Aligning reporting standards to an assignment

When you create an assignment, you can align any reporting standard you or your district creates for your class to that assignment.

This way, you enter scores for each reporting standard to track students' progress in learning specific skills.

To align reporting standards to an assignment:

1. Create an assignment using one of the following:
• Assignments side-tab on the Gradebook tab
• Scores side-tab on the Gradebook tab
• Planner tab

• The New Assignment page appears.

2. On the General sub-tab, fill in the assignment information, including the Date due and Total points.

   Note: The only fields you are required to enter information in for a standards-based assignment are Category, GB Column name, Date assigned, Date due, and Total Points. All other fields are already determined by the reporting standard you align to this assignment, or don't apply to a standards-based assignment. For example, you cannot apply a grade scale, weights or extra credit points to a standard score.

3. To align the reporting standards you want to enter scores for to this assignment, click the Standards sub-tab.

4. 

   Note: The district populates the Reporting Standards side-tab when it prepares reporting standards. These school-created standards are then available for teachers to align to assignments. Teachers often use the school-created standards because they are associated with the Rubric Library, and have a rubric name and performance descriptor. If they prefer, teachers can also create their own standards.

4. Below Section Reporting Standards, click Multi-add. A list of the reporting standards for this class appears.

5. 

5. Select the checkbox next to each reporting standard you want to align to this assignment. This selects the reporting standard "parent" and any "child" criteria within it. Or, click to expand the standard and select the checkboxes next to the criteria that you want.

6. 

   Keep in mind that any reporting standard you select to include is a standard you enter a score for.

6. Click OK. The selected standards appear.

7. 

   If you selected a standard by mistake, select the checkbox next to it, and then click Delete.

7. Do one of the following:
• If creating the assignment in the Planner, click Save.
• If creating the assignment on the Gradebook tab, Assignments side-tab or your Scores page, click Save to save the information you enter without closing the assignment. Or, click Save and New to create another assignment.
• If editing an existing assignment on the class Page > Submit Assignments widget, click the assignment name, and then click Save and New to create another assignment.
  

Once you create an assignment and align it to reporting standards and their criteria, the standards are available for grading (from the Standard drop-down) on your Scores page. In the Single Student or Single Assignment view, the standards appear as columns headers for the assignment. 

Note:  You can use the same score-entering practices when entering traditional or standards-based scores.

If you are a secondary teacher, in the Traditional column, you also enter a traditional score for Aspen to use when calculating a term average. Unless your district creates a standards-based post column for report cards, your standards scores are for your information only. Use them to gauge the effectiveness of your lessons, and to personalize lesson content for students going forward.

Note: At the end of each grading term, when it is time to post your scores or grades to the office for report cards, you use the same processes for both traditional average grades and standards-based scores.