Tag: Teacher

QuickSchools for Special Education

Leave a comment

QuickSchools is fantastic for managing complex records and reports, such as the files kept for special education students. If you’re looking at how to setup your account to work best, given a handful of special education students – or a whole school body – here are some of the ways that we recommend tracking information.

The Students module can store tons of information - here are a few of the ways in which to use it for Special Education
The Students module can store tons of information – here are a few of the ways in which to use it for Special Education

Managing Records & Files

There are quite a few features that might be helpful for tracking forms, files, and special accommodations. Here are some highlights…

  • Documents – this tab in the Students module is like an online file-folder as it allows  for files to be uploaded and stored online, with the student’s primary record. It’s great for IEPs, 504-plans, or other official files – written accommodations or otherwise.
  • Medical – this tab in the student record is a tidy way to enter student medical information. For situations where there are special accommodations due to allergies, illness, or physical disabilities, the medical tab can be a clear and helpful way to track the information.
  • Custom Fields – this particular section of the student records is super-flexible, so it can be used as a way to make notes on a file. For example, students’ record can have custom fields areas for writing out necessary accommodations, or leaving notes for other teachers about how to work with a student
  • Private Messaging – As a communication system for special education teams, Private Messaging is a very powerful tool. It’s easy to have just one thread for each student’s group of support people. Parents and students can also be included in their special education threads, if needed.

Grading

Because QuickSchools is so flexible, there are quite a few different ways of going about managing grades are reports for special education classes. Here’s some information on the different features in the system that might be helpful.Read More »

Making a Behavior Grading System

Leave a comment

As we head back into Report Card season, we’ve received quite a few requests for help setting up a Behavior/Work Habits/Social Growth grading system. In case you’re wondering the same thing, here are two ideas that we like to recommend when this question comes up.

Idea 1: The No-Credit Behavior Class

This is a nice way to setup a behavior grading system so that appears like a regular class in the student’s record and a teacher’s subject-based grading menu. It’s very convenient, and quite intuitive if you think of behavior/work/social skills as being like a subject for students. That said, it does have some drawbacks in that you need to hide the subject in each student’s transcript so that everything looks neat and tidy. If you’d like, you can set up a No-Credit Behavior class like this…

1. Go to Subjects and make a different Behavior subject for each grade.

Make sure to set the credit hours to 0  – so that it’s really “no credit”! 🙂

2. Enroll students

3. Set up a Subject-Specific Grading Template for the Class.

For this, first go to Setup Report cards, and scroll all the way to the bottom and click “Turn it on” for Subject Specific Grading Criteria. Then, click the new fourth tab in your Report Cards module.

Then, we can create a subject-specific criteria template. First click “Add Template”, then fill in your grading criteria

4. Assign the Template to the Class

Click the subject’s “Assigned Template” line to get a dropdown menu of possible choicesRead More »

Ways to Use Class Discussions

5 Comments

As you may know, Class Discussions was one of the awesome new features we rolled out over this summer. It’s a great platform that allows teachers, students, and parents to discuss topics related to a class in a controlled and safe environment.

To turn on Class Discussions on QuickSchools, Admins go into the Settings → Turn Features On/Off menus. The Class Discussions module is connected to the Homework module, so they are turned on together:

To enable teachers to post updates to their own classes, as well as configure who can post for to others’ classes, head over to the configure menu. Now, as to a few ways to use it…

Announcements

Because Parents, Students, and Teachers connected to a specific class all see the Class Discussions, the module is a great way to get the word out about specific events related to your class. It’s especially well-suited to class-related announcements since your posts can be emailed to students and parents when they are posted.

Blog

Because so much communication is done online now, blogging is one of those useful skills that many teachers want to encourage their students to develop. Because all QuickSchools data (including Class Discussions) is completely private and secure, student work is entirely safe while they practice their skills at writing for an online audience. For example, students could be encourage to rotate at writing a blog post for each week.Read More »