Jun 2nd, 2017
Background
Many organizations have standardized on a specific way to do gradebook assessment weighting in a specific subject, but then sometimes struggle to get all teachers of that subject to implement the desired weighting scheme in a consistent fashion.
Edsby provides a powerful Course Model facility that can be used to automatically include a range of information into all classes teaching the same course code. One type of information that can be included in a model is a gradebook weighting bucket setup.
By setting up the weighting buckets in the Course Model for a given course the organization can be sure that each teacher teaching that course has the same weighting bucket setup automatically done for them.
Example Bucket Setups
A simple example would be an approach where the organization has decided that in Grade 7 Math they would like to have tests and quizzes to be worth 10%, a project is worth 20%, everything else is worth 40% and the final exam is worth 30%. The attached screen snap shows how you would set up the weighting bucket for this. The way you do it in the course model is identical to the way a teacher would do this in a class.
Edsby provides built-in support for compound assessment schemes that are based on strands or categories of knowledge. These are slightly more complicated to set up, and therefore excellent candidates to automate for teachers!
With Categories of Knowledge Edsby comes pre-configured with a KTCA assessment scheme (Knowledge, Thinking, Communication, and Application) and KTCA weighting bucket. So all that needs to be determined is what the weighting value should be for each of the four aspects of KTCA. This typically varies from subject to subject. Note that in places using KTCA 30% of the overall mark is normally reserved for the final exam/summative. This means the KTCA buckets are used to divide up the other 70% of the mark. If you have a KTCA bucket split out of 100 you simply multiple each value by 0.7. Below is an example of a weighting bucket set up for KTCA.
If the organization wishes to set up weighting buckets by strand these need to be configured in to the course model. Edsby does that by default by course ID where the strands are standardized at the provincial/state level. However organizations that wish to define their own strands per Course Code can do that via Edsby Course Models. Once these strands are included in the Course Model they can then be used to configure a strands-based weighting bucket scheme in exactly the same way the KTCA weighting bucket scheme is done. The example here for Grade 9 English shows the strands the organization has chosen to have in this subject, and the way they wish each strand to be weighted as it contributes to the final mark.
Course Model Setup
Course Models can be edited by district-level staff directly to set up each course model weighting bucket as desired as per the examples above. However, it is possible to automate this by specifying the required data in a CSV file format (one row per Course ID). This format can be provided to any organization wishing to auto-configure their models.
Course Model Application
Course model content is automatically applied each time a new Class is created with a Course ID that has a corresponding model. So, if an organization sets up the models with weighting buckets in the summer prior to the first round of class creation in Edsby all model content will get copied to the classes. It can be pushed into each class after class creation via a modeling tool run by Edsby support.