Staffroom’s Assessment Module – Making the Life of an Educator a Little Easier

Since the early 1990s there was a global surge in technology advancements, impacting the way we teach in a classroom. Realistically though, the speed at which the education sector has transformed has not been in sync with technology. Digital technology in the form of online learning and virtual learning environments for school only started filtering through to classrooms recently – and slowly.

In that sense, the education sector is still catching up with other industries, like media, telecommunications and consumer financial services. In fact, according to Conrad Huges (2020), traditional forms of examination have become a symbol of just how slowly schooling systems are transforming. He believes examination, in its existing form, is dated and limited by its ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown many schools into the deep-end, not only disrupting schooling as we know it, especially traditional assessment protocols. Traditional examinations as we know it may change and adapt to the times. But there will always be a need to capture, share and report on assessment activities – regardless of the changing shape or form they may take (Hughes, 2020).

Staffroom’s Assessment Module offers the flexibility needed to lighten the load within all the uncertainties and changes within our schooling system. Automating assessments and reporting, it aids the process of capturing, reporting and sharing through:

• Markbooks to capture assessment results and perform calculations
• Printing or emailing attractive, professional full-colour term reports
• Printing or exporting assessment schedules, summaries and other relevant analytical reports

The Markbook

Staffroom’s assessment module supports a variety of assessment scenarios, including South African CAPS, Cambridge and others. It is the flexibility of markbooks that makes the lives of teachers a little easier. The module enables the creation of markbooks with various combinations of assessment tasks and calculations within them.

Attractive term reports

The term report designer in Staffroom’s assessment module, allows a school to create a report that suits the school, effortlessly. The option to choose and include any results from markbooks, as well as comments and any additional student information makes it easy to present a report with all the content required. School logos and colour photos of the students ensures an attractive report for both parents and students.

Analytics: Reporting on schedules, mark summaries and other data

Choose to display and extract reports in a variety of formats. This makes it easy to aggregate and compare assessment data, while schedules can be created with complex formatting – including government schedule formats.

The Future of Assessments

This year has shown how easily our current systems can be disrupted – and how we may need to adjust to future learning and teaching environments. Some may choose to throw out the old ways of assessment completely. While others may rethink existing assessment processes and adjust them to suit the needs of assessing the relevant skills needed for the future workplace. Regardless of how assessments may change, Staffroom’s Assessment Module and flexible Markbook will continue to offer smoother, less manual processes. Ensuring input results in the most optimal output when it comes to assessing students. Thus, making the life of educators a little bit easier.

Would you like to learn more about Staffroom and our features – get in touch with us today for an obligation free call.

Sources consulted:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/will-covid-19-spell-the-end-for-exams/

https://support.mystaffroom.net/what-is-assess/