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

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

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

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