Student Orientation

Student Orientation

Materials Required

The materials required are: 

  • Student Roster report listing all students (with their username and password) for each class that will use Classworks 

  • Login card for each student – available with the Roster report (optional) 


Why Classworks?

Here are some suggestions for talking to your students about Classworks: 

Elementary School  

This year, you will get to use Classworks to practice your math and reading skills using fun games and activities on your computer (insert technology of choice). Classworks helps you learn while having fun with technology! And, if you don't understand what you're learning the first time, Classworks will give you different lessons to help you practice until you get it! (Grades 1 - 5) 


Classworks starts you off with a mini-lesson that introduces or reviews a skill with you. Read your mini-lesson carefully! It will help you to do well in your activities. When you finish, Classworks will give you a short quiz. This helps me to know whether or not you understand what the lesson taught you. I expect you to put forth your best effort and have fun!  


Middle/High School  

This year, we will use Classworks to help you be successful and feel good about your performance in math and language arts. What's Classworks? It's an online math and language arts program with lessons, games, and activities to help you gain a deeper understanding of what you are learning in class. 


You can work at your own pace so that you are successful in mastering skills that you personally need more practice on. Even better, Classworks allows us to work together to check on your progress every step of the way. If you're having a hard time with a concept, we can address it immediately. Classworks practice includes games and other activities that offer a review of specific skills, practice, and then a short quiz at the end. You can see your progress immediately. I'm excited to work with you using Classworks to help you achieve success!


What Tasks To Cover

Teach your students how to: 

  • Access Classworks from a school computer 

  • Log in to their specific Student page 

  • Log out of Classworks 

  • Choose, complete, and exit an assessment and/or an assignment 

  • Monitor/Check on their progress for an assignment 

  • Find and use the My Scores Dashboard to view progress


Access Classworks



Have your students double-click on the Classworks icon on their computer or navigate to where your district/school posted the URL.

Login

Hand each student their Login card with their username and password that you retrieved from the Student Roster Report. To log in to Classworks, they must enter:


Username

  • This was assigned by your school administrator 

  • Limited to 20 alphanumeric characters

Password

  • This was assigned by your school administrator 

  • Case sensitive 

  • Minimum of 6 alphanumeric characters


Student Homepage

Once students have signed in, their student page will display, “Welcome, [name].” Depending on the student's classes and assignments, the student will see four sections; Instruction, Assessments, My Scores, and Goal Tracker. If they have an active Progress Monitoring session, they will see the option to take their weekly probes at the top in green.


  • Clicking on Start Mathematics/Start Language Arts in the Progress Monitoring box will bring the student to their weekly CBM probe for that subject. Once completed, this box will disappear until the next weekly probe is available.

  • Clicking on Begin an Assignment takes the student to the Instruction screen. From here, the student can select Lessons Just for Me (their ILP assignments) or they can select a class (if more than one) and an assignment to work on. 

  • Clicking on Take a Test takes the student to the Assessment screen. From here, the student can select to start the Classworks Assessment or select a class (if more than one) and a test to work on. 

  • My Scores allows students to view their overall progress after clicking View Progress. 

  • Goal Tracker allows students to create and manage their current goals.

  • After leaving the Dashboard, students can use the Navigation Bar under the Classworks Logo to go back to a previous screen instead of the browser's Back button.

Student Resources

The Student Resources includes a dictionary, calculator, notepad, hundreds grid, and number line and can be utilized by students when working in activities in the Student Module. By default, the resources are available for all students. See below to see how to disable resources and tools for students.


Once the student has launched a unit or activity, after clicking on the drop-down menu with their name, they can click on the Resources grid icon to access the available resources.

Student Resources are only available when working on Unit Mini-Lessons, Activities, and Quick Quizzes, as well as Skills Snapshot Assessments. They are not available for Classworks Assessments, Custom Assessments, or Progress Monitoring.

  • The Dictionary provides students with the ability to manually type in specific words to view the dictionary entry including definitions, parts of speech, pronunciation, and auditory support. ESL students can also view a Spanish translation for words entered. 

  • The Calculator provides students with a resource to assist with basic math calculations. 

  • The Notepad provides students with a resource to journal or discuss their work in Classworks and also to assist them with making notes on content as they learn new things. 

  • The Hundreds Grid provides students with the opportunity to discover relationships between numbers, explore and recognize numerical patterns, while developing number sense and conceptual understanding. You can also access it here! 

  • The Number Line provides students with a resource to construct mathematical meaning and number sense, understand the relative magnitude and position of numbers, as well as visualize operations. You can also access it here!

Enabling/Disabling Student Resources

All of the student resources are enabled by default, giving students access to all of them. A teacher or administrative user may elect to disable certain resources if they choose. They can then go in and enable them, as well.

  • Teachers can do this from the Classes tab or Individualized Learning tab by clicking on a student's name.

  • The Student Details window pops up. Within the Student Settings section, they can check or uncheck next to the resources they want the student to be able to access.




All resources are available for students when launching the tools independently through the Resources and Tools button on their dashboard. Inside of units/activities, students only have access to the resources that are enabled.

My Scores

Point out the view progress and briefly explain: 

  • Students have the ability to monitor and share their own progress through a variety of widgets. They can also view their time on task and set new goals/targets allowing them to take ownership of their learning. See the page in under Classworks 101 in the Resource Center: Student 'My Scores' Dashboard for more information. 

  • Students can earn achievements in each subject: There are two types of achievements: Shields and Characters. Shields are earned by accumulating time-on-task. Characters are earned by achieving a high overall mastery percentage. See the page in under Classworks 101 in the Resource Center: K-8 Student Badges for more information.

Complete an Assignment or Assessment

Depending on what you have assigned to your students (i.e., an assessment or assignment) demonstrate how to access, complete, and exit out of it. 

  • Have them click on the assessment or assignment button. 

  • Briefly describe the information and buttons that appear on this screen. Each activity provides the option to Start, watch a video example on completing the activity, or listen to the written instructions.


For assessments, explain the following (Note: You may want to show a sample on your projector):

  • The purpose of the assessment 

  • Your expectations/why they are taking the test (i.e., they need to put forth their best effort so Classworks can determine what skills they need help with). 

  • How and where to enter the security code for District Custom Assessments. 

  • How to navigate through the questions


For assignments/ILP's, introduce the unit structure to the students (Note: You may want to show a sample on your projector): 

  • Explain the purpose and importance of each unit component. 

  • What the student should be learning/getting out of each component. 

  • What data Classworks is collecting (i.e. The mini-lesson is a tutorial – the students should read it carefully because the information covered will help them in the activities and the quiz. The mini-lesson will explain key vocabulary words and will give sample problems. Classworks records how much time the student spends in units/activities.)

  • Direct them to try out a sample assessment or assignment. 

  • Describe the components that they see on the screen. 

  • Have them complete the assessment or assignment. 

  • Verify that they did it correctly. 


Demonstrate how to properly exit their work; describe what happens when this is not done correctly. Have them exit their work correctly. (Reminder: The correct way to exit is to click "Close" in the top-right corner.) 

Note: After completing an assignment, all students should be advised to wait for the rewards/score screen to be certain all of their responses are recorded.

Logout

  • Demonstrate how to log out of Classworks (by clicking Log Out located in the drop-down next to their name in the top-right corner of the window). 

  • Have them log out of Classworks. 

  • If a student is logged into Classworks but is NOT in an activity, the student will be logged out automatically after 2 hours of inactivity. 

  • If a student is in an activity, Classworks will NOT log them out. Time-on-task will continue to accumulate. Therefore, it is very important that a student exits correctly at the end of each session. 



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