the front page of the report card. This information is drawn from that which is entered on a daily basis in PowerSchool Teacher.

Extra credit is a very interesting assessment topic that, while part of the "unquestioned" fabric of education culture and history in the United States, ought to be re-explored within the framework of assessment for learning. Let's say, for example, that a teacher gives a weekly ten question geography quiz based on what the students have studied relating to geography from social science, science, and/or reading and literature. In addition, the teacher always includes 2 extra credit questions.

Upon nearing the end of a trimester marking period, the teacher begins to realize the significance of the "extra credit" in the grades of various students. Unsure how to handle this, the following reflective questions may help the teacher determine what role, if any, extra credit ought to play in classroom assessment.

Questions to Consider

• Why are you giving extra credit?
• For example, why is it “extra”?
• If it is for additional challenge, should different students simply be receiving different questions on the weekly quiz?
• Do all students receive the same questions? If so, is that appropriate based on their needs and previous performance?
• As a teacher, are you giving extra credit to see how many more items a student knows beyond what you expect?
• Are the extra credit questions more important or less important than other questions?

• Are you giving extra credit to see how motivated, or Self-Directed, a student is?
• Are you giving extra credit to see how much attention to detail is paid by the student (ie, Quality Producer)?

Points to Consider

• Two questions is 20% of the total number of questions if all questions count equally. So, simply based on the math, this can have a significant impact on the grade of the assignment.

• More importantly, is the nature of these quizzes simply fact-based recall?
• How do these quizzes fit in to a wider assessment plan for Social Science within your team?
• How are other more high-level, application-oriented assignments weighted?

• Finally, if the “extra” stuff is important enough to be assessed, it should be included as a "regular" part of the assessment. If it is a description of high levels of self-direction or quality work, it ought to be captured within those Learner Qualities. If it is not so important, it should not be included in the assessment at all because it detracts from what is important. This then muddies the communication to the student and his or her parents of what important skills and concepts the student actually knows and understands.

Unlike third through fifth grades, which have a new report card and have made the switch to PowerGrade and PowerSchool, no changes were in store for Kindergarten through second grade report cards. Nevertheless, it has become apparent that many primary teachers feel as if they require help in order to set-up their report card databases in Appleworks. It has also become apparent that District 21 Technology staff are going to be unable to meet this need this year. So, schools continue to have the same range of options for Primary Grade report cards that they have had in the past and that everyone had assumed that they would have for the 2007-2008 school year. To support them, though, in addition to the Appleworks databases in existence at the buildings, we have also created generic Microsoft Word report card templates. These may be easier for people to modify and use due to teachers' increased comfort with word processing programs. View the Kindergarten Word template and the 1st and 2nd Grade Word template. Again, these can be modified, and this is not intended to be a permanent Primary Grade Report Card solution for District 21. Rather, that will come from a process being put in place by the Department of Curriculum and Learning.

In addition to creating these templates to provide K-2 teachers within increased technological flexibility, we have made two quick little videos that provide additional insight. The first is about the Microsoft Word templates, and the second is designed to show people who are using the existing Appleworks databases how to update them for this year.

- Tour of Microsoft Word Report Card templates

*** Taking last year's AppleWorks Report Card database and updating it for this year