PPS Instructional Technology

This (2015-16) school year, PPS has made a few adjustments to our elementary gradebook. We are using year long trending.  This means that the final Q4 grade will take into account all events from the first day of school until the end of the academic year.  Don't be surprised when you see suggested grades showing up in Q2, Q3, and Q4 as soon as the Q1 suggestion appears. Skyward will not begin to suggest a trend grade until three or more event scores are entered for a particular skill.   These changes will help improve the overall suggested grade because it will take into account growth from the entire school year and it will provide more data points in order to make the suggestion.  That being said, it is still the professional responsibility of the teacher to double check the scores each quarter to make sure what the gradebook is suggesting aligns with how the child is performing on that particular skill.   Skyward makes this a fairly painless proces...

As we approach the end of Quarter 1 (Q1) teachers may find it necessary to make slight adjustments in a student's grade or apply the use of Credit/No Credit. Below, we will cover how to accomplish both. Adjusting Grades In the scenario at the right, we have a student who is particularly close to the next grade mark. A 79.36% C+ could easily adjust to a B-. To make this adjustment, click on the letter grade in the quarter column in which you wish to enter a change (in this case, Q1). The "Grade Adjustment" screen will appear. In that screen, locate the student's grade you wish to adjust. Here, under the Adjustment Column, in the Grade Field, I have entered a "B-" (1). In the Amount Field, an adjustment of 0.14 percentage points has automatically been calculated and entered by Skyward (2). And the new percentage applied to the gradebook as the student's new adjusted grade appears in the "Total Percent" column. A teacher may also adjust th...

Entering Comments and Citizenship It’s that time of year… It’s the end of the marking period and time to shore up your gradebooks. In this tech tip we are discussing… Citizenship Entering Comments Citizenship Perhaps you have seen the column at the right in your gradebooks. You are looking at the column used to enter a student’s Citizenship mark (C1). Below you will find the steps necessary to enter a student’s citizenship mark. Steps: Click anywhere in the C1 column In the screen that appears  There is an option for Mass Assigning Individual Marks Viewing the mark table To the right, see the citizenship marks and the description of each. Entering Comments Now, let’s work on entering our marking period comments for the report card. From within a selected gradebook, next to the “Reports” menu, find and hover over the “Posting” menu. From that list choose “Post Comments” as shown to the right. On the screen that app...

As you all know, at the elementary level we have switched to standards-based grading. What this means is that we are no longer grading assignments. We are grading whether a child has met a particular skill/standard. This means that a single assignment may be evaluating one skill, or it could be looking at multiple skills. If an assignment covers multiple skills, each skill must be evaluated independently. If multiple skills are lumped together for a single grade, it creates an inaccurate assessment of the child’s performance on each of the individual skills. Below you will find directions on how you enter an event (assignment) into the Skyward gradebook. These events will roll up to give you information on how a student is performing on a particular standard/skill and in turn, these standards will roll up to show you the report card score for that group of skills. For the printer-friendly version, click here. Entering a Single Skill Event Step 1: Click on the subject for which...