Once you've added Assessment Areas to your Competency-Based Gradebook, it's time to enter the learning targets or standards you'll be formatively assessing. Learning targets or standards are either pre-loaded into jmc Teacher if your school uses standards-based report cards, or manually entered if you're reporting an end-of-term course grade. Select or enter your learning target or standard, determine how many times you’ll assess it throughout the term, and choose the calculation option that aligns with your teaching philosophy to streamline end-of-term summative reporting.
To add learning targets or standards for Formative Assessment in jmc Teacher, head to Competency-Based Grading > Define Formative Assessment.
Step One: Select a course from the "Courses" drop-down and a category from the "Assessment Area" drop-down list to begin adding targets for formative assessment.
Step Two: Click the "Add" button below the "Formative Assessment" box to add a new learning target/standard.
Helpful Tip: Need to add an assessment or adjust a calculation option to an existing learning target/standard? Select an existing learning target/standard from the "Formative Assessment" box and click the "Edit" button to edit existing details.
Step Three: Select the appropriate learning target or standard from the "Standard" and "Benchmark" drop-down lists if you are summatively reporting on a standards-based report card, or manually enter the learning target or standard in the "Formative Assessment" field if you are reporting a course grade summatively.
Fun Fact: If you are calculating formative assessments into a course grade, the applied weight, max score used for the calculation, number of assessments, and calculation options will appear for your reference.
Step Four: Select a radio button next to the appropriate option in the "Calculate Options" box to set the calculation option that best fits your grading philosophy.
# of High Scores: the average of the highest x scores. For example, if you assess a learning target 5 times and you are taking the average of the highest 2 scores and the highest 2 scores are 3 and 4, the calculated student score would be 3.5. Want to take the highest score? Enter a "1" in the field and jmc will calculate the average of the highest "1" score.
Most Recent Scores: an average of the most recent x scores. Want to take the most recent score? Enter a "1" in the field and jmc will calculate the average of the most recent "1" score.
Decaying Average (%): a formula that applies more weight to recent performance while including results from first attempts in the average.
Proficiency Target #: the number of times a student needs to reach the targeted proficiency as defined on the proficiency scale in order to achieve the corresponding mark.
Step Five: Select the number of times you are formatively assessing the learning target 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 Six (optional): Click the calendar icon to assign a date to the formative assessment if you are calculating to a course grade.
Fun Fact: If you are calculating results to a standards-based report card, the date will automatically be set to the last day in the current term to streamline the formative assessment process.
Step Seven: Click the "Save" button to add the target/standard to your formative assessment list or the "Cancel" button to return to your list.