MacSchool Report Cards

Entering grades

Cindy Jarvis

April 12, 2009

This paper reviews a tutorial made for administrative assistants at

Randolph Union High School. The tutorial covers how to enter
grades in the Report Cards module. The paper also covers ADDIE –
Analyze, Develop, Design, Implement, and Evaluate – and how it
relates to the tutorial.
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Contents

INTRODUCTION TO REPORT CARDS………………………

………………..3

ANALYZE ………………..……………………………………………
………………….3
Organizational and training objectives……………………………………
…………………….3

Risks………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………3

Training vendor/trainer selection criteria…………………………………

…….….………..4

Target participants, program entry requirements……………………

……………………4

Determine extent of training participant knowledge/skill

assessment required………………………………………………………………
………………………………………….4

Level of performance required following the training………………

……………………4

Estimate program design, development, implementation and

evaluation costs, effort required and schedule………………………
………………………………………………….4
DESIGN………………………………………………………………
…………………....4
DEVELOP………………………………………………………………
…………….……5
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IMPLEMENT…………………………………………………………
…………………..5
EVALUATE……………………………………………………………
…………………...6
Conclusion……………………………………………………………
…………………..7
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INTRODUCTION
I developed a tutorial for the MacSchool Report Card module. This
tutorial is for new employees or more seasoned employees that don’t have a
lot of experience using the Report Card module. In this paper I will discuss
the how my project works in the ADDIE style, which includes analyze, design,
develop, implement and evaluate. I began this project as an assignment, but
it relates well to my current position as administrative assistant in the
Student Services office at Randolph Union High School.

There are ten employees that have access to this module. There are
only two or three other employees besides myself that would ever actually
be entering grades for students. These would be administrative assistants
also. They are currently trained to use the three of the other modules
MacSchool has to offer including Query, Details and Attendance. This
training is especially important if I am out of the building for any length of
time as I am the only one that currently knows how to enter grades and do
calculations in Report Cards. Since I have been at Randolph Union High
School the longest, for fifteen years, I am the only one who knows how to use
the Attendance, Details, Query, Report Cards, Report Manager and Scheduler
modules fully. It made sense that I created a tutorial for Report Cards.

We are going to be getting a new system, Power School, at the end of

the summer and I think that more tutorials will be in order. I know that their
Report Card module has a 54 page manual, but I don’t think that is practical
for most people to use. I think a much shorter version would be less
overwhelming to most people. The tutorial that I created will be used only
through June, but it gives me a good idea of how to go about creating a
tutorial for the new system.

ANALYZE
Randolph Union High School is a grade 7 through 12 school with
approximately 475 students. There are four support staff members that do
everything from attendance to grades to schedules. Currently there is only
one person who can do all the jobs having to do with their student
information system, MacSchool. She is going to train the other support staff
members how to use the module called Report Cards.

Organizational and training objectives

The training will include entering numeric grades, CAPE (citizenship,
attitude, participation and effort), and comment codes for students. The
goal is to teach the administrative assistants in the Main Office how to enter
report card grades. They currently do not know how to do anything but
access the Students window.
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Risks
There is a risk of the time away from the office for the support staff.
This is solved by having the training during school vacation times or on in-
service days. Another risk is that they would have access to student grades
and could inadvertently, or on purpose, change a grade. This is not likely to
happen, but could if they were viewing a student’s grades. For the most
part, they are taught to use the module named Query which is a twin of the
Report Card module, without the opportunity to make changes.

Access is another risk, but with the tutorial accessible from email
and/or a paper copy from Student Services, the administrative assistants can
view the tutorial from most computers within the building.

Training vendor/trainer selection criteria

The person in the school that knows all of the MacSchool modules will
do the training, as the trainees are the most comfortable with her and there
is no cost in having her do the training since she’ll already be at work.

Target participants, program entry requirements

The participants are the other support staff who are not familiar with
the Report Card module. They will be required to take this training in order
to have staff cross trained.

