Instructional Design: Needs Assessment

Whether teachers like it, accept it, or not, electronic communication is here to stay, so it’s essential that educators keep current.  Students are becoming more connected to the world through various methods of electronic communication: cell phones, voice mail, instant messenger, text messaging, email, blogs, chat rooms, and discussion boards.  Even the adult population in America is becoming more and more connected, as people are accustomed to checking email, reading the latest news and sports, and enjoying entertainment and hobbies on the internet.  For many people, the daily routine has changed to incorporate time online.

With ever-increasing connections, teachers need to expand teaching methods and classroom management.  Teachers face pressures from administration to use new technology in the classroom.  Incorporating the use of computers into teaching classroom content can be an exhausting and daunting task.  As a result, many veteran teachers can feel overwhelmed and can easily become techno-phobic.  Yet, what many teachers don’t realize is computer use in the classroom can provide beneficial management assistance that can save hours of an educator’s precious time.  It can also provide better contact between teachers, students, and parents.

The best way to begin to utilize the computer in the classroom is to save time.  If teachers learn to utilize a computerized grade book program, they will find that the computer is an important time-saving tool.  Grade book programs save time by allowing the teacher to gather detailed information about each student without spending large amounts of time hand-calculating the assignments.  As Vockell and Fiore (1993) state, “Note that entering the grades takes about the same amount of time with each system; for every other task, however, the computer provides a considerable savings of time. Not all grade book programs will perform all these tasks, and some will do them more easily than others.”

Time Taken by a Teacher to Calculate Grades by Hand and by Computer for a Class of Thirty Students

Vockell & Fiore (1993)

Grade book programs also allow the teacher to have better contact with students and parents, which is essential in this information age.  Students can see their strengths and weaknesses through comparing their percentages in different categories of work.  With hand-calculated grades, students may only be told their current overall percent.  In the optimal situation, the entire staff of a school building would keep computerized grade books and would make them available online.

Computerized grades are also an efficient way to provide parents with a comprehensive look at their child’s performance.  Most grade programs allow for an easy online posting of progress reports that can be updated frequently.  This feature allows parents and students to get week-by-week grades rather than just one percentage at interim time and one at the end of a quarter.  Administrators place a lot of pressure on teachers to keep in close contact with their students’ parents.  As Vockell and Fiore (1993) had stated, “It is not unusual for a teacher to be asked, with little notice, to supply current averages and grades of individuals or groups of students to counselors, parents, principals, or students. An electronic grade book can provide, at a moment's notice, a complete report on a student's progress in a professional and easy to read format.” Grade book software quickly generates the needed reports and saves the teacher from having to calculate the necessary information by hand.  Rather than lengthy emails or long phone conversations, online grades allow the teacher to give very detailed information to families at whatever hour of the day or night is convenient. 

In the optimum situation, all the teachers in a high school building would use grade book software.  With all of the benefits offered by utilizing these programs, teachers should feel compelled to seek them out.  In this ideal world, teachers should be motivated to educate themselves in how to use one.  If this seems like an unrealistic goal, then another ideal situation would be for administrators to take steps to encourage or require the use of the software.

Unfortunately the actual situation at Mentor High School, is far from ideal.  Despite the obvious advantages of computerized grading, there are only five teachers out of over 100 who use grade book programs to place scores online.  Given a lack of knowledge on the potential assistance that software can give, teachers are not purchasing and using of these programs through self-discovery.  This lack of use needs to change to meet demands of parents, administrators, and students. 

Why is there such a large gap between the ideal situation, where the entire teaching staff uses a grade book program, to the reality, where only 5% of the faculty at Mentor High School use one?  The majority of the teachers at Mentor High would state that a computerized grade book increases the workload, since teachers have to learn to use the software. Plus, faculty members would still be required to keep a print grade book.  So why should student scores then have to be entered into the computer as well?  Educators frequently use the lack of time as the first reason given for not trying or incorporating something new.  Yet the statistics stated earlier demonstrate that using a program will actually save a great deal of time. 

There is a major difference in the beliefs of the work involved in using a grade book program versus it's true time-saving benefits.  This misperception creates a huge gap between the ideal situation and reality, and the only way to lessen this deficit is through instruction.  Teachers are currently lacking the knowledge of the benefits of computerizing their grade books.  If they were instructed in the features and time-benefits, more of the MHS faculty would gain the motivation to learn new skills to adopt the use of grade book software. Many of the technophobes need encouragement, so teaching small groups of educators, will allow word-of-mouth to spread.  Teachers need to be reassured that this is simple, and it saves time. 

While this software is fairly easy to use for someone who's computer-literate, many members of the faculty would find learning the program to be daunting.  Most of the staff members lack the skills to begin to use Gradekeeper.  For teachers who have never used a grade book program, the settings and preferences can seem overwhelming.  While staff members are at least minimally proficient at basic computer usage, they lack the intrinsic motivation.  Also the staff members' lack of self-confidence in their computer skills prevents them from learning the program even when the school purchases it for them.

