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Overview
This article describes how to adapt the scales that come with your Foundry site or to create your own.
Contents
- Purpose and function of scales
- Creating a new scale manually
- Creating a scale template (via spreadsheet)
- Editing a scale
- Assigning a scale as default scale
Purpose and Function of Scales
Many terms now describe similar learning objectives, including standards, outcomes, targets, competencies, skills, among others. Whatever your descriptor for those objectives, you need a scale - or a skills level indicator - to evaluate progress against them.
Foundry generally refers to individual objectives as targets, and can simultaneously manage two distinct sets of them. In its design, one set was generally reserved for learning targets in the core content areas (English, math, science, etc.) - these are generally known as 'content' targets in Foundry. The other, labeled 'skills' targets, was designated for targets broadly fitting the 21st Century skills model. Foundry does not particularly distinguish between them - only between where you store them (in other words, what you call your 'content' and 'skills' targets matters less than how you order their importance.
In any case, Foundry can store many sets of scales you may use to evaluate, but you must designate one as the default for each of your active target sets (content and skills). You will also need to select a default scale for grades (if your school uses a separate grade system.) Most Foundry sites come pre-loaded with a variety of scale templates you can modify, but you can create your own as well.
Scales are standardized in format, assuring consistent presentation in performance pages.
Scales are based on industry standard approaches, ranging from traditional (WKCE) to very modern (met/not met) etc.
New templates can be developed by school curriculum team for use by Foundry admins and advisors.
Creating a new scale manually
(note: video has no audio)
To create a new scale, navigate to Admin > School Settings > Manage Scales.
- At the top of the page, type the name of the new scale in the blank field and click "Add." The new scale will appear in the below list, sorted by name.
- Find your new scale and click "manage."
- In the first two boxes, type a brief mark "name" and a longer (if needed) mark "description."
- Select "GPA Bearing" if you want the mark to be calculated into the student's overall GPA.
- Select "Completer" if you want the mark to "earn" the target. This means that the student's Learning Plan will recognize that target as completed (or completed once, if the target is required multiple times).
- Click "Add." Repeat as necessary. Note that you can reorder the scale marks by clicking "Up" or "Down", remove a mark by clicking "Remove," and edit the mark name, description, or GPA and Completer status by clicking "Save" after making any changes.
You can also remove an entire scale in the main Scales menu.
Creating a Scale Template (Batch Import/Update Via a Spreadsheet)
To create a new scale from scratch, navigate to Admin > Site Settings, Manage Scales. Below the list of existing scales are instructions for downloading the scale template, creating your scale, and uploading your finished template.
For readability, the directions are reproduced below:
For minor changes to your Scales, the best practice is to make changes in the management table above. |
Design considerations
For readability of the resulting graphs on the Pie Chart, Credits and Heat Maps pages, we recommend that you adhere to a standardized approach to organizing the marks. We suggest the following:
- List the lowest scale value at the top of the list of values, the highest value at the bottom of the list.
- Values entered for 'Mark Name' become labels for charts on the Performance Page. Be as succinct as possible to make those displays readable.
- If working with an existing scale, move the marks in the correct order in the list by using the 'Up' and 'Down' buttons behind each option (see screen shot above).
Editing a scale
Scale Set Up and Components
To set your scale, your Admin user will access your scales via Admin > Site Settings > Manage Scales. Scroll through the available scales in your site until you find the scale that is currently set as the Target Scale; click the associated 'Manage' button for that row.
When the page reloads, customize each option of your desired grading scale, clicking the 'Save' button for each row before moving to the next.
Scale Components
- Mark Name: the option for advisors to select when evaluating content or skill targets aligned to learning experiences or for grading experiences. Examples: "Meeting...Exceeding", "A, B, C...," "Basic, Proficient, Advanced." It is also the label that will show on various graphs in the Performance section of Foundry.
- Mark Description: Text that describes the meaning of the mark.
- Grade Points: If you use grade points to calculate a GPA at your school, set them here. For example, if an 'A' is worth 4.0 points, enter that number in the Grade Points field.
- GPA Bearing: Selecting this box tells Foundry to include the value of the assigned mark in the student's overall GPA.
- Completer: When selected, indicates that the evaluated target will count towards students' learning requirements (see 'Pie Chart' performance page). In the image below, a target evaluated as "Basic" would be counted as "attempted" but not "completed" on the Performance Page and related reports, so the Learning Plan would show that target as incomplete.
- Active: When selected, the scale mark is available.
- Up/Down/Save/Remove: Use these buttons to rearrange the scale mark order. Click "save" on editing any individual scale mark.
- To add a new mark, use the first (empty) row of the scale, and click "Add" when ready.
Assigning a scale as default
Recall that Foundry will allow you to assign a scale to various levels of detail - even down to the individual target (this is optional). If a target, subject group, or subject is not assigned a specific evaluation scale, Foundry will use the default scale you've chosen.
To change the default scale used to evaluate targets, skills, or grades, follow the example in the video and instructions below.
The video (00:23) and instructions below show how to set or change the default scales set for evaluating targets, grades, and skills:
The following steps will let you quickly change which scale is associated with your Content Learning Target Set by default. Follow the same steps for your Skills Learning Target Set.
- Log in as Admin.
- Navigate to the 'Learning Targets > Manage Content Targets' to open your Learning Target Set page.
- At the top left you will see which scale is which is set as default for evaluating targets. Click on 'change' to select a different scale from the dropdown.
- At the top right you will see which scale is set as default for assigning grades. Click 'change' to select a different scale from the dropdown.
- Click on 'Save' to save your changes.
Your 'Grade Scale' should now show as the default scale for the Content Targets. You could also double check in the scales section to visually confirm that your select grade scale is marked as 'default' scale.
Important: You must select a default scale for evaluating both content AND skills targets. If you do not select a default skills targets scale, your performance page will not display "Trends" correctly. |
Suggested Reading:
Note: Articles linked here under "Suggested Reading" are chosen by Foundry Support team members for their relevance and are updated as needed. The articles listed here may differ from those on the right side of the page, where the Knowledge Base AI lists "Related Articles." |
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