Aug 14th, 2017
Background
The Ontario Ministry of Education publishes a very descriptive and complete guide to the assessment process to be used in K-12 education in the province of Ontario. It includes methodologies and terminologies that are unique to the province.
Edsby is used in many provinces, states and countries, and by default uses generic terminology that is broadly applicable in the K-12 space. However, Edsby is very customizable on a per customer basis, and Edsby customizations can be grouped into customization packages. A “Growing Success” customization package has been assembled that can be used to customize a customer’s experience to more tightly align it with Growing Success.
Growing Success Customization Package Content
This section describes the various aspects of the Edsby experience that are changed by this customization package.
Using “Expectations” instead of “Standards”: K-12 Education jurisdictions such as provinces and states generally provide a detailed curriculum guide for each core subject and grade level. They also generally define a summarized list of the key aspects of the curriculum. Some jurisdictions refer to these as “Standards” (such as “Common Core” in the U.S.). Others refer to them as “Outcomes”. In Ontario they are referred to as “Expectations. The default terminology in Edsby is “Standards”. This part of the Growing Success customization package changes the term “Standard” to “Expectation” in places like the Assessment form, the Unit form, and the Perspective. An example from the Assessment form is shown here.
Assessment form terminology: In the “Grading” part of the standard Edsby experience the customization package adds Growing Success terminology such as “Purpose of Assessment” and “Method of Assessment” as shown below. In addition the choices under “Purpose of Assessment” are changed from “summative” and “formative” to the Growing Success “As/For/Of Learning”:
Subjective Performance Indicators: Edsby has a useful facility that enables a teacher to set a “Subjective Performance Indicator” on any student via a quick picker in the gradebook. The default set of choices is shown here. With the Growing Success customization package these choices are changed to better align with the Progress Reporting terminology as follows:
- Progressing Very Well (V)
- Progressing Well (W)
- Progressing with Difficulty (D)
- Not Enough Information (N)
Deployment
The Growing Success customization package can easily be applied to a customer site by Edsby customer support. Simply contact Edsby support if you want this installed on your site. There is no charge associated with this.
It should be noted though that it is best to apply this prior to the start of a school year so teachers are using a consistent approach through the school year.