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Creating Assessment Plans and Assigning Assessments to Students

How do I get to this page?

  1. Log in to Renaissance.
  2. On the Home page, select Star Custom.
  3. In the header of the Assessment Progress page, select Create/Edit Assessment.
  4. On the Assessments page, select Assign in the row for a published assessment that you want to assign.

    Three assignments in the Published Assessments table, with the Assign link highlighted for each.

    You can also get to this page by selecting New Plan when you are viewing assessment plans you have already created.

Who can assign assessments with default user permissions?

  • District Level Administrators/District Staff: for any class or school in the district
  • School Level Administrators: for any class in their own school
  • Teachers: for any of their own classes

When you assign a Star Custom assessment to students, you are creating an assessment plan. The plan includes the assessment, the students you are assigning it to, and the time frame during which students can take the assessment.

  1. Choose Select Students... to select which students to assign the assessment to.

  2. In the pop-up window, select the schools, classes, and groups you are creating the assessment plan for.

    In the pop-up window, a single school has been selected, and a single class within that school. Instead of assigning the assessment to specific groups of students in the class, it is being assigned to the Whole Class. The Apply and Cancel buttons are at the bottom.

    • District level administrators, district staff, and other personnel assigned to more than one school will need to select schools in the Schools column.

      • Choose Select Schools at the top and then check individual schools to select them, or select All Schools to select all the available schools at once.
      • School level administrators, school staff, and other personnel assigned to only one school will not need to select a school.

        You can search the items in a column by clicking within that column and then typing Ctrl+F or control-F on the keyboard.

    • The default option is to create assessment plans for classes and groups. If you would rather create an assessment plan for all students in a grade, select the CLICK HERE link. This changes the right-hand columns from Classes and Groups to Grades:



      Select the link again to switch back to Classes and Groups.

      If you are creating a plan for classes and groups, check the classes and groups you want to assign the plan to in the Classes and Groups columns.

      • At the top of the Classes column, choose either All Classes (to choose all the classes) or Select Classes (to choose specific classes; check the ones you want in the list).
      • The first choice at the top of the Groups column is Whole Class (or Whole Classes); choose this to plan for the class(es) as a whole. You can also check specific groups that you want to plan for. Under Whole Class, you will see any groups you have created.
      • Teachers planning for classes and groups will only see their own classes and groups.
      • Groups in classes that aren't using Star Custom will not be shown in the list.

      If you are creating a plan for all students in a grade, choose the grade you want to assign the plan to in the Grades column.

      • You can only select one grade.
      • Teachers will only be assigning the plan to their own students who are in the chosen grade.
      Once you have made your choices, select Apply at the bottom of the pop-up window to save them, or Cancel to close the pop-up window without saving your changes.
  3. The Assessment Subject will already be filled in (matching the subject of the assessment you are assigning). Use the Plan when Test is Available to Students drop-down list to choose the timeframe to plan for. You can choose one of the standard weekly timeframes or custom dates by selecting Custom.... (Note that you can have more than one plan for the same dates.)

    The pop-up calendar used to enter custom dates for the assessment. The dates can be selected from the calendar or entered manually in the date fields; the Apply and Cancel buttons are at the top to the right of the date fields.

    If you choose to use custom dates, select the start and end dates from the calendars, then select Apply. You can make the plan as short as one day or as long as 3 weeks.

    Check the settings of the Dates and Times for Star Custom preference. If you select dates that conflict with the preference settings, students may not be able to take a Star Custom assessment on those dates.

    Unlike the process for scheduling an existing assessment, you will not be presented with an opportunity to make further adjustments to the start date or to set an assessment end date; the dates you select here determine when the assessment is available to students.

  4. As you select the students to assign the assessment to, a default name for the assessment plan will be created. You can stick with the default name, or you can enter your own name for the assessment plan in the Assessment Plan Name field.
  5. Once you have entered all the information, select Assign Assessment & Create Plan.

  6. After you select Assign Assessment & Create Plan, you will see a pop-up window where you can review the assessment plan you have set up.

    The pop-up window describes who the assessment is assigned to, the name of the lesson plan, and the dates students can take the assessment. There are also reminders that assessments will appear on students' Home pages on the dates planned, and that teachers can track student completion on the assessment progress view. The Assign Now and Cancel buttons are at the bottom.
  7. If you are satisfied with the assessment plan, select Assign Now to assign it. Otherwise, select Cancel. You will see a message confirming that the assessment has been assigned.

    The confirmation message, stating the class and dates for the assessment; the OK button is at the bottom.

The assessment plan will be scheduled. Once the start date for an assessment plan arrives, students will see the assessment in the Assignments list on their Home page and will be able to take the assessment.

A student assignment list. The student has used the drop-down lists at the top to view all assignments from everyone. The newly-assigned assessment is circled in the list.

The Assignments list may also include students' assignments from other products.

If a student selects the Star Custom assessment and sees a message saying that they cannot take the assessment, check the settings of the Dates and Times for Star Custom preference. If you selected dates that conflict with the preference settings, you will need to have the district administrator or school administrator change them.