I'm looking to create my own grade book to track student progress over time. My school district refuses to provide an adequate grade book solution for the competency-based assessment model which we now use. My frustrations have led me to the decision to just create my own. I can create a spreadsheet that shows each assignment, which competencies it addresses, and student performance with respect to each competency. What I'm looking for is a way to bring together all the scores for each competency. There are over a dozen competencies to address at grade level and each assignment will be focused on just a small number of competencies. Over the course of, say, 10 assignments, competency #1 will only be assessed in five of those, and others will come up more frequently and others less often. I want to be able to see that Jimmy has struggled initially with only a 1 on the first three instances this competency was assessed but on the fourth, he scores a 2, and on the fifth, he scores a three. It will vary how often each competency will come up over the course of those 10 assignments.
So my question is what formulas do I need to learn about in order to accomplish this?
There are many ways to accomplish this. I would suggest you learn pivot tables. You can see the average score for each assignment per student, see their highest and lowest grades and so much more. You can find an example attached. I would suggest, just start building something, when you figure out how you want it to look, and its exact functionality, start googling or come back here. 🙂 Good luck, you've got this!
Thank you, Jessica! Pivot Tables! What a revelation! I've reviewed several of Mynda's videos and have created something that is starting to resemble what I imagine. The first two sheets are how I imagined it might look. The next three are my attempts at pivot tables. The competencies terms are: Approaching, developing, proficient, and extending. How can I keep the values as text or, better yet, as a colour?
Cross-posted here:
Hi Jeffrey,
The attached workbook contains a possible solution to your question. I created one query and loaded it to the Data Model. From there, I used a DAX measure to "calculate" the assessment. That allows you to create pivot tables with textual values for assessments in the Value field.
You can be creative and make pivot tables from different perspectives, limited only by your imagination.
Riny
Thank you, Riny! The DAX measure that you added is something that I had not encountered before, but I looked it up and I think I understand what it is doing. One more tool to add to my toolbox! I don't work with Excel often but I know what sorts of things Excell can accomplish so when I have a problem that I think a spreadsheet can solve, I just search for the answer to learn how to do it.
I'll keep tinkering and may come back with more questions.
Thanks again.
Jeffrey
