Check Grades Online
Excerpt of letter sent home with progress reports:
Dear Students and Parents,
I wanted to communicate information regarding my approach to meaningfully assessing student progress in gifted/enrichment language arts.
The letter grade on a student’s report card reflects student achievement. Therefore, 70% of students’ grades are dedicated to Unit and Course/Grade Level Understanding and Performance, such as differentiated products, performances, and projects (including unit assessments, essays, oral presentations). At this point in the school year, we have not yet worked on these types of assessments to measure students’ grasp of the essential learnings of our course, but will do so during our current novel study. 30% of the grade concerns Lesson Practice and Activities, such as homework, daily classwork assignments, and brief progress checks (entry/exit slips, small quizzes). In this course, students have multiple assessment opportunities to demonstrate what they know and show understanding of how they can apply that knowledge. On the progress report, you will find the learning objective assessed by an assignment indicated in parentheses.
I have also assessed student effort, participation, attitude, and other positive work behaviors on the attached Student Work Record rubric. These positive work behaviors correlate strongly with learner achievement in varied educational settings. Students should talk to parents about how they would assess their own mastery of these traits in the self-assessment column. This rubric will help guide our conversations during conferences and throughout the school year.
In the interim of team progress reports and midterms, students and parents can visit the gifted/enrichment online gradebook, Engrade, at http://www.engrade.com or from the link available at the top of this page. The Engrade website provides current grade reports. To access grades, you will need to create an account using the Access Code that is highlighted on the progress report. I have printed a copy of the webpage you will need to visit to set up your account.
Finally, note that “E,” or excused, denotes an excused assignment due to class absence. Students with this listed in any column must arrange their due dates with me.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
Katherine Rekkas
Gifted/Enrichment Teacher
serving Genesis, Legacy, and Explorers
(847) 657-2215
website: http://rekkas.edublogs.org
