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Standards-Based Gradebook - Instructors

The standards-based gradebook allows instructors to evaluate students based on skill mastery and measure student learning while assessing the efficacy of instruction.

Once materials are aligned to objectives and submissions are graded, you can keep track of students' mastery in the standards-based gradebook.


Mastery is not supported in courses containing more than 10,000 members.

How to access the standards-based gradebook

To access the standards-based gradebook:

Click Mastery from the left column in the course. This displays the Class Overview with a list of the highest level parent objectives used in the course:

Mastery - Class Overview

The Mastery - Class Overview area displays the highest level parent objectives in which course materials are aligned to:

For each parent learning objective aligned in the course, the Class Overview displays the overall student mastery including the average score and a graph outlining the number of students and their mastery skill alignment on the district mastery scale.

The Class Overview displays the roll-up calculation for the highest level parent objective that is aligned to the course materials. From there you can drill down to view additional roll-up calculations, learning objective scores, and individual material scores.


  • The number of learning objective levels available will be dependent on your district's custom mastery setup.
  • The mastery grading scale is set at the system level. We recommend reaching out to your Support Contact for more information on the grading scale set at your school.

Mastery and Learning Objectives View

Click the parent objective from Class Overview for a detailed view of the parent objective levels and learning objectives to which the course materials are aligned - and depending on your district's mastery grading scale - the students' mastery point values or achievement level.

The standards-based gradebook contains:

  1. Members — Course members are arranged by Last Name, First Name. It is not possible to sort course members in an alternative order.
  2. Average Scores — Lists the average point values per student, per learning objective or parent objective. A blank cell indicates the student has not been graded for that item.
  3. Overall — Lists the overall mastery point value per student.
  4. Learning Objectives — The learning objectives that course materials are aligned to, or a parent objective contains learning objectives that have been aligned. A point value or proficiency level based on the Mastery Grading Scale set at system-level is displayed next to each student under the corresponding objective.

Click View Details at the top of the gradebook for the class average mastery score and a breakdown of students based on their mastery achievement level:

Click on any learning objective in the gradebook to see which course materials are aligned to that objective:


Course materials display in the order in which they were graded, with the most recently graded on the left. The materials cannot be reordered in this view.


Click on the item title to view the course material:

How are mastery achievement levels calculated in the standards-based gradebook versus how they appear in the traditional gradebook?

Students' proficiency scores or achievement levels for learning objectives are calculated based on the mastery grading scale set at the district level. We recommend reaching out to your Support Contact for more information on the district mastery grading scale. Roll up calculations, or proficiency scores for parent objectives, are calculated by averaging the associated learning objectives scores available in the course section.

In the following example, the assignment has the following settings:

  • 100 Total Points
  • Gradebook Scale is set to Numeric
  • District Mastery Scale is set by System Admin to a 4-point scale
  • Aligned to four district learning objectives

Student, Rachel Smith received the following score based on the rubric:

Since the district uses a 4-point mastery scale and the student received 12 out of 16 possible points, the student will receive a score for the assignment by objective in the standards-based gradebook based on the district mastery scale, and the student will receive a score for the assignment in the traditional course gradebook.

The standards-based gradebook displays the proficiency score by each aligned objective:

The traditional gradebook displays the Total Score as shown in the rubric grader. The Total Score for the material is calculated based on the objective scores and displays in the material's Gradebook Scale. In our example, this is the Numeric scale:

(Mastery points received / Total mastery points possible) * (Number of total points possible)
12/16 = 0.75 * 100 = 75/100

Multiple Submissions

For course materials that accept multiple submissions, instructors can determine which score is used in the standards-based gradebook the same way they determine which score is used in the traditional gradebook: from the material's Settings area.

Assessments

You can choose whether the grade is determined by: Highest Score or Last Score.

Test/Quiz

You can choose whether the grade is determined by: High score, Last score or Average score.

How these settings display the score or achievement level in the traditional gradebook versus the standards-based gradebook is outlined below:

Final Grade SettingsTraditional GradebookStandards-Based Gradebook
HighestDisplays the highest scoreDisplays the highest observation across all submissions
LastDisplays the score for the most recent submissionDisplays the observation for the most recent submission
AverageDisplays the average for all submission scoresDisplays the average for all learning objective scores (for a given learning objective)

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I copy course materials aligned with learning objectives to another course or Resources?
Yes. You can move course materials with aligned learning objectives between Resources, Groups, and Courses and retain the alignments.

I previously used Mastery. Can I use materials aligned with learning objectives from Mastery in another course that is using District Mastery?

You can copy the materials to a course, however, any aligned learning objectives and rubrics that do not match with the mastery library of the destination course will be removed. Once the material is copied to another course, you will need to align learning objectives from the designated mastery library.

Can I edit the mastery grading scale?
The district mastery grading scale is administered at the system level. We recommend reaching out to your Support Contact for more information on your school's district mastery grading scale.

How do I enable the Mastery view for students and parents?

For students to access their mastery within the course, the permission View received mastery grades must first be enabled at system-level:

Reach out to your Support Contact to confirm if this permission is enabled for your district. Once it is enabled, you may enable the Allow members to view student mastery details permission from the Grade Setup area of your course:


Students can access Mastery from the left menu within the course:


Parents will also have access to their child's mastery when they access their child's course via the Child Activity view in their account.

Student Mastery Details is currently not supported for organizations using Standards Grade Passback. In addition, the final grade calculation differs between District Mastery and PowerTeacher Pro since the latter calculates the grade for each objective and associated grading period (reporting term), while District Mastery calculates the grade for each objective for the entire duration of the course. As a result, the final grade in District Mastery and PowerTeacher Pro may not match. Therefore, it is recommended to direct students and parents to the PowerSchool SIS portal to view final grades. Students may also view scores for each learning objective via the rubric grader on the material's page.
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