Our FAQs are organized by category:
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- Grady Profile
- Support (including telephone and email technical support and an automatic update service) are available to customers with an active maintenance agreement. The first year's maintenance agreement is included in the purchase price of a Grady Profile license (except for special cases as noted on the Price List). Subsequent yearly extensions are available.
- Other Products
- Yes. If you have a problem, we want to help you solve it. Just send an eMail to support@aurbach.com. You can also reach us by phone at 1–800–774–7239.
TopJust a few. First of all, remember that we can’t see what you’re seeing. So if you can arrange it, phoning while you are in front of your computer can often make things easier.
Also, it helps save time if you know what the basic facts about the computer you’re using ( Windows or Macintosh? Operating system version — XP, 2000, OS X, OS 9? Memory? Disk space? Networking environment?). The more we know about your situation, the better chance we have of helping you.
Try to jot down what happened before calling. If you got an error message, we’ll want to know which one you received and what you were trying to do when it happened. It isn’t unusual for an error to only occur in a particular sequence of actions. If you can tell us what that sequence was, we have a better chance of duplicating your problem. And it is really hard to fix problems that we can’t duplicate.
Don’t forget our documentation. We spend a lot of time and effort making our manuals and on-line help clear, useful and interesting to read. Take advantage of it. (And if you’ve been unimpressed with the documentation from other products, we hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised with what you find.)
Please remember — there are no dumb questions. We will always treat you and your question or problem with respect.
TopNever! Please understand our telephone policies:
- We won't subject you to an automated phone system.
- You have a right to talk to a real human being. As long as someone is available, a real person will answer the phone.
- If no one is available, you'll get our voice-mail. Please leave us a message — we return phone calls. Please speak slowly, include your area code, and let us know the best time to reach you.
- We will never put you on hold to answer another phone call.
- We're often available nights and weekends, so don't be surprised if you call at an odd hour (expecting a machine) and get a human being instead.
Yes, of course. Please share them with friends.
Yes. We offer on-site training for all of our products. Other training programs, such as Train-the-Trainer Workshops, etc. are available by request.
More information is available about training options. Pricing information is available in our Price List. Please call or eMail (sales@aurbach.com) for further information.
Products may be returned for any reason for 30 days from the date of sale. All returns (including products delivered by download) are subject to a 15% restocking charge. Shipping charges (if any) cannot be refunded.
To initiate a return, please contact Aurbach & Associates (support@aurbach.com or 1-800-774-7239).
At Aurbach & Associates, we believe that different assessment strategies and techniques are needed to meet different goals. For example, traditional testing strategies (such as multiple-choice and short answer) are useful for measuring factual knowledge. And traditional standardized testing is an easily-quantifiable technique for accountability purposes.
But our children need more than knowledge — they need higher-order thinking skills, the ability to adapt to change, to solve problems, to perform and produce products valued by society, to innovate and to collaborate. Traditional testing is not particularly successful in assessing abilities in these areas.
And teachers need assessment techniques that can provide immediate, supportive feedback. Curriculum, instruction and assessment are intimately related in the classroom because assessment is the tool needed to determine whether the presentation of curriculum was successful and to individualize instruction so that every student can reach the bounds of his or her potential. Standardized testing does not accomplish these goals and could not do so even if the results were available immediately instead of months later.
For the goals of assessing student capabilities beyond the area of factual knowledge; for providing feedback to the educational process in the classroom; for providing the guidance needed to individualize instruction to assure each student of achieving their potential — for these purposes, we believe that alternative assessment is an essential part (perhaps the essential part) of the evaluative mix.
Yes and no.
First, if, as many experts suggest, assessment is "married" to or made inseparable from instruction, it becomes part and parcel of the way teachers work in the classroom. Assessment becomes an instructional strategy for teachers, a learning strategy for students, and one of the most valuable ways for teachers and students to spend classroom time. And, the computer helps mightily with the storing, organizing, and reporting so teachers can concentrate on evaluating student efforts, and working with the students.
Second, what is your priority as a teacher? To minimize your work? Or to help students learn? In a Commentary in the 6/25/97 Education Week, Theodore Sizer of the Coalition of Essential Schools, points out (once again) that learning is a messy business which takes time. Teachers know this, but it's not cool to say so. It is, however, classroom reality. And it is time we come around to the idea that we need to spend time and that it's okay to spend time on alternative assessment because it helps students learn.
Third, the current trends we are seeing in state standards fit extremely well into the alternative assessment model. So if you get started now with alternative assessment, then you will be preparing for the changes that state standards will be making in classrooms all over the country. The result? Introducing standards won't mean lots of extra work later; instead state standards will fit in with what you will already be doing.
They love it! Contrary to popular myth, the experience of our customers demonstrates that parents want to know more about their student's performance and want to understand more about why teachers see their kids as they do.
Remember that the child a parent sees at home and the child a teacher sees at school are often very different people. Alternative assessment provides the data to help parents understand these differences. Often, the content of a student's portfolio (particularly one which shows development over time) can be a key element in bringing teacher and parents together.
Teachers’ Portfolio has been replaced by two portfolio programs:
- Grady Profile 3, for institutional use (School Districts, Teacher Colleges, and others who wish to manage many portfolios).
The original Teachers’ Portfolio introduced in 1998 was basically a special version of Grady Profile, geared to managing many portfolios for an adult population (beyond K–12). Grady Profile is now flexible enough to handle most any customization pre-K–20.
- Toot! ® for personal use (individuals wishing to keep personal portfolios, just for themselves, to fulfill professional requirements or certifications, or to submit as part of a job application).