A nice alternative to a paper gradebook for standards based grading
Community Review for JumpRope
My Take
I really like this product, but the setup was a bit confusing at first. It is not a simple tool. For example, when trying to import standards to my first unit, it took me awhile to get the hang of how to search for Common Core standards. You can't just browse by grade level; you have to search by key words. I figured it out eventually, but it was a bit clunky getting started. Also, there is a lot of work on the front end of this. You have to build your entire unit standard by standard and make sure your assessments match the standards. That's a lot of work, but it's awesome, necessary work. The tool forces you to align your assessments completely to standards and articulate how each standard will be assessed. I thought all of my units already had this--and they mostly did--but when I had to align them in Jumprope, I realized I had some murky spots in my courses.
How I Use It
Our district is moving towards standards based grading and my PLC has been very happy with the changes it has made in the structure of our course. However, we've been very frustrated with the lack of a standards based reporting tool. This product seems to be solving that problem. We needed a way to break free from our traditional grade books and communicate with students and parents about students' proficiency with the standards rather than just assigning grades. This allows us to assign specific standards to our units, provide anecdotal evidence as well as assessment data, and track the progress of our students' learning in an authentic way.