Determine extent of training participant knowledge/skill

assessment required
The support staff person with knowledge of this module will be chosen
to do the training. She has a good rapport with the other support staff
members, is a good teacher, and is knowledgeable about the subject.

Level of performance required following the training

The support staff being trained may be required to assist their co-
worker during busy times, or cover for her if she is absent from work.

Estimate program design, development, implementation and

evaluation costs, effort required and schedule
As noted before, the trainer will be a support staff member. She will be
paid as she would on a regular work day. The training date will happen on a
school vacation day or an in-service, both times when they support staff is
already in the office. This could happen on March 2, 2009, the next in-
service day.

DESIGN
Design outline for the Report Cards module
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1. Find the Report Cards module on the MacSchool shell and open it.

2. View the three windows that are available to the user – Students,
Classes, and Teachers.

3. Open a student’s record and view each window available.

4. Go to the Marks window and learn how to enter grades in the numeric
and alphabetic bins.

5. Learn how to enter Comment Codes and “C.A.P.E.” (Citizenship) grades.

6. Learn how to enter the above for more than one student by going to
the Classes window and selecting an entire class to enter grades for.

The learner will be able to find the Report Cards module.

The learner will recognize the three windows available to the user which
are Students, Teachers and Classes.

The learner will be able to open a student’s record from the Students
window and enter numeric or alphabetic grades, “C.A.P.E.” grades, and
comment codes.

The learner will be able to find the Classes window and select a class to
enter grades for.

The Teacher window is used only to view a teacher’s schedule; it is not

used for entering grades.

DEVELOP
The project developed for the training is a manual on how to enter
grades into the Report Cards module. It consists of screen shots and specific
directions on how to enter grades, CAPE (citizenship, attitude, participation,
effort) grades and comment codes. The instructions are differentiated in red,
are indented, and have an arrow, while the additional print is in black. The
user can simply use this manual to enter the grades. A lot of work went into
this project so that the administrative assistants, who are not accustomed to
using the Report Card module, can enter grades with very little difficulty.

The learning curve for this assignment was greater than I anticipated.
Initially I did not know how to get screen shots from my Mac to the hard drive
on my PC. I had some difficulty cropping them as it seemed my cursor was
not located where the crop mark was. Typing the instructions took the most
time as I tried to make it simple for the administrative assistants who would
be using the tutorial. I had to make it very simple with the assumption that
 Jarvis 7

the person using it had not seen the program prior to the tutorial. In
actuality, that would never happen. It was helpful to have the different
people try the tutorial so I could make changes and additions. I was able to
see which parts needed more work and which parts were okay. It also
allowed me to see where an additional screen shot was needed.

IMPLEMENT
The Report Cards module will be installed on each user’s computer.
This is one module of several that comprise the school’s student database.
The tutorial is a Word document that can be accessed from their email
program or by asking for a copy in Student Services. Each administrative
assistant will be required to access this tutorial at the beginning of each year.
At any time during the school year when the administrative assistant in
Student Services is absent, they will access the tutorial and enter the grades
for that quarter. Since the tutorial only covers initial entering of grades, they
would not be required to enter incomplete grades or make any corrections.
That will wait until the administrative assistant returns to make additions or
corrections. The administrative assistants can now, with the help of the
tutorial, enter grades as necessary.

EVALUATE
Three people were tested in how to do the above tasks. One of them
has a lot of experience with MacSchool, while one has only minimal
experience. The third had no experience with the database whatsoever. If
the manual is successful, they should all be able to successfully enter
grades, comment codes and CAPE grades for all the students in any class.

During actual testing, one person was familiar with the software and
did very well – no questions. The second person to participate in the test
asked several questions such as “is this the right page?”, “am I doing it
right?”, and “is this where I enter the grades”? An additional person was
tested more recently, a family member. She is not familiar with MacSchool,
the database, but is familiar with computers. She did well, but did have
some questions. The comment code section was confusing, as was
discerning what a bin is. Corrections to the manual were made.

It was difficult to type everything out to enter one class of grades.

