Instructional Strategies for Digital Curriculum, Part II: Reporting

It is well known in the education world that teachers make the worst students. As a former administrator who held staff meetings, I saw a similar diversity of learners as in a typical classroom. Adults with varying learning types, levels of engagement, and “buy-in” were looking back at me. To successfully engage with this group, I had to diversify my message, engage the audience, and attempt to build out a roadmap so that we can all make progress together. Within this approach, I can meet the needs of the group as a whole.

My grandfather once told me that you can’t please (or teach) everyone all at once. He was right. The education research agrees, and the landscape is changing. With the advent of individualized instruction, we introduce concepts like digital curriculum (such as Edmentum Courseware) and the independent learner. The subjects and topics covered by educators may be the same but the tools and supports that are now at educator’s fingertips are certainly different. However, the core tenets remain the same. How can I still meet the needs of the group as a whole but also leverage digital curriculum?

The reporting within Edmentum Courseware offers all the tools necessary to support learners in their journey through the content. It may not be their first choice; it might even be their last option. But, at some point, it’s just the educator and the learner together. Here are a few tools and strategies for using Edmentum Courseware that engage an educator and learner in data-driven decisions to lead learners to success and help educators meet all learner’s needs.

Grade Report: Current Grade and Course Grade

Specific to the educator, the Grade Report within the Gradebook affords teachers a comprehensive overview of learners’ progress during the course and, more importantly, at the end. This report reflects both the quality of work submitted and as the course grade (total grade with all content considered from weighted categories). Auditing a learner’s Grade Report gives educators a breakdown of items within each category (pre-test, post-test, mastery, discussion, unit activity, etc.) with scores, time-on-task, and more. A quick glance at this data before a 30-second check-in allows teachers to know exactly how learners are doing and how best to guide the conversation.

Student Curriculum Details

While not a report, the relationship and support of learners stem from knowing how and where to go when they need you. A specific scenario is the pedagogy of locking unit tests and proctoring them in class. Within the 30-second check-in, a learner asks for a unit test to be unlocked. Identifying the “who” and “where” within your sections can provide the learner with the opportunity to get going on the assessment, which is important to the momentum of the process.

Another scenario in successful programming is the limiting of mastery test attempts. This pedagogical approach supplies learners with a finite number of attempts at the mastery test before they are unable to unlock it themselves. In this strategy, learners are forced to request an unlocking of the mastery test before they would be able to pass it. This  allows an educator and learner to consult the Graphic Learner Progress Report (to see how long the attempts were and when the attempts were made) and discuss next steps on building capacity to meet mastery on the module.

Knowing the data within the student progress page gives quick insight to progress management and must be considered as part of the process of supporting the agreement for success with learners.

Progress-Percent Complete

A deep dive may not always be necessary or possible for busy educators. At the section level, a percent-complete report can give educators a view into how much of the total activities learners have completed within a course. Auditing the amount of completed work for the whole section can start educators on the path to know which learners to support. Keep in mind that this doesn’t include the quality of work submitted; however, it is a great starting point prompting where to check learners’ progress or grade reports to deepen support in the progress.

Module Mastery Report

In spirit of wanting to gauge quantity and quality, the Module Mastery Report gives valuable data points on both. It shows the quantity of modules completed, as well as the quantity of modules mastered. This is a distinct difference to consider, and coupling this report with the Grade Report allows educators to know exactly where learners stand in both progress and grade.

In retrospect, staff meetings would be more effective if they were done individually with a common goal, mapping through a syllabus and data metrics to support our progress as a staff and school. Where were you on that one, Grandpa?

We know that each educator has his or her own set of steps and process that help support success for learners each day, but we hope that these suggestions have maybe spurred a new idea or that they will help you build off  an existing idea. We’re always striving to do better, to learn from our educators, and to make daily processes easier and more streamlined every day.

As a demonstration of our commitment, we can’t wait to show you a few new program enhancements this summer that will do just that: streamline processes and decrease steps to complete common tasks. Check out our What’s New page for more information on updates to Courseware and other Edmentum programs!