FTT - Schoology/IC End of Year Checklist

Closing The Door On 2021/2022 School Year 

(And Making Next Fall Just A Little Bit Easier )

Schoology End Of Year Checklist

@LisaBerghoff?@MrKimDHS

The intention of this post is to give you a step-by-step guide to ending the year as it pertains to entering grades and managing your Schoology content. Follow these steps in order and you will be able to walk into summer knowing that you've checked everything off the list and confident that you're setting yourself up for success when we return in August. 

1. Double-Check Your Grade Setup

You may not have looked at your grade setup since August and that's totally fine. It's a good time to just go in and check that everything is calculating the way you want it. You must click save after making changes in grade setup. 

• Check your category weights, make sure your categories are calculating by total points and not by percentage, even if you weight your categories. Hopefully, you have already done this.

• Make sure your final grade settings grade book scale is not numeric. 
• If you plan on overriding grade calculations in Schoology, you can check the box to add an override column.
• Consider if you want your grades to be rounded.
• THSD 113 Rounded .5 - this method is what is most familiar to our staff. A student receiving an 89.5% will earn an "A" for the course, but the value will stay an 89.5%
• Round Period/Final Grades - this is Schoology's native method. Every final value is rounded to the nearest percent. A student receiving an 89.5% will get a 90%, and a student receiving an 89.4% will get an 89%.
• If you are giving a final, make sure it is entered correctly.

2. Click Bulk Edit In Your Gradebook

Do a sweep of all of your assignments and grades by clicking the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the gradebook. You must click save after making changes in bulk edit.

• Make sure everything with a grade has been published. You will see a little green circle next to it if you have linked classes. If your classes are not linked, you will see a checkbox under the green circle at the top. 
• Make sure everything is in the appropriate category.
• If you would like to save a hard copy of your gradebook because that's how you roll, you can click "export" and you will get a CSV file. 

3. Transfer Overall Grade To IC (when final)

You must click save after making changes in Infinite Campus.

• Go into Infinite Campus and click post grades.
• Make sure the term is S2 and the grading task is S2-Semester.
• You only need to enter a letter grade for the semester.
• After you enter and click save, go back in one more time and make sure it's all looking good.

4. Save Courses To Resources

• On the materials page, click the button that says Options and click save course to resources. 
• Your "home" collection is just for you. It's a good idea to save it here.
• You can, but don't need to, create a new folder. There is a box you can check that says "save as folder with resources" it's a good idea to choose this one.
• Something to be aware of: if you have assignments with a google doc that made a copy for each student, that will not save to resources because it relies on the student roster. You can enter the link to your original document in the assignment description so you will have it ready for next year. 
• If you are not teaching the same course next year and want to hand it over to another teacher, you can do that in Resources. Just create a new collection and share it with them. 

If after reading this you are feeling uncertain about what to do or not sure if you have everything done correctly, please reach out! I am happy to help. 

FTT - Skills for the Future!

Skills For The Future

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

As we get ready to send the class of 2022 on their way, it seems like an appropriate time  to take a look at the skills that will be needed by our students in the not so distant future. The World Economic Forum's future of jobs report  indicates the top ten skills of 2025. They are divided into four categories: Problem-Solving, Self-Management, Working With People, and Technology Use And Development.  Here is the full list, color coded by category. 

 Fortunately for us, we have the ability to craft learning experiences for our students that will enable them to hone these skills.  As you can see, five of the ten skills involve problem-solving, which can easily apply to any content area. 

Now, here is a list of five tools/activities that you are probably already familiar with,that you can utilize in your classroom to maximize these skills.

Breakout Edu: This is a popular activity because it is so much fun. It's also really challenging and can be brought into any class. We own several breakout edu physical boxes and locks but you can also do this entirely digitally. Yes, you can make your own breakout games but there are also many many open source breakout edu games that you can grab and make your own.

Schoology: Varying Assessment Types Did you know that there are 18 different types of questions that you can create in Schoology assessments? Go beyond multiple choice and rote memorization and get into more reasoning, critical thinking and analysis by using these different options. You can ask students to manipulate graphs,  generate video responses, interact with images, and more. 

Canva To Synthesize and Create: You can ask students to answer questions or you can ask students to create an infographic explaining their understanding; which would be more engaging and memorable? Tap into students' creativity by having them create a video. In case you missed the announcement, our district now has a Canva Pro account! Just sign in with your school Google credentials. 

Pear Deck: Go beyond students watching slides presentations and have them interact with Pear Deck interactive questions but also leverage the ability to embed websites into Pear Deck and ask students to think critically about what they notice. Remember that Pear Deck now has a reflect and review feature which allows you to give feedback to students. Also, if you have not tried flashcard factory I highly recommend it! 

Schoology: Discussion Questions: Have students interact with one another outside of class by creating discussion questions. This helps ensure that every student participates and it also helps keep students engaged when they are not physically in class. This is a very real and practical way for our students to interact and you can provide opportunities for them to practice doing this beyond social media.

Did any of your favorites not make this list? Let us know what you use for maximum engagement and problem-solving.