Welcome back from Winter Break!
We wanted to come together as a team and share some pieces of information and reminders since we are approaching the midpoint of the school year.
ALEKS:
As we approach the halfway point of the school year, the Math team wanted to remind all of our families that ALEKS on-line math should be consistently worked on outside of math class. This critical resource is a huge assist for all math concepts, and is a proven tool to raise aptitude and speed in math as well! In order to check your student’s progress, have them log in to ALEKS and look at their pie chart progress. In the center of the pie chart will be a number representing topics completed, if you click on that number it will change to percent completed. This should be at or above 50% at this time if their goal is to finish by the end of the school year. Remember, the ALEKS subscriptions run through the summer, so can be worked on throughout the summer! If your student finishes a grade level in ALEKS, we will move them into the next year to get a head start!
Grades and Feedback:
We use ForAllRubrics aka FAR (located in any web-browser) and a Math Continuum (located in Google Sheets) for grade reporting and feedback. ForAllRubrics shows the daily/weekly formative work and summatives. The Math Continuum shows your student’s proficiencies throughout the year, whether they’re proficient or approaching proficient on the competencies they are attempting. You can login by using your student’s login information for ForAllRubrics and see if they have any red checkmarks. If there are red checkmarks, that task is missing. If something has a green checkmark under the “Assessed” column, that means the teacher provided a grade (and feedback). You can click those icons for more information.
How is the Data from MAP Testing Used?
Winter MAP testing is approaching quickly! Students will be completing the Math MAP test on January 22nd and the Reading MAP test on February 4th. The data from these assessment will be used for future decisions in your students’ academic career. For 6th and 7th graders, this is a good measuring stick to determine growth and begin the process of planning course recommendations for next year. As students get closer to high school, there is an emphasis on “College and Career Readiness,” often referred to as CCR. The goal is for all students to be prepared for College or a Career after high school. It’s hard sometimes for a middle school student to think about College or a Career, but the work they do in middle school does matter. The high schools within the Waukesha district include a CCR time in the daily schedule for students who have not met grade level minimum college readiness benchmarks. Students are often surprised by how high the benchmarks are for CCR, so it is very important that students come to school ready to take their MAP test and try their best.
If you’re ever curious as to what your student did in class one day, or want to know if they have homework and you don’t get a solid answer from your student, you can always have them open up their math class’s Daily Slideshow on Google Slides.
Thank you for reading!
-The Math Team
We wanted to come together as a team and share some pieces of information and reminders since we are approaching the midpoint of the school year.
ALEKS:
As we approach the halfway point of the school year, the Math team wanted to remind all of our families that ALEKS on-line math should be consistently worked on outside of math class. This critical resource is a huge assist for all math concepts, and is a proven tool to raise aptitude and speed in math as well! In order to check your student’s progress, have them log in to ALEKS and look at their pie chart progress. In the center of the pie chart will be a number representing topics completed, if you click on that number it will change to percent completed. This should be at or above 50% at this time if their goal is to finish by the end of the school year. Remember, the ALEKS subscriptions run through the summer, so can be worked on throughout the summer! If your student finishes a grade level in ALEKS, we will move them into the next year to get a head start!
Grades and Feedback:
We use ForAllRubrics aka FAR (located in any web-browser) and a Math Continuum (located in Google Sheets) for grade reporting and feedback. ForAllRubrics shows the daily/weekly formative work and summatives. The Math Continuum shows your student’s proficiencies throughout the year, whether they’re proficient or approaching proficient on the competencies they are attempting. You can login by using your student’s login information for ForAllRubrics and see if they have any red checkmarks. If there are red checkmarks, that task is missing. If something has a green checkmark under the “Assessed” column, that means the teacher provided a grade (and feedback). You can click those icons for more information.
How is the Data from MAP Testing Used?
Winter MAP testing is approaching quickly! Students will be completing the Math MAP test on January 22nd and the Reading MAP test on February 4th. The data from these assessment will be used for future decisions in your students’ academic career. For 6th and 7th graders, this is a good measuring stick to determine growth and begin the process of planning course recommendations for next year. As students get closer to high school, there is an emphasis on “College and Career Readiness,” often referred to as CCR. The goal is for all students to be prepared for College or a Career after high school. It’s hard sometimes for a middle school student to think about College or a Career, but the work they do in middle school does matter. The high schools within the Waukesha district include a CCR time in the daily schedule for students who have not met grade level minimum college readiness benchmarks. Students are often surprised by how high the benchmarks are for CCR, so it is very important that students come to school ready to take their MAP test and try their best.
If you’re ever curious as to what your student did in class one day, or want to know if they have homework and you don’t get a solid answer from your student, you can always have them open up their math class’s Daily Slideshow on Google Slides.
Thank you for reading!
-The Math Team
