MarkBook® section 4-3
Mark Sets - Why and How MarkBook® section 4-3
Mark Sets - Why and How 
you or your colleagues are teaching multiple subjects to the same class
you wish to create blocks of assessment data in
units, terms, semesters, quarters, etc.
you have more than one assessment group of students in a single classroom
in one class, you have
students with different learning styles who need different assessment systems you wish to use an additional classification level/strand for your assessments. you must isolate and independently report certain kinds of data such as Learning Skills
or Effort
Once a class has been created, you may add up to
99 more Mark Sets.
From the main screen, click on Mark Set in the upper menu bar. Select (click) Make a New Mark Set.
This screen will open with the cursor flashing in the upper Mark Set Short Code cell. Your first Mark Set was created when you built this class.
Similarly, categories were created when you built this class and other classes. Existing categories are in the Master List.
They are grayed out until the short code is created. Type any meaningful short code e.g.
T3 for Term 3. Describe this new Mark Set in the Description cell. Select categories and weight them by double clicking from your Master List. Click Save when finished. Now you have a new Mark Set. It's common for schools to use a partial rotary system so that a class of students takes several subjects from the same teacher.
In MarkBook, each of these subjects could be called a "Mark Set". 
See
the three subjects in class 7X in the sample04 folder supplied
during installation. MarkBook could also use this same system to keep three separate subject records for this same class if three different teachers taught these three subjects to this class. However, in this latter circumstance, these teachers must use the same computer or pass the class folder back and forth on
a portable storage device such as a diskette.
In other words, only one teacher may enter data at a time. In this example with three Mark Sets, English has
made the default Mark Set when the teacher opens this class (see the check mark on English). This default can be changed to either of the other two subjects by selecting and editing Edit [Subject].
Access either of the others by clicking on Mark Sets i nthe upper menu
bar to open the pop-down window shown and then selecting (clicking on) the subject desired. Or, use the
Open a Mark Set button on the main operating screen, section 3-1. When English is selected, the teacher has access to all of the records associated with that subject - text issue, seating
plan/chart, and English subject reports. If the teacher clicks on either of the other two subjects, then all stored information for that subject is accessible.
It IS possible to have independent attendance records, categories, and seating
plans for each subject set. Produce a Combined Report for these three subjects using any weighting system of choice (e.g. Science 30%, English 40%, Social Studies 30%). This report is available by clicking on Reports from the menu bar and selecting Combined Mark Sets.
Or use the Combined Report button. See the example printout in section 8-6 of this Manual. Several other functions of MarkBook are available from this Mark Set pop down window: the Loaned Items record for such items as textbooks section 5-6, new assessment entries section 7-1, data updates section 7-5, and weighting functions section 7-6, for the current Mark Set.
We recommend keeping separate attendance lists and seating plans for each subject. Click on Class
List in the upper menu bar, select Class Description, edit the appropriate buttons, and Save.
Now you will be able to make and edit independent attendance forms and seating
plans.
The Environmental Science class (SEN4AG0) in this example is actually two
similar but separate courses being taught by the same teacher in the same classroom at the same time.
The teacher could set up two separate MarkBook class folders. However, MarkBook
can structure each course as a "Mark Set" in one class folder. In this example, there is
an "academic stream" - "Env Sci A" - with 15 students and a
"graduation stream" - "Env Sci G" with 9 students. The latter stream is currently
the default (check marked). See the 4AG0 sample class provided in the samples02 folder. To create this split class, the teacher entered all students in Env Sci - G and then clicked on Create a New Mark Set. After naming it Env Sci - A, the
15 "A" students were attached to the new A
Set and unattached from the G Set. To do this, click on the Attach
Names button in the Edit Names screen, section 4-2.
For each Mark Set in turn, move selected
students to the appropriate side of the screen as per the following image.
Repeat with the next Mark Set.
There are many other circumstances in which you may have to provide separate
Sets of assessments for two or more groups within a single classroom such as:
a class with some students who are just learning English. It would be unfair to evaluate these individuals in the same manner as the rest of the class. Thus, an
ESL (English as a Second Language) "Mark Set" chould be created to evaluate these students in an independent and appropriate manner. two or more years/grades/forms in the same classroom. A small school may have a "class" with three years/grades/forms in the same room - e.g. a class of 25 with students from years 4, 5, & 6. For an alternate suggestion on isolating these small groups see section 4-1. two or more
groups of students with different learning styles in the same classroom.
These groups require different assessment strategies, categories, and weights.
