Final Paper Report Card Tutorial

MacSchool Report Cards Entering grades

Cindy Jarvis April 12, 2009

This paper reviews a tutorial made for administrative assistants at Randolph Union High School. The tutorial covers how to enter grades in the Report Cards module. The paper also covers ADDIE – Analyze, Develop, Design, Implement, and Evaluate – and how it relates to the tutorial.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION TO REPORT CARDS……………………… ………………..3 ANALYZE ………………..…………………………………………… ………………….3 Organizational and training objectives…………………………………… …………………….3 Risks……………………………………………………………………………………… ………………………3 Training vendor/trainer selection criteria………………………………… …….….………..4 Target participants, program entry requirements…………………… ……………………4 Determine extent of training participant knowledge/skill assessment required……………………………………………………………… ………………………………………….4 Level of performance required following the training……………… ……………………4 Estimate program design, development, implementation and evaluation costs, effort required and schedule……………………… ………………………………………………….4

DESIGN……………………………………………………………… …………………....4 DEVELOP……………………………………………………………… …………….……5

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IMPLEMENT………………………………………………………… …………………..5 EVALUATE…………………………………………………………… …………………...6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………… …………………..7

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INTRODUCTION I developed a tutorial for the MacSchool Report Card module. This tutorial is for new employees or more seasoned employees that don’t have a lot of experience using the Report Card module. In this paper I will discuss the how my project works in the ADDIE style, which includes analyze, design, develop, implement and evaluate. I began this project as an assignment, but it relates well to my current position as administrative assistant in the Student Services office at Randolph Union High School. There are ten employees that have access to this module. There are only two or three other employees besides myself that would ever actually be entering grades for students. These would be administrative assistants also. They are currently trained to use the three of the other modules MacSchool has to offer including Query, Details and Attendance. This training is especially important if I am out of the building for any length of time as I am the only one that currently knows how to enter grades and do calculations in Report Cards. Since I have been at Randolph Union High School the longest, for fifteen years, I am the only one who knows how to use the Attendance, Details, Query, Report Cards, Report Manager and Scheduler modules fully. It made sense that I created a tutorial for Report Cards. We are going to be getting a new system, Power School, at the end of the summer and I think that more tutorials will be in order. I know that their Report Card module has a 54 page manual, but I don’t think that is practical for most people to use. I think a much shorter version would be less overwhelming to most people. The tutorial that I created will be used only through June, but it gives me a good idea of how to go about creating a tutorial for the new system.

ANALYZE Randolph Union High School is a grade 7 through 12 school with approximately 475 students. There are four support staff members that do everything from attendance to grades to schedules. Currently there is only one person who can do all the jobs having to do with their student information system, MacSchool. She is going to train the other support staff members how to use the module called Report Cards.

Organizational and training objectives The training will include entering numeric grades, CAPE (citizenship, attitude, participation and effort), and comment codes for students. The goal is to teach the administrative assistants in the Main Office how to enter report card grades. They currently do not know how to do anything but access the Students window.

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Risks There is a risk of the time away from the office for the support staff. This is solved by having the training during school vacation times or on inservice days. Another risk is that they would have access to student grades and could inadvertently, or on purpose, change a grade. This is not likely to happen, but could if they were viewing a student’s grades. For the most part, they are taught to use the module named Query which is a twin of the Report Card module, without the opportunity to make changes. Access is another risk, but with the tutorial accessible from email and/or a paper copy from Student Services, the administrative assistants can view the tutorial from most computers within the building.

Training vendor/trainer selection criteria The person in the school that knows all of the MacSchool modules will do the training, as the trainees are the most comfortable with her and there is no cost in having her do the training since she’ll already be at work.

Target participants, program entry requirements The participants are the other support staff who are not familiar with the Report Card module. They will be required to take this training in order to have staff cross trained.

Determine extent of training participant knowledge/skill assessment required The support staff person with knowledge of this module will be chosen to do the training. She has a good rapport with the other support staff members, is a good teacher, and is knowledgeable about the subject.

Level of performance required following the training The support staff being trained may be required to assist their coworker during busy times, or cover for her if she is absent from work.

Estimate program design, development, implementation and evaluation costs, effort required and schedule As noted before, the trainer will be a support staff member. She will be paid as she would on a regular work day. The training date will happen on a school vacation day or an in-service, both times when they support staff is already in the office. This could happen on March 2, 2009, the next inservice day.

DESIGN Design outline for the Report Cards module

Jarvis 6 1. Find the Report Cards module on the MacSchool shell and open it. 2. View the three windows that are available to the user – Students,

Classes, and Teachers. 3. Open a student’s record and view each window available. 4. Go to the Marks window and learn how to enter grades in the numeric

and alphabetic bins. 5. Learn how to enter Comment Codes and “C.A.P.E.” (Citizenship) grades.

6. Learn how to enter the above for more than one student by going to the Classes window and selecting an entire class to enter grades for. The learner will be able to find the Report Cards module. The learner will recognize the three windows available to the user which are Students, Teachers and Classes. The learner will be able to open a student’s record from the Students window and enter numeric or alphabetic grades, “C.A.P.E.” grades, and comment codes. The learner will be able to find the Classes window and select a class to enter grades for. The Teacher window is used only to view a teacher’s schedule; it is not used for entering grades.

