The best way to progress monitor is to compare your student gradebook to my pace chart (https://teachers.stjohns.k12.fl.us/lemons-r/pace-charts/). The pace chart is a list of assignments with specific due dates. In order to be on pace, you must have turned in all assignments that have come due. Your gradebook will show you which assignments you have turned in, when they were turned in, and the grade earned (as soon as they have been graded).
Assignments are color coded in your gradebook for easy monitoring:
- Green shading – assignment successfully completed with a passing grade!
- Red shading – assignment complete with a failing grade.
- Consider redoing any failed assignments. At the very least, review the corresponding lessons again.
- Note: The segment exam cannot be retaken.
- Blue shading – assignment has been submitted but not yet graded.
- Allow 48 hours for grading (not including weekends and school breaks).
- Gray shading – assignment is not impacting the grade.
- Examples: completed pretests, exempted assignments
- No shading – assignment has yet to be attempted.
- Consider redoing any failed assignments. At the very least, review the corresponding lessons again.
Last Assignment Turned in Date:
This is a very important date to monitor. All students should be submitting work weekly. If work has not been submitted in the course in the last week, please read the next lesson and complete the next assessment! Students who stop working in the course are in danger of being dropped from the program.
About the Percent Complete metric:
Percent complete is a good metric to quickly get a ballpark idea of whether or not you are on pace. It is calculated by dividing the number of completed assignments by the total number of assignments in the segment. Percent complete is often not exactly accurate for the following reasons:
- Ungraded work is not counted in the number of complete assignments.
- Before exemptions are done the number will be artificially low. Later in the semester when exemptions are done, the total number of assignments will decrease (decreasing the denominator and increasing percent complete).
- Simply monitoring percent complete will not alert you to any missed assignments.
- Often times when students skip assignments it creates a roadblock to their completion. This is because typically the reason(s) why a student skips an assignment won’t disappear simply because they reach the end of the course.
Also, please know that completing 6% per week is not the correct pacing for every course. Some weeks may be more and others may be less. As long as all assignments listed prior to the current date on my pace chart have been completed, you are on pace!
Skipped Assessments
Skipped assessments are a cause for concern. The course is designed to be worked through in order. Skipping assignments typically only makes the course more difficult, and students might miss necessary information. You will know if an assessment has been skipped if there are green or red shaded assessments after unshaded assessments (see section above about gradebook shading).
Skipping Discussion Based Assessments (DBAs) and module exams is especially concerning for the following reasons:
- The DBA and module exam should be taken soon after working through the lessons so the information is freshest in your mind.
- Module exams are a significant portion of the grade. Students who skip exams until the end often see their grade drop by one or more letters (i.e. from a B to a C) once they do take those exams.
- Most courses have a DBA as one of the last assignments. That means at the end of the semester almost all of my students need to speak with me for a DBA. This makes DBA availability very limited. Make up DBAs may not be possible at this time.
- Students must complete the module DBA before getting the password to enter the module exam.
- Remember to log in to my Zoom Sessions to complete your DBAs.
Don’t forget to check the grade!
The student’s grade is a reflection of how well they are mastering the course content. Some types of assignments that have not been mastered satisfactorily can often be resubmitted up to three times. Simply click on the assignment in the gradebook to resubmit.
There are times when resubmissions are not allowed:
- pretests (these don’t impact your grade anyway)
- module exams
- segment exam
- No assignment may be resubmitted after taking the segment exam. Scour the gradebook and make sure there is not anything you would like to resubmit before taking the segment exam.
To be clear – you may only take pretests, module exams, and the segment exam one time each.
If you get locked out of a pretest or exam, please email me and explain the reason why you are locked out. Depending on the situation I may allow you to reenter the assessment. Otherwise, your work will be graded as it was completed up to that point. Remember to expect return communication within 24 hours (not including weekends or holidays).
Please note:
- Ungraded submissions are not reflected in the overall grade.
- Assessments are weighted differently. The gradebook reflects this in the points possible column. Module and segment exams are typically weighted the most heavily.
