Prep Home > Assessment
Purpose of Assessment
“The aim is to get the students actively involved in seeking this evidence: their role is not simply to do tasks as decided by teachers, but to actively manage and understand their learning gains. This includes evaluating their own progress, being more responsible for their learning, and being involved with peers in learning together about gains in learning. If students are to become active evaluators of their own progress, teachers must provide the students with appropriate feedback so that they can engage in this task.” - John A.C. Hattie, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning
Learners Play an Active Role in Their Learning
The most effective use of assessment is to create ongoing learning experiences that show evidence of the growth of each learner. Assessment is also about communication and relies on an understanding by students and parents/guardians of what is being assessed and for what purpose. SMA Prep uses a formative and summative assessment approach that is competency-based and provides Learning Goals with specific target goals for each unit or weekly plan.
Cadets are expected to take ownership of their learning.
Cadets should become knowledgeable about how their teachers use gradebook and check it frequently. Formative tasks should be completed in a timely manner in order to be successful on summative work. Parents can support their cadet’s progress by building consistent routines of conversation about what is happening at school and offering structured time at home for homework or independent reading.
Recording and Reporting
How do I access Gradebook?
SMA Prep uses the Sarasota County Schools parent/student portal to communicate information about a student’s progress. Parents/Guardians & cadets should have separate accounts with different usernames. A cadet's N# is required to create an account.
Once parents/guardians have created their account, it is recommended that you sign up for notifications to receive emails for missing work and weekly assignment reports. Go to settings in the portal to sign up. Cadet accounts do not have this option.
Formative Assessment & Indicators
Formative assessment is meant to inform the student, teacher, and parent about the student’s progress before, during, and after the learning process. It is during this time students develop skills, build content knowledge and learn to ask good questions within the concepts and contexts of a unit’s Statement of Inquiry. Formative work is assessed using a 5-10 scale that indicates a level of understanding as seen in the chart below: Cadets will receive a 0 for missing assignments and will be provided one week to complete any missing assignment from the due date.The highest attainable grade will be a 7.5 (75%) for late work.
| Level of Understanding | Descriptor for level of understanding | Notes |
| 9-10 |
Mastery |
|
| 8 | Proficient | |
| 6-7 | Developing | |
| 5 | Novice | |
| 0 | Missing |
Summative Assessment & Indicators
The summative assessment is a culminating task for a unit, indicating a student’s achievement level against specific objectives and corresponding criteria. The summative task allows students to “show what they know and can do” in response to the unit’s Statement of Inquiry developed within subject-related Key Concepts and more generally through Global Context and Explorations. Examples of summative assessments could include research projects, unit tests, design labs, essays, lab reports, art and design projects and portfolios, and real world reenactments and simulations.
Summative work is also assessed using a 5-10 scale, however, these indicators relate to specific criteria for each subject. Cadets will receive a 0 for missing assignments and will be provided one week to complete any missing assignment from the due date. The highest attainable grade will be a 7.5 (75%) for late work.
| Level of Understanding | Descriptor for level of understanding | Notes |
| 9-10 |
Mastery: The student demonstrates excellent or outstanding performance in relation to expected learning outcomes for the course or subject grade. |
|
| 8 | Proficient: The student demonstrates substantial performance in relation to expected learning outcomes for the course or subject and grade. | |
| 6-7 | Developing: The student demonstrates adequate performance in relation to expected learning outcomes for the course or subject and grade. | |
| 5 | Novice: The student demonstrates limited or no indication for performance in relation to expected learning outcomes for the course or subject grade. | |
| 0 |
Missing
|
Completion Only & Housekeeping
Sometimes a teacher may want to record completion only of an assignment before the student’s understanding has been assessed. An example of this may be weekly homework that has not yet been reviewed but that the student has completed. Housekeeping represents permission slips or other non-academic papers the teacher may need to keep track of as "turned in" or "not turned in". These would be indicated in the portal as seen below:
