Quarter Two has ended for us, and so I’m doing report cards. I hate them.
I hate report cards, and I do them in the easiest way possible (with the exception of just making up a grade or giving everyone an A, which is probably what many teachers do, and maybe I should adopt it…..). I grade based on the reading percentage. This time I decided that I’ve been a little harsh. Anyone who does 90% of the reading or better should get an A. In this quarter, it means that students who missed 3 or less days of assigned reading. Before now, I was giving As only to those who did 95% or better.
Jared has helped me automate my report card spreadsheet, and it really is pretty slick. We have taken this enormous thing that the SI people provided and added on some things like a macro to generate individual report cards for each student, a daily tracker for scripture reading by student/date/assignment, an automatic grade period calculator for reading and grades (instead of monthly, like CSTAR) and a scripture mastery tracker. All that data is compiled and plugged into the report cards automatically courtesy of the macro. Nice. It even checks the quarter’s attendance to see whether or not the student is required to do makeup work for Seminary credit, and shows a helpful message. I have to say, it’s pretty awesome.
I am not sure how specialized it is for my use. I doubt that most teachers are basing their grading solely on the reading, but if you’re using that as part of a grade, it would be easy to modify the chart. I also have 12 students, and I think that the macro is based on that number, so you may have to code a little bit to suit your class. I will edit out my kids’ data and post it soon.
Anyway, the report cards are now printed and all the CSTAR data is entered. I’m just glad it’s over.
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Updated – I added the report card templates here:
http://www.mormonshare.com/lds-clipart/seminary-report-card-templates
