Assessments and Grading

What's What in Assessments and Grading

Here is a quick overview. Be sure to go to the South Portland Curriculum site for more information.

• Essential Learning Targets: These are the specific content area concepts and skills students will be held accountable for at each grade level. The ELTs are not the only concepts and skills students will get at that level, but they are the ones that students will be assessed on for that year. In this way, South Portland school district can be assured that students are able to attain the proficiency based diploma mandated by the state.

• Jumprope: The way that teachers are using to report out how students are doing in their content, grade level learning targets. Parents and students will have access to this.

• Formative: These are opportunities for students to practice the concepts and skills they are learning. Think of these as practice sessions or scrimmages in sports. They count but there is still room to improve without being penalized.

• Summative: Think of these as game day in sports, opening night of a play, or a band performance. There comes a time when you need to prove that you know your stuff. A summative assessment is when the student needs to provide evidence that have learned the concepts or skills for an Essential Learning Target. Summative assessments trump formative ones; just as games are more important than practices for scrimmages.

• HOW grades (Habits of Work): While content area concepts and skills are important and give us a clearer picture of what a student is learning academically, so are learning to be prepared, being actively engaged in class, and interacting with others. Students will be assessed on these traits as well, which will be reported out by their weekly HOW grades. Some assignments may also include feedback on these as well.

Scoring

Score quartiles: 1, 2, 2.5, 2.75, 3, 3.25, 3.5, 4

Graduation Standard Mastery Key:

Exceeds the Expected Understanding/Content Knowledge:

3.2 - 4.0= Generates new ideas and applies knowledge to new topics; create, hypothesize, formulate, etc.

Proficient/Good Understanding/Content Knowledge:

2.8 - 3.19 = Understands the connections between parts of the topic; analyze, compare/contrast, explain the causes of, etc.

Some Gaps in Understanding/Content Knowledge:

2.4 - 2.79 = Understands several parts of the topic; list, describe, combine, etc.

Below Expections for Understanding/Content Knowledge:

2.4 = Little to no understanding of only one part of the topic

All content scores will be averaged over the whole year. We will not use trending when student scores are calculated. Formative and summative assessments will both be weighted when calculating content scores.