ELA, Standards Based, & Infinite Campus: Lots of Questions

[llaib]

If anyone is in a similar situation, how do you set up assignments and enter grades to Sync/Passback? 

My district hasn't officially moved to standards-based yet. We have a list of "best practices" but right now teachers are still making their own policies, grading scales, systems, rubics, etc. 

I'm working with other Language Arts teachers adapt rubrics and projects and set up grading scales, but we collectively have more questions than answers.

Does anyone have insights about grading projects vs. individual standards? If so, how is that going? And how are you setting up rubrics?

Also, I'm curious about how to balance assessing grammar/mechanics (especially if the main focus of a writing project is another skill e.g. figurative language or integrating appropriate details/text evidence). 

I haven't done anything with Mastery Paths, but our IC settings are still set up as a traditional gradebook and have no idea if there's any way to sync grades that way. 

[jason_waltz]

Sounds like you're embarking on quite the journey. I'd highly suggest consideration of the Outcomes feature. It is a logical next step which provides access to the Learning Mastery Gradebook which provides some powerful perspective of learning.

[bbennett2]

This is a major shift, but here's what I would recommend:

1. Identify your Essential Standards (Outcomes) and start with those. Which ones are critical to your content and how do they communicate what students know and can do? Once you've identified those, you'll have a base to work from. 
2. Determine your proficiency scale as a department/PLC. We use a very generic scale right now:
   • 0 - No evidence (nothing turned in)
   • 1 - Does not meet expectations (way off base, but turned something in)
   • 2 - Approaches expectations (one misconception hold students back)
   • 3 - Meets expectations (can do on this assignment or in the immediate context)
   • 4 - Exceeds expectations (connects/synthesizes multiple ideas using the standard)
3. Get those Essential Standards turned into Outcomes in Canvas. Each Outcome has a rubric with the proficiency scale attached so students know what they're expected to demonstrate related to that outcome.
4. Attach Rubrics to every assignment. These rubrics hold Outcomes and allow you to score each individually. I coach teachers to get 4-6 assessments per outcome. That can be on a single rubric or a larger project which gives feedback on multiple skills.
5. Enable the Learning Mastery Gradebook for staff and students. Both get a new Gradebook view which shows their aggregated score along with individual attempts. Teachers can identify trends across outcomes and students and students can see each of their rubric results aligned to the Outcome in their gradebook. It is the single most powerful tool on the platform.

As far as turning that into grades, most gradebooks (we use Powerschool) don't recognize the Learning Mastery Gradebook. So, we do a little hand waving to convert LMG scores into assignment scores, but at the end of the day, our gradebooks are weighted:

• Classwork - 20%(ish) - these is all paperwork that students do, demonstrating ability on an outcome. Tests, quizzes, homework, projects...it all goes in here.
• Standards - 80%(ish) - A collection of assignments marked as complete/incomplete which report student progress on any Outcome that appears in the course.

The weights are just set up so that standards far outweigh the paperwork portion of the course. Doing the paperwork is immensely important as it is the demonstration of learning, but if all they're doing is playing the points game and turning stuff in, they will struggle to do well in the class. What we found is that the coursework became more relevant and students see the value in what we're asking them to do. They also start asking questions like, "Can you help me with [Outcome]?" instead of, "What do I need to do to pass?"

In the end, the PLC work at the start - identifying standards, getting assessments aligned, etc - is much more important that what you end up doing in Canvas. Once you have that done, Outcomes are definitely the way to go.

[shermanm]

We pretty much have the same questions, and the advice here is good.

I am hoping there is some way to develop a way to pass outcome/learning mastery grades back to the SIS.

Regardless of the work around we create, we are left having to do duplicate data entry between Canvas and our SIS.

Without a grade passback solution for this, we are finding ourselves questioning why we are using canvas for the gradebook, when it just creates more work for teachers.