Frequently Asked Questions on Submissions

While there will be variance in the amount of time it takes to score individual submissions, historical averages can provide an estimated length of time for each review: 

• Submissions 1-4: approximately 30 minutes each

• Culminating Submission: approximately 45 minutes

If you continually find yourself taking longer than the averages to score submissions, please email mentorship@modernclassrooms.org for ideas on how to streamline the scoring process.

No, you do not need to take any action on your mentee's Orientation Mastery Check. 

Though you will receive an email notification when your mentee has completed the Orientation module in our course platform, you do not need to score it. 

The purpose of Mentee Orientation in Moodle is to help mentees get acquainted with our model and orient them to our Mentorship Program. The questions in the Orientation Mastery check are informal and optional and do not affect your mentee's course completion status. 

Please check the entire submission for accessible links before attempting to review. 

• If links are inaccessible, email the mentee to request link updates. Share this handy guide to share with mentees. 

  • Enter a 0 in Moodle.  No activity completion form submission is needed at this time. 

Once the links are updated, provide thorough and actionable feedback and enter a score in Moodle.

• If the submission meets mastery criteria, submit a "1" in Moodle and mark the activity entry to reflect a passing submission.

• If the submission does not meet mastery criteria, submit a "0" in Moodle, and mark the activity entry to indicate the submission requires revisions.

Notify the mentee the submission has been scored and feedback is ready for review.

Revising and resubmitting assignments is common! Encourage and reassure your mentees that this is a part of learning the model.  They will resubmit in the same way they turned in their first attempt.

• Go to the submission in Moodle. 

• Click on "Redo submission." This creates a new attempt for mentees to upload a link to their Course Companion. 

  • • • (If your mentee enrolled before Summer 2024) Click on "Preview Submission Now." This creates a new attempt. Any new attempt automatically pulls responses from the previous submission. Mentees can then focus on revising/editing specific components.  

• After editing, continue the prompts to fully submit the assignment again. 

In the Moodle course platform, your mentees can access their Course Companion (or their Feedback Journal if they enrolled before Summer 2024) in the "Personalized Supports" block on the right hand side of the course platform. We recommend that you re-share the Course Companion (or Feedback Journal) with your mentee each time you update it. 

You can re-share the Google Doc, tag your mentee in a comment to send a notification, or send your mentee an email each time you update, but make sure your mentee is aware! This step is very important, as it is the only way your mentees know that their submission has been reviewed! 

To complete our Mentorship Program, a mentee must:

• Submit at least three original, teacher-created instructional videos.

• Provide a mastery check for each lesson.

• Complete each Must Do element of the culminating submission.

If a mentee has not met this mark, please do not approve the submission. If your mentee added supplemental videos that they did not create, that's fine! 

If your mentee contests or has additional questions, please reach out to mentorship@modernclassrooms.org for further guidance and we can support you and/or the mentee directly.

Use of AI platforms, such as Chat GPT and Gemini AI are becoming increasingly more evident in everyday work.  Some mentees leverage these tools to generate part or all of their VMP submissions.  So, what is a mentor to do? 

Responsible use of AI is permissible, but like any other information sourcing, how might a user modify it to make it their own?  

For instance, leveraging AI to create the "bones" of a lesson is an efficient means of content creation.  One may even use it to generate a few practice activities and mastery check.  However, the mentee is responsible for personalizing the content to fit their particular needs. 

Key submission look-fors and action steps:

• Does the submission answer the questions and meet criteria?  If not, return for revision and guide the mentee towards developing responses that respond to mastery criteria and result in tools that are useful in their practice. A coaching call may also be needed.

• Is the submission or content vague?  If so, return for revision and get curious!  Invite the mentee to a coaching call to talk through the submission narrative and artifacts, asking how they envision its use in their classroom with their learners.

• Does the submission include concrete activities or resources?  If not, return the submission for revision because each submission's mastery criteria generally requires specific examples that are designed for mentees' use. Again, invite the mentee to meet to talk through how to develop the submission elements to become a usable tool.  The goal is not just to theorize, but rather to create usable tools and processes to launch implementation.

In general, approach with curiosity.  Does the mentee understand the submission requirements?  Are they unsure how to meet mastery critera?  Are they looking for efficiency?  Assuming positive intent while offering insights about responsible use of AI will go a long way to address the changing landscape in content creation.  

