WHS 21: Interview with Jeff Schmitz of Cognitius | The Wired Homeschool

WHS 21: Interview with Jeff Schmitz of Cognitius

December 8, 2010 in Podcast with http://www.thewiredhomeschool.com/?p=58">View Comments

This week I’m happy to feature an interview with Jeff Schmitz, the creator or Cogniti.us.

Jeff joined me over Skype and discussed his excellent homeschool planning system.

Please remember to “Like” this podcast on Facebook by going to http://www.thewiredhomeschool.com/facebook

Next week I plan to provide a review of 4 browsers that you can use on your Mac or Windows computer.

If you’d like to leave feedback about this or any other episode you can call and leave a voice mail by calling 518-290-0228, send email to wiredhs [at] gmail [dot] com, or leave a comment on the blog. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter: @jwilkers.  Also follow the podcast on Twitter: @homeschooldad

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

First time I was interviewed about Cognitius, my homeschool planning product. Enjoy it, and check out the wired homeschool podcast and blog.

Grading Formulas

Scholaric allows multiple grading formulas for your student's report card.

The default formula is point weighted.  Using this formula, the score expression you enter defines the weight for each lesson.

For example, a lesson scored as 28/30 would have three times the weight as one scored as 7/10.  The grade average in this case would be 35/40 = 87.5%

If you would like to weigh a lesson more, you can give it more points.  A lesson scored as 70/80 is worth ten times one entered as 7/8.

A reminder - when you enter scores as a percentage, like 75, it is a shortcut for 75/100.  This may carry a more weight than you wish.

Using the menu on the report card, you can also select unweighted formula.  Unweighted counts each lesson as equal.  In our example, the two scores of 93.3% and 70% average out to 81.7%

Unweighted grades are appropriate when you value all lessons about the same.

In some cases, neither of these formulas fit.  For example, in our math program, we have about 100 facts, and a lesson with about 40 problems.  If we use point weighted, the facts are worth two and a half times the lesson and will skew our average.  If we use unweighted, facts are equal to the lesson, which isn't right either.  A third option is time weighted.  This formula weights each lesson by the amount of time allotted to it.  

Using time weighted in our above example, lets say the 28/30 takes 15 minutes and the 7/10 takes 45.  The second lesson is now weighted three times the first, and the score becomes 75.8%  

Happy Planning