Before using my Markbook you need to:
a) Decide on the ability range of the class.
b) Decide on how often you are going to mark for categories.
c) Decide when you are going to mark for categories, and when you are going to mark for diagnosis, and when you are going to mark for literacy etc.
The question, now, is this. Do I mark formatively by term? Or do I mark by category? The linear marking is useful to a certain degree… But not entirely. What is the purpose of the markbook?
By term, the markbook would have 10x2x3 = 60 boxes. It would allow some look at progress, but also wouldn’t be able to rank the students so effectively in terms of change. But that is hardly used.
Instead, if I rank the students by reading and writing?
To what extent is the seating plan aspect useful? A seating plan can change rapidly. And although it gives useful information, that information is not required in the rigour in which it is being collated.
Therefore, I am being careful in my development of it. I think that modifying it so that it contains the department spreadsheet information, and then having ALL formative information as the tangible techniques will be the way forward. No seating plan. I will also share this with the students.
So, this is what I have done. Writing and reading: the actual linear progress can be tracked through summative marks. My teaching adapts.
I will have a master spreadsheet shared on dropbox. From this I will input the student names and data.
A paired-down version of this markbook will be uploaded to Google Docs. This will allow me to input data for students in the actual lesson. I could link this to their SMART targets, and when we go through them, I can show them their previous data.
In order to complete analysis, I will need to copy and paste the Google Spreadsheet data into the mainspreadsheet. Any new students, or changes, can be made on the mainsheet and then copied over.
This seems maintainable.
