Organizing Marks for Outcome Based Report Cards

If there is one thing I have learned from my short time as a teacher it is that you can never get too comfortable with what you are doing because someone is bound to come along and change it!

As I head into report card time again I find myself scrambling trying to figure out where I put my assessments and what marks to give my students. I am usually a very organized person and in my first year of teaching I spent a lot of time creating a marks book that worked for me. Then last year my district made the shift to outcomes based reporting which has resulted in a year and a half of me trying to find a new way to organize my marks book. Hence the scramble... it took a while to find one.

If you are not familiar with outcomes based reporting it is a method of reporting where teachers mark and report on specific outcomes which come from the Program of Studies or States Standards document. I think it's great to be able to show parents exactly what has been learned, what topics/skills students understood well, and what topics/skills require more practice. The challenge comes in finding a way to organize my marks in a way that makes sense and ensures I have enough assessment for each of the report card outcomes.

After months of searching I think I have finally found a method that will work for me! It is so simple I cannot believe it took me this long to find it but now that I have I feel way more relaxed and organized.

Here is my breakthrough!

(Sorry about the horrible picture.. hopefully you can see enough of it that it makes sense.)

 I cannot take credit for this idea as I heard about it at our Teacher's Convention but still thought I would share it with you.

This is the marks book page I am using for our current unit on Measurement. It fills half a page and I print one for each student. In the left hand column are the outcomes that I will teach in the unit. Along the top of the page are the assessments I will use to determine students' marks. Of course I also leave room at the bottom to add any comments or observations I feel are necessary.

Sure it takes a little planning before hand to decide what I am going to take in for marks and what I am going to use to guide future teaching but the pay off, for me anyway, is totally worth it. The grey spaces show that the assessment in the top row does not connect to that specific outcome. I try to make sure each outcome has at least 2 assessments that I can use to report on student learning so that if a student has a bad day it doesn't effect their overall mark.

At the end of the unit I take any assessment pages I can (in this case it would be everything except their math journal pages) and attach it to the marks book sheet. That way I have everything together if a parent wants to see how I came up with the mark given on the report card.

It is definitely not rocket science and doesn't use any fancy technology but I find it helps keep me accountable with my marking - I tend to put it off a little too long - and keeps my student assessments organized and handy.

If you would like a copy of the template feel free to email me or leave a comment below and I will gladly share it with you!