Tuesday Tech Tip: Exploring Mastery in COLE 3.0/Schoology

This month, our posts have been focused on how we can align, design, and refine what we do with students with an eye on mastery.  We've looked at how we can use learning objectives and standards in Schoology, what kinds of assignment options we have, and in what ways we can more effectively use digital feedback.  This week, we'll explore how mastery or competency reports can help inform both students and teachers in COLE 3.0/Schoology.

Teacher: Mastery Overview by Class

Once we have aligned student work to standards or learning objectives, Schoology can track student progress on those standards, based on the teacher's digital assessment of the work.  (Remember, student work doesn't have to be completed or submitted in a digital format, but the teacher does need to put scores in Schoology to track progress digitally.)  As the teacher, you can see class-wide, student-specific, and/or standard-specific information.

Teacher: Mastery Overview by Objective

Teacher: Mastery Settings

As the teacher, you can change the settings for the way the mastery reports are configured for you, including what minimum score meets the expectation, how many times students must achieve that score for mastery, and whether it's based on an average or the highest score. (These are based on grading scales you have in Schoology, so if you want to use a 1 - 5 scale, you would need to set those up in the Gradebook set-up prior to changing the mastery settings.)

Schoology will track how many assignments are tied to the standards or objectives and how your class or individual students do over time by assignment.  For students, they can see their own progress, but cannot see class overview information.  (As of now, parents do not see the mastery option.)  The student view of his/her mastery in Schoology is the same thing that teachers see when looking at an individual student's "Objectives Report."

Student: Mastery Report

Ultimately, using mastery reports for goal setting and feedback (for both students & teachers) should be taking us into deeper conversations about what mastery means, whether we're choosing the best ways for students to demonstrate that mastery, and what we do when students are not reaching those goals.  Schoology is one tool that we can now utilize to guide those conversations.

Tuesday Tech Tip: Providing Feedback Digitally to Help Track Mastery

Now that we've looked at aligning and designing in COLE 3.0/Schoology, the next thing to think about is refining. "The most powerful single modification that enhances achievement is feedback" (John Hattie). As one of the most powerful tools we can use to impact student achievement, this week's post is about effectively using digital feedback for assessments, assignments, and discussion boards.

Feedback with Assessments:
At a very basic level, students can get feedback on assessments simply by looking point totals.  However, there is a bigger impact on student achievement if the feedback is timely, corrective, & specific (David Sousa, How the Brain Learns).  When creating assessments in Schoology, you can set feedback options so that students can get immediate feedback with correct answers, and for some question types like multiple choice, you can also automate feedback based on responses.

As a teacher, you can also give comments on specific question responses.  In the example on the left, the teacher can view each student's response and add a comment specific to that question when appropriate.

When thinking about the kinds of feedback students or student data can provide for teachers, there are detailed assessment reports available that help inform teachers about instructional needs for the class as a whole and/or for individual students.  (And, any items aligned to standards will also be tracked for mastery.)  Additionally, students can type in comments (for the assessment in general) to let teachers know personal impressions or specific feedback.

Feedback with Assignments:

When creating assignments in Schoology that will be submitted or uploaded online, the student submissions area has feedback options for both teachers & students.  A student can add a comment when uploading content, and teachers can type in comments (or give audio comments) that only the student can see.

If you would like to use a rubric as a way to provide specific, criterion-based feedback for an assignment, you can create rubrics that are aligned to standards from within an assignment.  Use the "Create New" option under "Scale/Rubric" and then select which standards or learning objectives you will be measuring (you can also create your own criteria in this step).  Any items aligned to standards or objectives will be tracked for mastery.

While the rubric builder defaults to a 1-4 scale with generic descriptions (excellent, good, satisfactory, needs improvement), you can change the number of descriptors, the points associated with each level, and edit each of those levels to further delineate what each scale score reflects.  When you grade the item, simply check the boxes that reflect the student's achievement levels and it will tally the points for you.

Feedback with Discussion Boards:

If working in a discussion board, you can use points or a rubric (if it's a graded discussion board) as a way to give feedback, but you can also add comments.  Those can either be seen by the student or just added for your own information.  This is different than replying to a student's post -- if you reply to a post on a discussion board, it is visible to anyone in the class.  If you comment as part of a grade, it is only visible to the specific student.

Feedback with the Gradebook:

Schoology's gradebook is another place where teachers can give feedback via points, rubric scores, and comments.  This can be especially helpful when assessing items in Schoology that were not submitted via Schoology (student presentations, projects, offline assignments, etc.).  The gradebook can also be used to give overall comments on items that were submitted via Schoology (like online assessments), and comments can either be visible to students or visible only to you.  While rubric scores and comments stay in Schoology, all point totals can be pushed to PowerSchool's gradebook.

