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Free download - Metacognition and Student Engagement Rubric

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A good rubric isn't an assessment tool, it's a learning tool. Download this rubric for free to help students develop the vocabulary and skills they need to become reflective, strategic learners. If you're already a SmartRubric user, you can add this rubric to your library by getting it from the Template Library. Just click here and 'add this rubric to my library' . This rubric would be a great starting place for a conversation with a student about their learning during a tutorial, mentoring session or one-on-one meeting. Here's a list of questions you can use right now to elicit meaningful student response to your feedback: General: What is your biggest priority to work on for next time? Why? Explain one specific thing that you are going to do before next time to improve. Why do you think it is going to help? Make a list of small, specific actions you can take next time to improve on a target. What are your goals for next time? What are y

Set up your account and start marking in less than 10 minutes

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Set up your SmartRubric account, add a class full of students, build a custom rubric and create an assessment in less time than you think. I know that as a teacher, your time is really precious. Perhaps you've been putting off getting to grips with SmartRubric because you're swamped with work. I know how it goes. But, did you know that you can completely set up your account, create a custom rubric and start marking real student work in less than ten minutes? For a time investment of just ten minutes, you could be saving hours on time spent marking this term! I recorded a real-time video as I set up a brand new SmartRubric account. I made a rubric for an in-class English Literature assessment, but you could evaluate anything you like. All you need to get started is a SmartRubric account ( get one for free here ), a list of the students in the class that you would like to asses, and a clear idea of the skills or objectives for your assessment. If you haven't a

Upcoming changes to pricing

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In order to keep providing you with a high quality tool for maximising your formative assessment, speeding up your marking and improving your progress data, we're going to have to start asking for a nominal monthly subscription fee. Our valued early adopters - teachers who have signed up before March 31st, 2017 can continue to use SmartRubric for free   forever unless they choose to upgrade to an administrator account  (these will be subject to our new pricing model after the change on March 31st). If you sign up after  March 31st, 2017 will get to try SmartRubric for free for a month, and then in order to continue using SmartRubric you will need to pay £3.50 per month for an individual teacher account , or £5 per user per month for an administrator account. We won't take any payment information when you sign up for the free trial, and will send you a reminder to subscribe a week before we suspend your account. You can reactivate a suspended account any time by subscribing.

New Feature: User submitted rubrics in the Template Library

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We've made it even easier to get high quality rubrics to use with your classes by making some major improvements to the Template Library . Now, not only is it easier to find what you are looking for (rubrics are now grouped by subject and searchable by Key Stage/Grade), but all  users can publish rubrics that they have created to the Template library. Hooray! In this post, I'll cover the features of the new Template library and  how to publish your lovely rubrics to it. Part the first: The new Template Library The new Template Library The new template library has a subject menu, so you can zero in on the rubrics that are likely to be most useful for you. The badge icon lets you know how many rubrics are tagged with that subject. Help us fill them up! A detailed view of a rubric To get a closer look at a specific rubric, just click on it. A detail window will pop up, and from there you can preview the full rubric, copy it into your library or rate it . The gre

Awesome new progress reports!

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The final feature that we planned to implement before the launch (!) at Bett 2017  is complete, and I am maybe even more excited about it than I was about moderation . You now have access to a fully featured query engine that lets you drill down into specific student groups and track progress. You want to compare how Year 11 is performing compared to year 7 versus the whole school? Easy peasy, lemon etc: HOT.  You want to compare how year 7 EAL history students are progressing against literacy objectives with how they are doing in science? You only need to think it and it is so! What's that you say? You want a nice line graph that maps it all out for you against a baseline? Why certainly! Your assistant head prefers raw data so she can make her own infographics? We have you covered. The query engine means you can filter student progress by a whole range of student, subject and skill characteristics. So, if a key group for you is lower income white boys, or G&T bengali

A guide to Department Administrator accounts

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If you are finding SmartRubric useful as an individual teacher, you might not realise how much more  useful it can be if you use it with a department or school. Broadly speaking, within a department or school, you can share student data and look at how students are progressing against key skills across the curriculum. It also gives you the ability to moderate work and communicate directly with your colleagues. This level is an area that we are excited to develop, and we are really interested to hear what you have to say about what would make SmartRubric most useful for you and your department. All you need to do is upgrade your account by going to your Billing Area  and select 'Administrator Subscription'. Decide how many members of your department you want, and create your subscription. You'll need to log out and back in again once you've done this. Once you have administrator rights (you will know because your navigation bar will turn teal and you get some extr

Moderation is here!

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I'm not going to lie, I think moderation might be the feature that I was most looking forward to including in SmartRubric. Like many KS4 and KS5 teachers, I have participated in many epic moderation sessions. We can't really help with this  part of moderation. They all start the same way. The big table. The enormous stack of coursework files next to each seat. There is no kettle, but that is intentional. Fleeing to the staff room at regular intervals on the flimsy excuse of a cuppa is one of the only things that keeps you sane. The jovial, strained tones of your colleagues at the beginning of the session, the grim and aching silence at the end. And the worst part -- the sheer volume of admin. There's keeping track of what everyone gave each piece, and why. There's recording your final mark and the justification for it. There's filling in pro forma after pro forma in snatched moments for days afterwards to prepare your sample. There's the horrifying reali