Assessments
An assessment checks how a student is performing academically. Assessment in PEMS are used to track how the school's academic program is delivering results. Where many schools simply track the performance level of a student, PEMS tracks performance improvements. PEMS is a system that monitors how the school is functioning in such a way that the school can constantly improve.
Three Contributors to Student Performance
- Curriculum - did the curriculum, or Moodle course, provide a net improvement in academic scores.
- Engagement - did the student complete the course as planned.
- Program - does one set of courses provide better or worse outcomes than another set.
PEMS makes no assumptions about how the three factors above contribute to student academic performance. Certainly these factors are interrelated, a student that engages more in the course will most definitely show greater improvement.
Programs are created in the PEMS as a set of classes the student takes over a few years. Program placement, or the readiness of a student to complete the program is critical to the school's ability to tailor a program to a desired outcome. For example, it is generally believed that taking art classes may stimulate learning in broad areas of study. If this is true, then students will have better program-level outcomes if they are also taking art. Another example is the idea of writing-though-the-curriculum, which is an idea that if a student has writing assignments in every single class, learning outcomes will be superior. If this is true, then a program that focuses on copious writing assignments will produce better results.
Curriculum is created in Moodle and courses may differ in their level of intensity, once course may require more writing, another may only provide auto-graded quizzes. Some classes may have weekly teacher lectures, or weekly teacher check-in sessions. Other classes may require printout and hand writing, or proctored exams. There are a great many differences in curriculum.
Engagement is multifaceted, it includes the grade the student achieved in the course, the total time spent on the course, and how much of the course was completed on time. The environment a student studies in will also affect engagement, does the student do their work largely on campus or at home?
Every school will want to select what assessments matter to their own academic vision. In one school, they may only care about reading comprehension and math levels, in a different school they may prefer to test for spatial reasoning or artistic competence. In selecting what a school tests for, the school is setting the goals that their program will be trying to reach.
Three Assessment Approaches
Level Equivalent
Students are assessed for their progress towards acquiring the knowledge and skills of a high school graduate, a student who completed 13 years of schooling. Given enough time and effort, all students can reach this standard. Level equivalent is an ideaapproach that assesses if a student may beis progressing faster or slower towards their goals.graduation. If the student is progressing slower, they are behind their grade level, if the are progressing faster, they are above their grade level. PEMS allows users to define the grade level equivalent for each score, and in doing so, define the school's own standards for its mission and vision.score.
Philosophically,Percentile theRanking
Another equivalentmethod approachof assessing student performance is very different than assessing a student based on marks (grades) but is an essential component to "teaching for mastery." The concept of teaching for mastery is at odds with the marks (grades) ranking approach. Modern courses are designed so thatrank each student against their peers in a larger population, either state-wide or nationally. Traditionally, a student's grade in a course can masterbe contentconsidered beforepercentile movingranked, onfor example only 10% of students should receive and A in the class. Percentile Ranked assessments are similar but across a larger population of students. For these types of assessments, PEMS stores a raw score and a percentile rank in the assessment result record.
Competency
Competency based assessments allow students to thedemonstrate nextmastery course.or This approach is believed to produce better student outcomescompetency in aggregate.a
area. The coreschool philosophywill develop a check list of the PEMS is to be able to provide students with the right courses to advance their learning. If the right course have been provided,competencies the student will work on these courses until they have mastered the material, which wouldshould be indicated by high marks (grades). In teaching for mastery, all students should be achieving high marks (grades) in their Moodle Courses before taking the next class, and so the marks (grades) will not rigorously reflect how far the student has yet to go until the subject has been fully mastered.
Level Equivalent is a metric that is independent of student marks (grades). A school must determine for itself what skill level is expecteddemonstrating at each grade level, thisthen track the student is parton oftrack. Competency assessments are internal to the school'sschool visionas andthere mission.is no agreed-upon method to compare competencies for larger populations at this time.
Competencies are managed Ain well-designedMoodle assessmentby programassigning willlearning alsoplans includeto externalstudents. thirdLearning partyplans assessmentsspecific thatcompetencies. synchronizeSpecific assignments are tagged with the school'scompetency, standardsso withas variousstudents statecomplete andcertain nationalassignments, standards.they complete their checklist.