Providing feedback digitally for students and gathering feedback from students can help us refine what we do, how we do it, and how we can further strive for mastery.

Tuesday Tech Tip: Designing Opportunities to Digitally Track Mastery

As a continuation of our post from last week (Aligning Work Digitally to Track Student Mastery), this week's post takes a look at the next step:  designing activities in COLE 3.0/Schoology that will align with standards or your own learning objectives.

Once you have identified which standards you want to address, you can think about what kinds of activities & assessments will best meet the demands of those standards.  Will you be asking students to create something? Interact with peers in a discussion? Present information? Respond to assessment items?  What opportunities will you design to aid in their learning, and how can you track their progress?

Designing in Schoology: Assignment*
Is creating something (a piece of writing,  a presentation, a project, etc.) the best way for students to demonstrate their understanding ? Or maybe they will be modifying or adapting something you've provided?  Regardless of how it will be "turned in," choose "Assignment" from the "Add Materials" pull-down. In addition to working for offline activities, student work can be collected in a Schoology assignment as well. Students can digitally create a written response, upload a file, link to something they've done online, or record themselves speaking.  As long as the assignment is aligned (see below), you'll be able to track how students do and provide feedback.

To align in Schoology, look for the blue target icon

(Tip: If your assignment hits more than 1 standard, your best bet is to create a rubric in Schoology and assess each standard separately.)

Designing in Schoology: Test/Quiz*
If students will be responding to an online assessment in Schoology to show what they know, you'll want to choose "Test/Quiz."  You can create your own questions or use ones that already exist in a Test Bank in Schoology. The following question types are available:

1. True/False
2. Multiple Choice
3. Ordering
4. Short answer/Essay
5. Fill in the Blank
6. Matching

The assessment itself isn't aligned to standards, but each question can be aligned separately (using the blue target icon in the question builder).  Schoology can then measure how well students do on aligned standards based on the points the students receive on the questions.

Designing in Schoology: Discussion*
Perhaps a class discussion is the best way to have students meet your chosen standard(s).  Discussion responses in Schoology can either be typed or submitted orally, but they are available for the entire class (for interaction between class members). After choosing the "Discussion" option, align the topic to standards or objectives.  (Again, if the Discussion topic will be addressing multiple standards, use Schoology's rubric tool to assess those items individually.)

The most important thing is deciding how to best assess students in relation to standards.  After students complete an activity that you've designed in this digital space, you can provide digital feedback.  We'll be addressing that topic in the next blog post.

*For more information, visit Schoology's Help Center article on Course Materials (or contact your technology support folks).

Tuesday Tech Tip: Aligning Work Digitally to Track Student Mastery

We recently got a new feature enabled in our Schoology domain called "Mastery," which provides a way to assess & track student work based on standards and learning outcomes. (You can read more about it here.)  Designed to work with the existing alignment tool in Schoology, this could be very powerful as we think about measuring what we value in our students' work and looking for growth on specific standards.

However, before utilizing this new feature, we need to think about what we're aligning, designing, and measuring.   We'll start with "aligning."

What standard(s) will the assignment or assessment target?  Schoology already has Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and Colorado Academic Standards in the system, so any item you create or add can be aligned to those.  However, if you need to align to a learning objective that isn't represented in those standards, you can create your own.  Or, you can create a collection of objectives that you will use repeatedly or for specific units.

When in the "Personal Resources" area in Schoology, you can select "Learning Objectives" from the list on the left.  Once in the Learning Objectives area, you can add folders (for grouping standards by content areas, grade levels, or units/topics), you can add existing standards from CAS, NGSS, and/or shared learning outcomes into your list (for quicker access), and you can add your own "custom learning objectives." Bottom line: before creating an assignment or assessment, it's a good idea to think about which standards you will be targeting (and maybe even collecting them into a folder).

If you're collaborating with a group in Schoology, the group admin can enable Learning Objectives in the Group Resources area.  This would be helpful if you are creating resources to share (like test bank items) and want to track something specific for your grade level team, PLC, or department.  Again, these can be collected into folders by unit, topic, grade level, etc.

Once Learning Outcomes are in place, we can start to think about what kinds of activities, assessments, or assignments will best support that standard or outcome.  Next week's post will explore online (and offline) assessments and assignments in Schoology.

