jmc Teacher's Competency-Based Grading module offers a comprehensive solution for implementing competency-based grading and providing formative feedback to students. It enables teachers to create assessment areas aligned with standards, track student progress through tagged formative assessments, and define multiple assessment proficiencies with assigned colors and abbreviations. The module allows for easy customization, including proficiency scale definition, assessment area addition, and formative assessment creation. Teachers can utilize the full suite of tools without tying the results back to summative grades, empowering them to offer valuable feedback to support student learning.

In jmc Teacher head to Competency-Based Grading > Define Formative Assessments to get started on a few basic setup steps.

Define your Proficiency Scale

A proficiency scale is made up of multiple assessment proficiencies, or results. Define all possible proficiencies to ensure a complete scale.

Step One: Select a course from the "Course" drop-down list to begin setting up results and adding assessments for a course.

Step Two: Select a number from the "Number of Results" drop-down list to begin creating the standard based result definitions.

Fun Fact: The "Number of Results" refers to how many proficiencies are in your proficiency scale. For example, if your proficiency scale is "Meets", "Developing", "Beginning", and "Incomplete" you would select "4" in "Number of Results".

Helpful Tip: Include an extra result to include an "exempt" option on your proficiency scale to define a result which won't count in proficiency calculations.

Step Three: Click the "Edit" link in a proficiency row to begin defining a result in your proficiency scale.

Step Four: Select a color from the color drop-down list to correspond with your competency-based grading result.

Helpful Tip: Unique colors for each proficiency result make reviewing student progress reports easier as families can look for patterns of colors to understand their student's learning progress.

Step Five: Enter an abbreviation (3 letters or fewer) in the "Name" column to create a display name for the result. For example "Met", "Dev", or "Beg" etc.

Step Six: Enter a number in the "Value" column to set a ranking order for your proficiency scale.

Step Seven: Enter a description for the result in the "Description" field to correspond with your competency-based result.

Step Eight: Click the "Update" link to save the result or click the "Cancel" link to discard changes.

Step Nine: Repeat steps three through eight until all result are defined to complete your proficiency scale.

Add an Assessment Area

An assessment area is the logic container for multiple formative assessments. Create an assessment area to tie them together.

Step One: Click the "Add" button next to the "Assessment Area" drop-down list to enter a new standard.

Step Two: Enter a standard name in the "Assessment Area Name" field to create a new assessment area to be assessed.

Step Three: Choose the "Formative" radio button in the "Assessment Area Type" box to use the CBG module for feedback purposes.

Step Four: Click the "Save" button to update changes or click the "Close" button to discard changes.

Add a Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is the learning target that contributes to the standard, or assessment area. Add multiple formative assessments (learning targets) for the assessment area (standard) to form a learning progression.

Step One: Click the "Add" button below the "Formative Assessment" box to add a formative assessment for the selected "Assessment Area".

Step Two: Enter a formative assessment name for the current assessment area in the "Formative Assessment" field to associate the assessment with a standard.

Step Three: Select the number of times you are formatively assessing the benchmark from the "Number of Assessments" drop-down list to create multiple assessment opportunities for your students.

Helpful Tip: Not sure how many times you are going to formatively assess a benchmark? No problem! Simply add to the "Number of Assessments" as needed!

Step Four: Click the "Save" button to add the formative assessment or click the "Cancel" button when finished adding formative assessments.