Skyward Enhances Gradebook to Support Standards-Based Academic Evaluation
The Skyward Gradebook now connects academic standards to assignments, allowing teachers to easily evaluate student progress
Teaching to academic standards is a critical aspect of educator lesson planning and instruction across the country. Equally as crucial is the ability to evaluate student progress toward standards mastery and assess areas for improvement. To augment the assessment process, Skyward announces an enhancement to their Gradebook, a module of its Student Management Suite, which gives educators the ability to measure student achievement on national and state curriculum standards.
The Skyward Gradebook now enables educators to connect academic standards to individual questions within online assessments, allowing them to easily evaluate the students’ understanding of specific standards and benchmarks. The enhancement gives parents, students and school districts a clear picture of student progress. Through the Gradebook, teachers can keep students and parents apprised of how the homework aligns to the standards and areas of academic shortfalls that may need more attention.
Within the Gradebook, Skyward offers the District Assessment Tracker, which enables teachers to dissect a district assessment, breaking it down by question or benchmark. In the District Assessment Tracker, teachers can analyze individual assessment questions by answer frequency, class averages and individual results. Teachers can also view students who did not meet the benchmark on a particular assignment or assignment question.
These Gradebook features, along with the Skyward Family and Student Access, are powerful resources, enabling teachers to increase instructional effectiveness and easily communicate their classroom goals to families. The new enhancements will also help administrators better plan when allocating resources and buying materials to ensure that students are able to reach the given standards.
“In talking with customers across the country, we learned that there was a need for teachers, parents and districts to be able to better track student progress on academic standards and benchmarks during daily classroom assignments,” said Ray Ackerlund, vice president of marketing and product management for Skyward. “In direct response to user feedback, we developed these enhancements to the Skyward Gradebook that will help districts further monitor student progress when it comes to academic standards.”
Additionally, Skyward created multiple reporting tools to help school leaders and teachers analyze the information gathered in the classroom. The new Academic Standard Scores and Online Assignment Analysis are located in the Gradebook reports area and in “My Classes.” These reports provide the information teachers need to assess how well students performed on a standards-aligned assignment.
For more information on the Skyward administrative software and IT consulting services for K-12 districts, visit www.skyward.com.
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Ray Ackerlund
Skyward, Inc.
800-236-7274 ext: 1319
Katie Waite
C. Blohm & Associates
608-216-7300 ext. 26
About Skyward
Skyward is a leading provider of K-12 school administrative software that surpasses districts’ needs in state reporting, improves operational capabilities, and opens communication between schools and families. Today, the Skyward School Management System™ is used in more than 1,600 school districts worldwide, ranging from districts with as few as 50 students to statewide implementations supporting more than 800,000 students. Founded in 1980, Skyward serves school districts with its integrated student, finance, and human resources suite of products and is proudly made and supported in the United States. To learn more, visit www.skyward.com.