DEVELOP The project developed for the training is a manual on how to enter grades into the Report Cards module. It consists of screen shots and specific directions on how to enter grades, CAPE (citizenship, attitude, participation, effort) grades and comment codes. The instructions are differentiated in red, are indented, and have an arrow, while the additional print is in black. The user can simply use this manual to enter the grades. A lot of work went into this project so that the administrative assistants, who are not accustomed to using the Report Card module, can enter grades with very little difficulty. The learning curve for this assignment was greater than I anticipated. Initially I did not know how to get screen shots from my Mac to the hard drive on my PC. I had some difficulty cropping them as it seemed my cursor was not located where the crop mark was. Typing the instructions took the most time as I tried to make it simple for the administrative assistants who would be using the tutorial. I had to make it very simple with the assumption that

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the person using it had not seen the program prior to the tutorial. In actuality, that would never happen. It was helpful to have the different people try the tutorial so I could make changes and additions. I was able to see which parts needed more work and which parts were okay. It also allowed me to see where an additional screen shot was needed.

IMPLEMENT The Report Cards module will be installed on each user’s computer. This is one module of several that comprise the school’s student database. The tutorial is a Word document that can be accessed from their email program or by asking for a copy in Student Services. Each administrative assistant will be required to access this tutorial at the beginning of each year. At any time during the school year when the administrative assistant in Student Services is absent, they will access the tutorial and enter the grades for that quarter. Since the tutorial only covers initial entering of grades, they would not be required to enter incomplete grades or make any corrections. That will wait until the administrative assistant returns to make additions or corrections. The administrative assistants can now, with the help of the tutorial, enter grades as necessary.

EVALUATE Three people were tested in how to do the above tasks. One of them has a lot of experience with MacSchool, while one has only minimal experience. The third had no experience with the database whatsoever. If the manual is successful, they should all be able to successfully enter grades, comment codes and CAPE grades for all the students in any class. During actual testing, one person was familiar with the software and did very well – no questions. The second person to participate in the test asked several questions such as “is this the right page?”, “am I doing it right?”, and “is this where I enter the grades”? An additional person was tested more recently, a family member. She is not familiar with MacSchool, the database, but is familiar with computers. She did well, but did have some questions. The comment code section was confusing, as was discerning what a bin is. Corrections to the manual were made. It was difficult to type everything out to enter one class of grades. There are so many basic taken for granted every day. The core of the jobs is knowing where to click and where to enter grades, C.A.P.E. grades, and comment codes. The key is to give the right percentage numbers or letter grades to the right students in the right classes. The next task is to enter CAPE grades and comment codes in the right places. The classes are sorted initially by teacher name, class name, and section number. The students are sorted alphabetically in those classes. Then the person entering grades chooses a teacher, finds the corresponding class and enters the grades.

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Grades are entered for 460 students, 45 teachers and numerous classes. Each student at report card time gets a numeric grade and as many as three comment codes for each class they are enrolled in. Middle school students additionally get a C.A.P.E. grade (Citizenship, Attitude, Participation and Effort). At interim grade time students can get a numeric grade and as many as 5 comment codes. Again, middle school students get a C.A.P.E. grade. As grades are entered, there is no time to look at each student’s name, so you have to trust that you’ll come out right at the end of the class. In other words, you will have a grade for each student, no extra grades and no extra students with no grades. The difficult part is when one student leaves school and a different one enters. You should come out even at the bottom of the page, and you might not know until students get their report cards that there has been a mistake. Students add and drop classes frequently at the beginning of each semester, so you have to pay close attention without it slowing you down. Grades are due the Wednesday after the quarter ends, and they are due by noon. Teachers obtain report cards by midday that next day, Thursday, and the report cards are given to students Friday morning - one week after the quarter ends. If it is interim time, this process happens halfway through each quarter.

Formative Evaluation My initial tutorial was full of words. I explained everything thinking that that was the best way to get the information across. I was able to change the wording and make it much shorter with clearer instructions. Eventually I was able to figure out how to get screen shots into the tutorial. I took pictures on my Macintosh computer at work and I emailed them to my home account. Once home, I was able to open them in Picture Viewer, copy them, and paste them into my Word document. Next I cropped them as necessary. Finally I added blue arrows to the screen shots in places that made sense. After the initial tutorial, big changes were made. Nearer the end only subtle changes were made. Changes like making fonts bigger and putting actions in red. Changing the size of the screen shots and arrows was also done. I am satisfied in the final product. I think it solves the problem of not knowing how to enter grades.

Summative Evaluation Three people were tested with my how to enter grades tutorial. The first person is an administrative assistant in the main office. She has a lot of experience with MacSchool. She logged onto her computer, opened the MacSchool shell which has all of the modules on it. Then she opened the Report Cards module. She tabbed to the Classes icon and opened a class. The students in the class were listed alphabetically and she was able to click

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on the bin for entering grades and enter grades for those students. She had no problems with any aspect of entering report card grades. CAPE grades or comment codes. The next person I tested was a new secretary in the main office. She uses MacSchool, but only the Attendance, Details and Query modules. She had never used the Report Card module prior to the testing. Having had experience in Query, which is similar to Report Cards, helped a great deal. However, she had questions about where to click and questions to see if she was doing things correctly. She suggested arrows for my images, which would have helped her more. The third person I tested, near the end of my project, was my daughter. A 2007 graduate of the high school where I work, she currently is employed at Gifford Medical Center. She had never seen MacSchool, so she made a great tester. She too wanted to know if she was doing the tutorial correctly, but she suggested explaining what a bin was as well as explaining the comment code section more clearly. In the end, I had a few versions of my tutorial. The original one was wordy and didn’t explain things very clearly. The last one is succinct and had screen shots with arrows. It is a much better version than the first one I did.

CONCLUSION As you may be able to glean from this paper, entering report card grades, CAPE grade and comment codes is covered in detail in the tutorial. The administrative assistants were able to understand the tutorial with some assistance. The family member I had try the tutorial did very well with only a couple of questions. She was able to view a later draft of the tutorial and she still had a suggestion to make. I also took suggestions from my instructor to make the tutorial a clearer document.