There are so many basic taken for granted every day. The core of the jobs is
knowing where to click and where to enter grades, C.A.P.E. grades, and
comment codes. The key is to give the right percentage numbers or letter
grades to the right students in the right classes. The next task is to enter
CAPE grades and comment codes in the right places. The classes are sorted
initially by teacher name, class name, and section number. The students are
sorted alphabetically in those classes. Then the person entering grades
chooses a teacher, finds the corresponding class and enters the grades.
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Grades are entered for 460 students, 45 teachers and numerous

classes. Each student at report card time gets a numeric grade and as many
as three comment codes for each class they are enrolled in. Middle school
students additionally get a C.A.P.E. grade (Citizenship, Attitude, Participation
and Effort). At interim grade time students can get a numeric grade and as
many as 5 comment codes. Again, middle school students get a C.A.P.E.
grade. As grades are entered, there is no time to look at each student’s
name, so you have to trust that you’ll come out right at the end of the class.
In other words, you will have a grade for each student, no extra grades and
no extra students with no grades. The difficult part is when one student
leaves school and a different one enters. You should come out even at the
bottom of the page, and you might not know until students get their report
cards that there has been a mistake. Students add and drop classes
frequently at the beginning of each semester, so you have to pay close
attention without it slowing you down.

Grades are due the Wednesday after the quarter ends, and they are
due by noon. Teachers obtain report cards by midday that next day,
Thursday, and the report cards are given to students Friday morning - one
week after the quarter ends. If it is interim time, this process happens
halfway through each quarter.

Formative Evaluation
My initial tutorial was full of words. I explained everything thinking
that that was the best way to get the information across. I was able to
change the wording and make it much shorter with clearer instructions.
Eventually I was able to figure out how to get screen shots into the tutorial. I
took pictures on my Macintosh computer at work and I emailed them to my
home account. Once home, I was able to open them in Picture Viewer, copy
them, and paste them into my Word document. Next I cropped them as
necessary. Finally I added blue arrows to the screen shots in places that
made sense.

After the initial tutorial, big changes were made. Nearer the end only
subtle changes were made. Changes like making fonts bigger and putting
actions in red. Changing the size of the screen shots and arrows was also
done. I am satisfied in the final product. I think it solves the problem of not
knowing how to enter grades.

Summative Evaluation
Three people were tested with my how to enter grades tutorial. The
first person is an administrative assistant in the main office. She has a lot of
experience with MacSchool. She logged onto her computer, opened the
MacSchool shell which has all of the modules on it. Then she opened the
Report Cards module. She tabbed to the Classes icon and opened a class.
The students in the class were listed alphabetically and she was able to click
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on the bin for entering grades and enter grades for those students. She had
no problems with any aspect of entering report card grades. CAPE grades or
comment codes.

The next person I tested was a new secretary in the main office. She
uses MacSchool, but only the Attendance, Details and Query modules. She
had never used the Report Card module prior to the testing. Having had
experience in Query, which is similar to Report Cards, helped a great deal.
However, she had questions about where to click and questions to see if she
was doing things correctly. She suggested arrows for my images, which
would have helped her more.

The third person I tested, near the end of my project, was my daughter.
A 2007 graduate of the high school where I work, she currently is employed
at Gifford Medical Center. She had never seen MacSchool, so she made a
great tester. She too wanted to know if she was doing the tutorial correctly,
but she suggested explaining what a bin was as well as explaining the
comment code section more clearly.

In the end, I had a few versions of my tutorial. The original one was
wordy and didn’t explain things very clearly. The last one is succinct and had
screen shots with arrows. It is a much better version than the first one I did.

CONCLUSION
As you may be able to glean from this paper, entering report
card grades, CAPE grade and comment codes is covered in detail in the
tutorial. The administrative assistants were able to understand the tutorial
with some assistance. The family member I had try the tutorial did very well
with only a couple of questions. She was able to view a later draft of the
tutorial and she still had a suggestion to make. I also took suggestions from
my instructor to make the tutorial a clearer document.