Can I still use standards even if my course doesn't use standards-based grading?

Yes! Standards can be linked to questions on any assessment, regardless of whether the assessment's course uses standards-based grading or conventional assessment-based grading. When creating or editing an assessment, click the "Input" tab to view the questions on your assessment and link standards to them. (A course must first be chosen because the standards available to you depend on the course.)

For courses that use standards-based grading, you must tie standards to questions for results to affect student grades. Student grades are based entirely off of their performance on questions tied to standards. How a student performed overall on any given assessment doesn't matter; it's their performance on standards-aligned questions that counts.

For courses that use conventional assessment results for grading, grades will not be influenced by standards in any manner. However, it may still be helpful for you to link questions to standards. This allows for greater analysis of student performance, both on single assessments and on a larger, school- or course-wide level via the Analysis page.

To analyze standard results on an individual assessment (regardless of the course's grading system), click the "Analysis" tab. You can use the "Breakouts & Filters" below the chart to view and breakout data in different ways.