The lack of motivation and skills was evident last year, when administrators changed the way interim and quarter grades are submitted.  Previously, the school used 1970's technology.  Whenever grades or interims were due, every students' grade and comment codes had to be bubbled by hand on a scan sheet.  Last year, Mentor got rid of the scan sheets, made sure every classroom had a computer, and had teachers enter grades into the school management system, Pentamation. The faculty needed to learn the address of the Pentamation website to log in.  Each staff member entered his/her last name and email password and the system would open up.  Teachers needed to gain knowledge of how to navigate to one tab, click on their class and enter the grades.  The skills involved in this procedure were far less complicated than using the district's email system.

Just telling the staff the steps in the process didn't work.  So many teachers complained that the district technology department had to send a technician to sit in the library for two days, so teachers could filter in during their free periods and learn how to do it.  The skills of clicking tabs and selecting files were simple ones that the vast majority of the staff had, but when confronted with a series of unfamiliar steps, they couldn't complete the task without guided instruction.  Gradekeeper uses basic computer skills that the staff members already have.  But key skills in learning Gradekeeper are lacking, like:  the skill of following directions to learn a new program, the skill of using a manual for self-instruction, and the skill of trial and error to learn something new.  Given those limitations, the staff needs a program of instruction before they will use a computerized grade book.

Once groups in the staff begin to use the online grade book, more reluctant teachers will begin to hear positive feedback, similar to testimonials found on the Gradekeeper website:

“This is simply the best product I've used. It does EXACTLY what it's supposed to, makes my life as a teacher that much easier. It's what I've been searching for. Thank you for making a product that doesn't force me to spend countless hours trying to figure out how to use it and how to get the reports I need. (Kenny Herring)”

“I learned the program in thirty minutes and posted grades to the web in another 30 minutes. (Rick Horas)”

“One of our school board members would like to see us use the Gradekeeper student scores report as our school's report card. She was impressed with the way it broke down the grade into categories so that parents can instantly see their child's strengths and weaknesses. (Bob Francis)”

“You have written a fantastic program! Never has grade keeping been so easy. Since I am now so organized, my students always know what grade they have earned and work harder than ever to improve. When I print and hand out the missing assignments, students, who were apathetic in the past, carry their little missing assignment notice with them until the assignments are completed. Parents are constantly informed about their children's progress with a print out of the student scores. (Marsha Carey)”

Why Gradekeeper?  According to the Gradekeeper website, there are 100 schools districts and 3,000 individual schools already using the program.  The company offers frequent, free updates of the software and their website records feedback from users.  The program is inexpensive, only $20 for a teacher to purchase or $100 for a school building site license.  There is also an active community of learners that can be relied on for advice.  Almost 500 educators are members of the Yahoo Gradekeeper discussion group, available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gradekeeper/.  

Gradekeeper also has settings and automated functions that generate reports that teachers need.  The program can display individual grade sheets and generate lists of missing assignments for absent students.  It allows the user to sort students by name, student number, or grade.  It offers a choice in the drop down-menu to “Export to Web.”  This will automatically convert the files into html, creates an index, and is easy to upload to a server.  Finally, there are many more advanced functions for a teacher to explore as he/she becomes more proficient in using Gradekeeper.

Word-of-mouth will not be enough to encourage more and more teachers to use the program.  Instruction in how to operate the program will also be necessary.  Well-written self-guided instruction, will allow teachers to learn the program at their own pace.  The goal is to have the untrained teachers learn the basic operation of the program, and go from having no computerized grading to having them generate grade reports and post online grades.

The specific goal:  The teachers will be able to use Gradekeeper software to perform basic grading functions and generate reports. 

Through learning how to use Gradekeeper, teachers can become more relaxed and familiar with the possibilities created by using computers more in the schools.  Perhaps, this will make educators more curious and may lead to content-relevant technology use in classroom instruction.  Teachers will discover that grade programs save a great deal of time.  The time saved could then be spent on improving classroom instruction or providing help and intervention to struggling students.  But more importantly, through using this program, teachers can create a better connection with students and their parents.  The more the teacher, parents, and students know about graded work, the more all of them can work together to strengthen academic areas of weakness.  And isn’t improving students’ learning the goal of all stakeholders in the education system?  

References

Vockell, E, & Fiore, D. (1993). Electronic grade books: What current programs can do for teachers. Clearing House. 66:3, 141-145. Retrieved June 16, 2005, from the Professional Development Collection on EBSCO database (9705041248).

What people are saying? (n.d.). Gradekeeper. Retrieved June 15, 2005, from http://www.gradekeeper.com/user-quotes.htm.

Yahoo Groups. Gradekeeper.  Retrieved June 16, 2005 from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gradekeeper/.

Portfolio Home                          Instructional Design Intro                                  Next

Last Update: July 1, 2005

Contact: missljscharf@yahoo.com