In the Summit Learning Program, assessment of and for learning occurs with three instruments: the Cognitive Skills Rubric, the Proficiency Rubric, and Focus Areas Assessments.
Summit grades are calculated based on components in each course. English, Social Studies, and Science are composed of Focus Areas and Projects.
Math has an additional third component, Concept Units. Students’ course grades comprise their grades on these components. (This resource further explains Summit math scoring.)
Focus Areas
Focus Areas are dedicated to Content Knowledge—the facts and information needed to understand the world. Students learn this content at their own pace on the Summit Learning Platform.
Content Knowledge is assessed via
Content Assessments (i.e., quizzes) on the Summit Learning Platform. Students take these whenever they personally feel ready.
Because we value mastery most, students receive full credit when they pass an assessment (8/10 questions correct). Their specific score does not affect their grade
. If a student does fail, they will make a plan with their coach and teacher to learn the material and try again. Because we are most concerned with mastering a concept, the number of attempts does not affect a student’s grade.
Students are assessed on two types of Focus Areas:
- Power Focus Areas
are the most essential Focus Areas for every course; you must pass them all to pass the course. If you do, 21% is automatically added to your grade.
- Additional Focus Areas
contribute to developing the richest content understanding, but are not essential to the course. By passing an Additional Focus Area, students can add up to 9% to their final grade, depending upon the number of Additional Focus Areas that they pass. Students can pass a course without completing any Additional Focus Areas; however, the maximum grade they can receive is a 91%.
Additionally, courses have Challenge Focus Areas for those who have mastered all Power and Additional Focus Areas. These are for students’ own enrichment, and while Kairos recognizes and celebrates especially curious students who complete Challenge Focus Areas, they do not affect grades.
Projects
Projects assess Cognitive Skills—the higher order thinking skills needed to solve complex problems and succeed in college and beyond. As such, they make up 70% of students’ English, Social Studies, and Science grades. They make up 30% of students’ Math grade because Math courses have fewer Projects.
Cognitive Skills scores are determined by a three-step process:
1. For a given project, each Cognitive Skill is scored on a scale of 0-8, with 4 indicating high-school readiness and 6 indicating college-readiness.
2. The overall Cognitive Skills score is based on a weighted average, using
only the highest score for each Cognitive Skill.
3. Your student’s overall Cognitive Skill score is turned into a percentage.
Cognitive Skills are scored on the same rubric across subjects (interdisciplinary). For example, a student should be practicing “Oral Presentation” in both History and Science classes. The rubric is also the same across grades (longitudinal). An excellent public speaker in 6th grade looks different than an excellent public speaker in 10th grade. Using the
Cognitive Skills Rubric lets us measure growth over time. If a student scores a “4” on the rubric in 6th grade, they would earn 100%; but if they don’t grow at all by 8th grade, then that same performance would only be an 85%.
If students work hard during school, they should be able to finish all projects in a timely manner. However, if they do not submit a project on time or if the project is missing at least one essential component, it will be considered overdue. Overdue projects trigger additional support from teachers, required remediation before or after school, homework, and potentially a call home.
Concept Units
Concept units are unique to math courses. Through them, students develop conceptual understanding by applying content knowledge to a sequence of short, rich math tasks. At the end of each Concept Unit, students take a performance task to assess their mastery of the concept. Each Concept Unit is graded on a scale of 1-5 and make up 40% of a student’s grade.