Mentees who are unsure how to implement our model for their students may occasionally submit work they’ve taken directly from our website or course.

It’s generally acceptable to approve submissions that are explicitly modeled off our exemplars - unless it’s an exact copy - but encourage educators to adjust our templates to make them their own.  For instance, you might offer feedback such as:

“I see that your [submission] is very similar to one of our exemplars. This is okay for now, but I’d strongly encourage you to adjust this and make this your own, so it meets the needs of your unique students.  Our teachers spent a lot of time refining their materials and system to meet their own students’ needs, and I think you’ll be better off over time if you can do the same.”

Of course, you should adjust the language above to fit the situation and your voice!

Use your best judgment here.  If you think that the mentee really wants to improve and has just missed your feedback, then feel free to reiterate it and ask for resubmission. 

We also find it very effective to voiceover your feedback during a coaching call - feel free to request a call to speak live. Mentees may be more responsive to feedback through a conversation. 

If, however, you feel that giving more feedback will not be a good use of your time, feel free to approve the final unit plan (assuming it meets all minimum requirements) and note the mentee’s lack of responsiveness on the Mentee Evaluation Form. If you continue to be challenged, don't hesitate to reach out to us (mentorship@modernclassrooms.org). 

We understand life happens! If you are unable to provide feedback within the two day/one week timeframe: 

1. 🚫 If you cannot review the submission or support your mentee(s) moving forward: email us at mentorship@modernclassrooms.org as soon as possible, including URGENT in the email subject line. Our team will follow up to either reassign the submission or reassign the mentee moving forward. 

2. ⏳ If you need more time (if you're sick, traveling, etc.): email your mentee directly to let them know your delayed timeline and copy mentorship@modernclassrooms.org. Provide feedback as soon as you can, ideally on the third business day. Let us know how we can support you! 

We will make note of this, but you might still receive automated reminders to review the submission.  

It is not required to review or turn in submissions in a sequential order, though we encourage mentees to submit #1-4 first. Please provide feedback and approve as long as the submission meets all requirements.

Just as you would with any student, please use your professional judgment to grade your mentee’s work.  💡 Check out this step-by-step checklist to review submissions.

Submissions should be graded either 0 (Redo) or 1 (Complete) in the Moodle course platform.  By complete, we mean that the mentee has met the minimum requirements of the submission. Lean on the rubrics in the Course Companion. A mentee should redo and resubmit a submission that does not meet these requirements. 

💡 You can always seek perspectives from other Expert Mentors in the #mentors-only Slack channel or refer back to your learning content from Mentor Academy.  

Our recommended practice for videos is 6 - 9 minutes. This length is based on research-based best practices for learner engagement. 

If your mentee submits a video longer than 9 minutes, you can use your best judgment to request a revision and shorten the video.

There are a few reasons why you see a submission listed as open:

• You haven't entered activity completion. If you've already reviewed the assignment but it shows as open, it's possible that you forgot to submit an activity completion entry! Please check the 'All Activity Entries' tab of your mentor activity hub to make sure you have submitted the correct activity entry for that submission. If not, use the activity entry form.

• The Grade Me plugin is slow to load. It can take up to an hour for submissions to appear (or disappear!) in Grade Me.

• Your mentee has submitted multiple attempts for the submission. If your mentee has submitted multiple attempts, simply grade them all to clear the submissions from the Grade Me block.

• We update the Open Submission section of the mentor activity hub once a day, Monday through Friday. If you have reviewed an assignment that still displays on the Open Submission section of your mentor activity hub, it should be cleared within 24 hours when the next refresh occurs.

If none of these solutions work, please let us know - this means there is a bug on our end, and we will correct it. Thank you for helping us troubleshoot this issue!

While MCP does not offer specific guidance on grading, you can direct your mentees to our curated examples of grading policies. This site offers subject and level-specific examples to guide your mentees around grading. 

Please let us know if you believe a submission is exemplary! When you submit an activity entry for the submission, you can indicate an exemplary submission. You can also share this in your final mentee evaluation. 

Since you are closest to your mentee's experience, we value your perspective. Sharing exemplary submissions with our team helps us identify teacher leadership opportunities, such as educators who might be a great fit to become a DMCE, or feature the educators and their implementation across our community. 

You can also submit this form to let our Marketing Team know to create a "teacher feature." Thank you in advance for helping us share your mentees' great work!