Here is why we need teachers

How much difference does two years of education really make? Not to specific taught subjects, but to a child’s overall preparedness for the world?

To find out, I analysed the global results from our 2020 Topical Christmas Quiz. I looked at the average result per year group for each of the Gap Analysis categories. Here’s what I found out.

Do you see it? Two years of mental development has had no impact at all on your students’ knowledge of popular culture. But – just look at the other end of the graph! Knowledge of World Affairs more than doubled, from 20% to 42%. Similar story with Science, Covid-19 and Politics.

Someone is extending these young peoples’ horizons massively beyond movies and hit singles. And, if you are a teacher, I think that someone is you.

Tutorial 9: How to preview quiz questions before you assign

Question stats

If you have been confirmed by your colleagues as a bona-fide member of teaching staff in your school, you can now see a list of all the questions in a quiz, together with the global response statistics for each question, before you assign it.

Why only for confirmed members of staff? It’s just Continue reading →

Tutorial 5: Six very useful Gradebook features

You already know what a gradebook/markbook is. Every teacher grew up with them. The difference with the Yacapaca Gradebook is how much of the work it does for you. In this tutorial I am going to take you through 6 massive time-savers that you quite possibly did not know about.

Access the Gradebook for any student set via the Students menu. Any set that has data will appear in this dropdown; un-assessed sets don’t appear here.

1. Average grades over whatever period you define

Set the first and last dates to what you need, and get an instant average grade. And remember you can Continue reading →

How the Analytics pages fit together

Yacapaca has a dozen different analytics views, depending on exactly what you count as “analytics”. The table below shows the structure.

	Time progression	Block of time	Single assignment
Individual student	5. Evidence 6. Parent reports	Gradebook averages*	Gradebook* Activity log* Detail*
Student Set	7. Progress chart 8. Progression with metadata	4. Progress in topics 2. Quiz analysis	1. Gap Analysis 2. Quiz analysis 3. Analysis whiteboard

9. Pivot Chart (beta) does not quite fit in this table.

*strictly speaking these are Continue reading →

Now toggle quickly between the Activity Log and Detail views

Whilst running this term’s authoring CPD, I started getting really bugged that to get from the Activity Log view to the Detail view, I had to go via the Assignments page and Actions dropdown. We’ve never had a single complaint about this, so maybe it’s just me, but nevertheless, time to do something about it.

So, here is the solution. On the Activity Log page you will now find a direct link to the Detail view…

…and on the Detail view you will now find a direct link to the Activity Log view.

“Results view” has been renamed to “Activity Log” since this screenshot was taken.