Assessing Standards to calculate assignment mark

[tkennedy1981]

Hello,

Our school division is currently transitioning to PowerSchool.

I had a teacher ask whether it's possible to do the following:

1.  Create an assignment and attach standards.

2.  Assign a mark to these standards.

3.  Then have PowerTeacherPro auto-calculate an overall grade for that assignment based on the marks given to the standards attached to that assignment.

Hopefully my question is clear.

Thank you for any help.

[RichardB16]

Yes, this is all possible; however, for it to be done right there is a lot of prep work. Jumping into this mid-year would be hard on everyone. Here are a few thoughts - 

• Get a consensus on your standards, whether based on Common Core, state or local. 
• Are you doing this for just the elementary level, secondary or possibly the whole district?
• Be consistent with your naming, descriptions, identifiers - what is your hierarchy?
• Courses are attached to standards at the district level.
• Teachers can then attach standards to assignments and assessments - and there are many options of how and where to do things at this point too (Schoology, Performance Matters, etc.).
• Think long term also - what does this mean for a report card, transcripts, extra-curricular eligibility, etc.
• Grading - you can create grade scales and conversions based on standards grading, or if you still need a "letter" grade you can leave the conversion to your teachers who can switch grade scales and determine this themselves. There are many options here.

This is a project and takes a lot of work to be done right!

Good luck!

[tkennedy1981]

Thank you for your reply Richard,

Are you able to walk me through the exact steps to have standards grade calculate an overall assignment mark?  I can't seem to figure it out myself.

Thank you.

[RichardB16]

I hate to say this, but by your other questions on the forum, you have already jumped into Standards completely. I would love to help but am quite busy with my own projects. I recommend reading the following - https://docs.powerschool.com/PSHSA/21.4/grading/grading-setup/standards#id-.Standardsv21.4-ManageNex... - and if that confuses you, put a call into your customer success manager for some direction and assistance.

[nlake]

My wonder is...if you are using standards/outcomes based reporting, why would you want to have the outcomes calculate an overall assignment grade?  Doesn't that defeat the purpose of standards/outcomes-based reporting?  By reporting a singular grade, many parents won't look at the standards/outcomes that informed that grade in the first place.  Just a wonder...