Overview of Student and Course Competencies
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Standards and competencies are defined within competency groups. Competency groups determine the order that competencies are graded and printed on report cards. Additionally, a student is graded by the same teacher for all competencies within a competency group.
For a competency group, you select how students will be associated with it by specifying if it is a student competency or course competency.
Student Competencies
Student competencies are used if the competency is not associated with a scheduled course. For example, in elementary schools, students may be graded for competencies without being scheduled into courses; or, in buildings that schedule, you may have general competencies that are not course specific.
For a student competency group, you will select the students who are assessed for the competency group; for example, you could specify that the competency group applies to students in grade 4.
Teachers are assigned to the competency group in Teacher Assignment. You can indicate that the competency group is taught by specific teachers or a type of teacher, such as Primary Homeroom. Each student competency group should include only items that are taught by the same teacher and that should appear in the same area on the report card. Individual items within a competency group cannot be assigned to different teachers; therefore, items graded by different teachers (for example, music or art) should be entered in separate groups.
Examples:
- In first grade, homeroom teachers teach math, writing, and reading to the same group of students. Music, art, and physical education are taught by a different teacher for each subject. A single group could be defined for the core grade 01 math, writing, and reading items or a separate group for each subject could be defined if there are a lot of competencies for each subject. Separate groups must be defined for music, art, and physical education.
- In fifth grade, writing and reading are taught by the homeroom teacher. Students are grouped by ability for math, so the student is not assigned to the homeroom teacher for math. One competency group could be defined for writing and reading, and a separate competency group could be defined for math.
Student competencies are printed on the student competency report card.
Course Competencies
Course competencies are associated with specific courses.
When you define a competency group, you select the scheduled courses that use it; for example, English I. Only students who are taking one of the courses listed will be graded for the competency.
The competency group prints on the report card below the course and course marks. Each course competency group should include only items related to the selected courses.
Additional Resources
Assigning Students to Teachers for Competencies
Calculate Competency Marks Using Standards-Based Gradebook
Using Power Law to Calculate Student Performance for Competencies