Spaces is an assessment platform that makes it easy to capture, assess, and share student growth. It can be used to build a meaningful record of student progress for all stakeholders, empower students to explore, reflect and grow within the classroom, and foster a student-centric approach by connecting parents, educators and students.

Getting An Account

Spaces is currently being piloted in our district. You can contact the Technology Innovation Coordinator for your school to set up a teacher account for you.

Setting up and organizing your class

Once your account is created, you will need to set up your first Spaces class by completing the following steps:

• Create your class by navigating to your class list and clicking on the big blue "+ Add Class" button in the bottom left.
  
  
• Decide on your class structure by mindfully creating spaces within your class to meet your goals.
  • We recommend starting with:
    • One "class space" for announcements and classroom discussion
    • One "individual space" for a catchall portfolio for student-generated learning artifacts.

• Add curriculum standards to your account by navigating to your Curriculum Tag Set Account Settings, clicking on the blue "Add Curriculum Tag Sets" button in the center of the screen, and using the tool to choose which tags you would like to add. 
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• Add your students by clicking on the "People" tab at the top of your new class and clicking on the "Invite Students".
  • From there, you have three ways to invite your students.
  • Students will be able to create a spaces account with their SD22 email address, or link the account to their @sd22learns.ca email address by choosing the "Login with Google" option. 
  • If you are in a primary classroom or would just like your students uploaded manually, please contact Technology Innovation Coordinator for your school.

• Create your first post by following this handy guide.
  
  
• Add your families when you are ready.
  • Use Spaces' great family engagement resources to communicate your intentions to your families. 

STUDENT ACCESS AND SUBMISSIONS​

Help students sign in to Spaces:

• Ask students to navigate to ca.spacesedu.com.
  • ​​From here students can either "Login with Google" or use the username and password that they created when they accepted the invite to join your class. 
  • A QR code login option is currently being developed, and should be ready for September 2022.

Help students capture their learning:

• Depending on how you created your assessment prompt (see the section above for more info on creating assessments) students will need to either:
  • Access a post that you created in a specific space and include their submissions in a comment. 
  • Create a post in a specific space that you have indicated using the "+ Create" button.
  • Click on the "​Activities" tab at the top of the screen, find the activity that you have created, and click on "Get started".

PROVIDING FEEDBACK TO STUDENTS

There are a few ways to provide feedback to your students in Spaces: 

• Using a teacher-generated post :​
  • Create a post in any individual space that prompts students to respond with a comment.
    • During this creation process you can tag the post with any curricular competencies that you have added to your account.
  • Reply to each student's comment with formative feedback. 
    
    
• Using a student-generated post :
  • Instruct students to create a post in a specific space using the blue "+ Create" button. ​. 
  • Access this space to view student submissions and provide formative feedback via a comment.
  • You can also optionally tag each post with a specific curricular competency. 
    • This will help you easily access artifacts based on competency in the future. 
• Using an activity:
  • Create an activity by clicking on "Activities" in the top navigation bar and then clicking on the "+ Create" button. 
    • You cannot yet tag an activity with a curricular competency at the time of creation (but you should be able to in September of 2022).
  • Instruct students to complete the activity and submit their work. 
  • Review each submission and provide formative feedback via a comment.
  • Publish the posts individually or in bulk.
  • ​You can also optionally tag each post with a specific curricular competency. 
    • This will help you easily access artifacts based on competency in the future. 

Creating a Point of Progress

Content in Spaces can easily be used to generate points of progress. Please note that the activity creation and assessment workflow will be undergoing a significant upgrade during the summer of 2022 which will make creating a point of progress using an activity even easier. ​
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Please note that in order for your families to see your points of progress you need to ensure that:

1. The contact information for your families has been added to Spaces. ​​​​
2. You have setup "Family Access" for the space containing your points of progress to be either "Visible" or "Active".
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You can create a point of progress in Spaces using:

• A teacher-generated​ post :​
  • Create a post in any individual space that prompts students to add their submission via a comment.
    • Ensure that you tag the post with any curricular competencies related to this learning artifact. 
  • Reply to each student's reflective comment with your strength-based feedback that includes proficiency language. 
    
    
• A student-generated post:
  • Instruct students to create a post in a specific individual space using the blue "+ Create" button. 
  • Access this space to view student submissions and comment with your strength-based feedback that integrates both the specific curricular competencies addressed and the proficiency level displayed by the student in the artifact.  ​
  • You can also optionally tag each post with a specific curricular competency. 
    • This will help you easily access artifacts based on competency in the future. 
      
      
• Using an activity:
  • Create an activity by clicking on "Activities" in the top navigation bar and then clicking on the "+ Create" button. 
    • Ensure that you assign the activity to an individual space.
    • You cannot yet tag an activity with a curricular competency at the time of creation (but you should be able to in September of 2022).
  • Instruct students to complete the activity and submit their work. 
  • Review each submission and comment with your strength-based feedback that integrates both the specific curricular competencies addressed and the proficiency level displayed by the student in the artifact.  ​​
  • Publish the posts individually or in bulk.
  • ​You can also optionally tag each post with a specific curricular competency. 
    • This will help you easily access artifacts based on competency in the future. 

Once you have completed your point of progress, it should look something like this:

FURTHER LEARNING

If you would like to dig deeper into Spaces, check out this "Spaces for Teachers" ​video series:

For further help/questions, please reach out to your school Technology Innovation Coordinator.