For instance, there might be three boys who are kinaesthetic learners in a class that's otherwise academic. For an alternate suggestion on isolating these
groups see section 4-1. We recommend keeping a common attendance
list and seating plan for these kinds of split classes. Some teachers are required to track and report groups of assessment items independently of
an overall grade. For instance,
suppose your system required that you measured and reported six items for each
student: an overall achievement percentage plus an assessment of five
Learning Skills (Work Habits, Initiative, Organizational
Skills, Team Work, and Independent Work). Or, in the UK, a grade for
Attainment and another for Effort. The philosophy
behind these reporting systems is to identify to each student which items need
improvement for better growth. However, the
measure of Learning Skills or Effort is NOT to be included in their interim
or final grades for the course! There are three
means of dealing with this assessment requirement using MarkBook. Two involve
Mark Sets and the third is creating categories for the skills with extremely low
weights. See the second example in section 8-2.You could set up a single Mark Set with a short code called LS
and a description of Learning Skills. Make five categories within the set
titled WorkHab, Init, Org, TeamWork, and IndepWk.
Or, set up five Mark Sets, LS1, LS2, etc. - one for each skill.
Now, you can open any set and add data at will. However, the assessment of
the skills is always independent from the main Mark Set in which you track the
summative achievement items that contribute towards the overall grade. For Attainment versus
Effort, set up the second Mark
Set as EFF with a description of Effort. Since the skills
are tracked independently and data is added from time to time, the teacher can
report a summative grade for each skill. Percentages, levels, letter grades, or some other
indicator system
(Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement) may be used for reporting
purposes. Use a rubric to convert the percentage calculated into an indicator of
achievement.
The Phys Ed teacher who
created this class decided to use 7 Mark Sets to subdivide her course assessments into major groups. See the six course units plus the exam in this Mark Sets example. Her Basketball Mark Set is currently
the default. Change the default set using the Edit [set] menu. By organizing the course this way, she has given herself the extra classification level afforded by MarkBook. To get a final grade for this course, she will use the Combined Mark Sets available from the Reports menu.
Or use the Combined Report button. See the second example in section 8-2 for details on weighting multiple Mark Sets. Since each of her course units are separated into a distinct Mark Set, she now has the option of creating different categories for each
curriculum unit and/or assigning different weights to each. For instance, she could alter the weight given to her "team
work" category in each
Set. As a team sport, the basketball Mark Set is heavily weighted for this category, whereas archery has no
team work component.
We recommend keeping one attendance list and
one seating plan for this kind of class.
Some teachers like to divide their courses up into terms, semesters,
trimesters, quarters, or other time blocks. For instance,Term 1 - 15%, Term 2 - 20%, Term 3 - 20%, Term 4 - 20%, Exam - 25% Total 100%
There is another technique for separating assessments into time blocks. See the discussion of Block Title in section 2-2. The advantage with this "Mark Set" method is that you have
exact control over the percentage contribution of each
Set towards the final grade. The disadvantage is that you do not "see" all assessment data for the entire course - each Mark Set is completely isolated from the other Sets until you use Combined Mark Sets. It's up to you to decide which method works best for you. Sample class 8D,
provided with MarkBook's installation, shows two subjects, Math and Science,
over three terms. The teacher divided the year's assessment data into six Mark
Sets representing three terms for Science and three for Math. Used this way, the
teacher is able to report each term independently and each subject
independently. The teacher also has the ability to provide "evidence of
most recent achievement" by heavily weighting the more recent
sets. We
suggest that you open 8D from the samples folder, click Reports in the
upper menu bar, and select Combined Mark Sets. Then click the Set
Weighting tab. Edit the weights of the six Mark Sets in the Target
column as per the following
example. Click any number in the Target column to edit.
Note how the terms have been differentially weighted.
Of course, the teacher could weight the three Science Mark Sets to zero in order to
isolate a grade for Math. Similarly, the teacher could edit the weights of terms
1 and 2 to zero to isolate the term 3 grade as the final grade. An elementary teacher
taught six courses with her class: Music, Art, French, English, Drama, and Math. She
was required to report a
percentage grade and an anecdotal comment at the end of each trimester along with an
independent measure of nine Learning Skills. Furthermore, she was required to
report a percentage for each strand/category in some subjects like languages and
Math. Evidence of most recent achievement was required. She had a core group of 26 students taking all six subjects
but there
were 16 additional students who were dropped into one or more of her subject
classes.
For instance, she had 38 students in Music, 33 in Art, 28 in French, and so
on. In all, she taught one or more subjects to 42 individuals. She handled all of her needs as a single class
with numerous Mark Sets. There are two limitations in this class structure: the maximum number of Mark
Sets is 100 and the maximum number of active (i.e. not deleted) students is 150. She created the following
21 Mark Sets: As she began each new trimester, this
teacher zero-weighted the prior Mark Sets in the Combined Report. In this way, the older sets did not get included in the current reported grade. Since MarkBook can generate and store up to 10 sets of comments per student per Mark Set, and ten more for a Combined Mark
Sets report, she
had ample ability to use MarkBook for the anecdotal portion of the report as well. In this kind of example, we recommend keeping
separate attendance lists and seating plans for each subject. Click on Class in the upper menu bar, select Class Description, edit the appropriate buttons, and Save.
Now you will be able to make and edit independent attendance forms and seating
plans for each Mark Set.
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