This checklist lists the steps involved in implementing Ascend as an instructor or someone else who is playing the role of “Class Lead.” This checklist is relevant to you if someone else at your college or university invited you to their Ascend Community. If there aren’t any Ascend Communities at your college or university yet, consider starting one as a Community Lead.
Community Leads can customize a google doc version of this checklist to share with teachers.
- If someone invited you to their Ascend Community, you’ll get an email from support@perts.net with the subject “You have an invitation to PERTS.” Check the name and email address of the person who invited you to make sure it’s someone you trust.
- Click the sign in link in your email or visit copilot.perts.net.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to create your PERTS account and join the Ascend Community.
- Use the navigation bar on the left to move between pages. Use the support text and widget if you have questions.
- Click Classes in the sidebar.
- If you don’t see your Classes, create a Class for every class where you plan to implement Ascend. If you already see your Classes, keep going!
- For each Class, click the Students button to access your Roster.
- Your Roster should have a unique identifier for each student in your class (we recommend student email addresses). If your Roster is empty or doesn’t reflect your current enrollment, update it.
- Click Schedules in the sidebar
- Review the schedule to see when each of your surveys is scheduled. If survey dates aren’t set for your classes or the schedule doesn’t work for you, you can update the survey dates or ask your Community Lead for support.
- You’ll get an email reminder with survey instructions each survey week, but it’s a good idea to make a note in your calendar too.
When it’s time to survey students, you’ll get an email reminder from PERTS with your survey instructions. Alternatively, you can follow the instructions below.
- Click Surveys in the sidebar.
- If needed, click Preview Survey to review the survey.
- Click Survey Instructions for recommendations about how to introduce the survey to your students. The instructions also include Class Participation Codes that students will need to access the correct survey for each class.
- Reserve 10 minutes of class time and follow the Survey Instructions. Specifically, instruct students to visit perts.me, enter the Class Participation Code, then their unique identifier to complete the survey.
For high-quality feedback, try to get responses from at least 80% of your students each survey cycle. The Participation tab shows which students submitted surveys so that you can arrange make-ups for those that didn’t or award credit to those who did.
- Click Participation in the sidebar.
- Click View by Student. Select your Class and survey dates, then click View.
- Follow up with students as needed to ensure they complete the survey.
- If students complete the survey in a given week, your new reports will be ready by 10 am Pacific (PT) /1 pm Eastern (ET) the following Monday.
- Before accessing your report, read our suggestions for using reports.
- Access and review your reports.
- Repeat steps 4–8 to see what’s working for you and your students.
Questions? Email support@perts.net