Tuesday Tech Tip: Flashcards with the Quizlet Chrome App

Flashcards are often used to help solidify concepts for deeper learning.  While not appropriate for all types of learning needs, many teachers & students use flashcards as part of distributed practice.  Today's tech tip is about a free digital flashcard tool: Quizlet (available via web browsers and via apps for Chrome, iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Nook, and Windows phones).  This post explores the web or Chrome app version.

While you don't need an account to use existing flashcard sets on Quizlet, students and teachers can sign up using their CCSD GoogleApps logins if they will be creating sets.  

There are 6 study modes for sets.  Not only can you study using the flashcard mode, but you can also have it generate practice for you, test your spelling, create assessments and games.  Immediate feedback is built into the modes.

Quizlet also has image, audio, and multiple language support.  When creating flashcard sets, you can include images in the definition that match your term (it has a built-in image search tool or you can upgrade your account and upload your own images).  You can also choose different language options (useful for world language teachers).  Finally, when clicking on terms or definitions, Quizlet will read the terms or definitions out loud for you (try it out in the embedded example below).

Speaking of embedding, Quizlet provides embed code so that you can put sets into other sites (like Schoology or blogs).  That way, students can use sets without having to log in or search Quizlet's site.  A pull-down menu in the lower corner lets you choose between study modes if the set has been embedded (the example below is for the 5th Grade FOSS unit for Mixtures and Solutions).


When creating card sets, you can also combine with other sets, create folders, invite others to edit, or make them private. As a teacher, you can also create a class for internal collaboration.

If you or your students would like to use flashcards on any device for free, Quizlet is worth a look.

Tuesday Tech Tip: Being Smarter with YouTube -- Turn Off the Lights

Many teachers & educators like to use YouTube and other video clips to support learning and instructional goals, but one of the downsides to showing a clip for an audience (via projector) is that sometimes you get content that you didn't necessarily want to display (especially if you're working with a class full of kids).  A typical YouTube clip has "suggested" videos on the sides, comments at the bottom, and other content like ads.  CNN.com and other sites with videos have similar layouts (extra content).

One easy solution if you're using the Chrome browser is to install the "Turn Off the Lights" extension (although it's available for other browsers as well). Once installed, the Turn Off the Lights icon -- which is a light bulb -- appears in the right side of your URL bar in Chrome (right next to the star or bookmark icon).  When you go to a YouTube window or an article with a video on a news site, you can click on the light bulb icon and it will darken everything on the screen except the clip, effectively hiding distracting or questionable content.

Before Turn Off the Lights is enabled

After Turn Off the Lights is enabled

You can also customize how this extension behaves with web pages & video clips.  Right-clicking on the icon will give you a menu with "Options."  For example, you can opt to leave certain parts of the YouTube page visible (like information about the clip), you can have customized backgrounds or effects, and you can also tell it to automatically dim whenever you go to a certain site. If you want to have students focus on certain parts of a page, you can have a spotlight effect so that your  mouse can "light up" certain parts of the page while the rest remains "lights out."

There are other tools that accomplish similar effects with video, but Turn Off the Lights is easy to use and has solid customization choices.  If you show videos to audiences and would like to focus their attention on the actual clip, it's a great option.

Tuesday Tech Tip: Creating Thinking Maps in Google Drawings

Tomorrow, February 5th, is Digital Learning Day, so we thought we'd post about creating digital Thinking Maps on the Chromebooks.  While there are quite a few options for creating free-hand drawings in Chrome or other browsers, today's post will focus on Google Drawings.  Google Drawings (like other Google Docs) allow for live collaboration, sharing, & publishing.

Most people are familiar with using Google Docs for creating documents, but there's another option under the "Create" menu when you're in Google Drive -- Drawing.

After you select "Drawing," you'll be taken to a blank canvas with shape, text, and line tools in the top toolbar.  If students are comfortable using drawing tools (they all work in a similar way), they can start creating on their own.  However, if students need a few models for practice, they can use the existing Thinking Maps Templates in the CCSD Template Gallery. (You can either use the link here, or you can go under the "File" menu inside of any existing drawing and choose "New" -> "from Template."  Other templates are also available in the CCSD gallery for presentations, documents, forms, and spreadsheets.)

If you see a drawing template that you'd like to use, click "Use this Template" and it will create a version inside of your own Google Drive to edit and share.  Tip: use "ctrl + D" in Chrome to duplicate shapes in Google Drawings.

The templates in the CCSD Gallery are only there to help staff and students get comfortable using the drawing tools.  Because students should be creating these from scratch, the templates are a good option for those just starting out. 

If you would like to participate in Digital Learning Day but aren't sure where to start, having students create a digital Thinking Map could be a great option.