Assessment Results Table - TBD
Relevant Topics
Moodle competencies are specified in the activity settings, internal to a Moodle course by the course creator. Each activity may be tagged with pre-defined competencies. When the student completes the activity, they earn the competency. The competency list is created in the admin panel.
PEMS tracks any number of assessments and relates each assessment to programs, subjects, curriculum selection, grade level and grade span. The assessment are defined in the assessment code table, and they may be linked to any combination of the above records. The assessment code is a plan to asses a student for an indicator, it is not the actual student result.
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.
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 approach that assesses if a student is progressing faster or slower towards their 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. As I understand it, this means that each school head can determine personally what it means to say be at a 6th grade level. Normally, how is the national grade level competency determined. Would most school heads go off a national standard determined by the Department of Education?
Percentile ranking is another method of assessing student performance. With this method, students are ranked against their peers in a larger population, either state-wide or nationally. Traditionally, a student's grade in a course can be considered percentile ranked, for 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 based tracking allows students to demonstrate mastery or competency in what they can do. The completion of a end of year essay with a passing grade of an B demonstrates the student can competently write an essay. Competencies may also be used to verify domain knowledge. A student may have a very high level of reading but very little domain knowledge of history for example.