Week Nine Personal Post
Technology this week is all about the grade book as our third quarter ends.
Our school uses Plusportals to compile and distribute grades. This is very convenient for those who are internet savvy - the website hosts a database that collects the grades, sorts them by categories, produces reports between and across courses and classes, and across a wide range of data. This data is also viewable, at the teacher's discretion, by parents and individual students through their portals, and in our school, that means students can get up-to-the-minute updates on their grades through their iPads.
My colleagues and I enjoy the simplicity of this mechanism - the website also links directly to parent email addresses, so our best practice includes updating grades by hand (from physical gradebooks, usually, but sometimes while we're grading) and then clicking the name of a student who has lapsed, or remains in grade trouble, so that we can contact parents AND student as soon as we see a problem. This technique really helps parents feel supported if they are eager to keep their son's grades at an acceptable level, but is convenient for teachers who are conscientious about bookkeeping and parent communication.
I will also be collecting data from our Writing Lab, where we track minutes of tutoring, number of peers tutored, and their teachers' and course's names. We have instituted the lab this year, where 3-4 AP/ honors seniors are available to read rough drafts or advise the drafting process for students in study hall, or during part of their 45 minute lunch periods. In our first two quarters offering this service, we provided 3000 and 3700 minutes (respectively) of tutoring. I am excited to see whether we are still trending upwards!
(This counts as technology b/c I'm using google docs to track the data, though, admittedly, I'm not using any sophisticated data-gathering mechanism. If you have suggestions for me, I would love a reply comment!)
Have a great week!
Our school uses Plusportals to compile and distribute grades. This is very convenient for those who are internet savvy - the website hosts a database that collects the grades, sorts them by categories, produces reports between and across courses and classes, and across a wide range of data. This data is also viewable, at the teacher's discretion, by parents and individual students through their portals, and in our school, that means students can get up-to-the-minute updates on their grades through their iPads.
My colleagues and I enjoy the simplicity of this mechanism - the website also links directly to parent email addresses, so our best practice includes updating grades by hand (from physical gradebooks, usually, but sometimes while we're grading) and then clicking the name of a student who has lapsed, or remains in grade trouble, so that we can contact parents AND student as soon as we see a problem. This technique really helps parents feel supported if they are eager to keep their son's grades at an acceptable level, but is convenient for teachers who are conscientious about bookkeeping and parent communication.
I will also be collecting data from our Writing Lab, where we track minutes of tutoring, number of peers tutored, and their teachers' and course's names. We have instituted the lab this year, where 3-4 AP/ honors seniors are available to read rough drafts or advise the drafting process for students in study hall, or during part of their 45 minute lunch periods. In our first two quarters offering this service, we provided 3000 and 3700 minutes (respectively) of tutoring. I am excited to see whether we are still trending upwards!
(This counts as technology b/c I'm using google docs to track the data, though, admittedly, I'm not using any sophisticated data-gathering mechanism. If you have suggestions for me, I would love a reply comment!)
Have a great week!
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