There have been so many times that I’ve sat down to do my report cards, and I’ve second-guessed the mark I put down, had to look through an old stack of papers for confirmation, or have created a quick assessment for that confirmation.   Looking at the report cards we need to complete for each student, I feel like it’s understandable considering all the report card descriptors I’m to monitor. Here’s  a shot of them (click/tap on the image for the full size):

That’s 45 standard-based descriptors.  For 20 students, that’s 900 marks per marking period.

Good assessment is ongoing, not just summative, 3 or 4 times a year.  Everyone would agree with this. But, it can be difficult to remember all 45 descriptors in order to monitor them in an ongoing manner.

I’m excited to start off this year by placing the descriptors as assessment tags on Chronicle.  The following picture shows how I placed all of the Reading descriptors with the date of 9/7 (notes and name behind it are contrived), the first day of school for us.

This way, each day when I open up Chronicle for Reading, I’m reminded of what I should be monitoring/assessing.  Also, when I confer or meet with an individual student and tap the Traffic Light History icon, I’m reminded as well.  I can adjust the colors as assessment data comes in for each child (I also like the idea of all students starting off with a green color).  And when it comes time to sit down for report cards, there will be no second-guessing, etc., because I’ve been assessing these learning standards/behaviors all along.