Student Learning

We do use three different databases for assessment: Gradespeed for daily grades, progress reports, and attendence; D2SC for TEKSchecks, semseter exams, and teacher created exams; and last, Blackboard for test, quizzes, and assignments.

To start, Gradespeed is what I use the most. Since students are able to look into thier grades through a special program, my grades are updated 2-3 times a week so that both students and parents know where they stand in the classroom.

While I love D2SC becuase it scores it for you, I hate that you can't automatically enter them into the gradebook. This has part to do because the score given on these assessments are at scaled for a better numeric score for the gradebook.

Last, Blackboard is hard to use with us not having a 1:1 student to laptop ratio in our classroom. While we can do this, students struggle with the technology and are needing to learn this skill.

Overall, I think each of these programs have benefits to them, but wonder about the cost and the ability to sync them all together. I know that IISD has a lot of work to do with the new grading policy coming into affect, but I believe that we will need a more cohesive form of assessment to match the policies.

I believe that D2SC is the best information for collecting student data and using the information for further growth of student learning. I think that the data is informative and allows teachers to see areas of student growth, but like any assessment, it is only as good as the thought that is taken out of it. I believe that some teachers use the data for educational purposes, and others let the data sit. D2SC is the most beneficial for data collection and use because there are so many different data sets made available and they can incorporate new data sets as new benchmarks are given.