An Updated and Enhanced Edition is Available!
About the Courseware
Copyright: 2020 | Pages: 1,080
Authors: Nita Rutkosky; Audrey Roggenkamp, Pierce College Puyallup; and Ian Rutkosky, Pierce College Puyallup
The Benchmark Series is designed for students to develop a mastery skill level in Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint. Its graduated, three-level instructional approach moves students to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information. Multi-part, projects-based exercises build skill mastery with activities that require independent problem solving, which challenge students to execute strategies they will encounter in today's workplace.
Complete course content is delivered in the Cirrus learning environment through a series of scheduled assignments that report to a grade book to track student progress and achievements.
Table of Contents
Getting Started
Microsoft® Word
Unit 1. Editing and Formatting Documents
1. Preparing a Word Document
2. Formatting Characters and Paragraphs
3. Customizing Paragraphs
4. Formatting Pages and Documents
Unit 2. Enhancing and Customizing Documents
5. Inserting and Formatting Objects
6. Managing Documents
7. Creating Tables
8. Applying and Customizing Formatting
Microsoft® Excel
Unit 1. Preparing and Formatting Worksheets
1. Preparing an Excel Workbook
2. Inserting Formulas in a Worksheet
3. Formatting a Worksheet
4. Enhancing a Worksheet
Unit 2. Enhancing the Display of Workbooks
5. Moving Data within and between Workbooks
6. Maintaining Workbooks
7. Creating Charts and Inserting Formulas
8. Adding Visual Interest to Workbooks
Microsoft® Access
Unit 1. Creating Tables and Queries
1. Managing and Creating Access Tables
2. Creating Relationships between Tables
3. Performing Queries
4. Creating and Modifying Tables in Design View
Unit 2. Creating Forms and Reports
5. Creating Forms
6. Creating Reports and Mailing Labels
7. Modifying, Filtering, and Viewing Data
8. Exporting and Importing Data
Microsoft® PowerPoint
Unit 1. Creating and Formatting Presentations
1. Preparing a PowerPoint Presentation
2. Modifying a Presentation and Using Help and Tell Me
3. Formatting Slides
4. Inserting Elements in Slides
Unit 2. Customizing and Enhancing Presentations
5. Creating Tables, SmartArt Graphics, Charts, and Photo Albums
6. Using Slide Masters and Action Buttons
7. Applying Custom Animation and Setting Up Shows
About Cirrus
Cirrus is the next-generation learning solution for developing skills in Microsoft Office. Cirrus seamlessly delivers complete course content in a cloud-based learning environment that puts students on the fast-track to success.
Students can access their content from any device anywhere, through a live internet connection. Cirrus is platform independent, ensuring that students get the same learning experience whether they are using PCs, Macs, or Chromebook computers.
Cirrus provides access to all the Benchmark Series content, delivered in a series of scheduled assignments that report to a grade book to track student progress and achievement.
Dynamic Training
Cirrus for the Benchmark Series delivers interactive assignments to guide student learning.
- Watch and Learn Lessons include video and text content explaining how to perform the chapter activities,
and a short quiz that allows students to check their understanding of the content. - Guide and Practice Tutorials provide interactive, guided training and measured practice.
- Hands On Activities enable students to complete the chapter activities in provided data files, compare their solutions against a Completed Skill model answer image, and submit their work for instructor review.
Section Review and Assessment
Section review and assessment activities in the Cirrus learning environment reinforce and assess student learning.
- Multiple-choice Features Review exercises assess student comprehension and recall of program features, terminology, and functions.
- Skills Exams evaluate students' ability to complete
specific tasks. Skills Exams are completed live in the Office application and are automatically scored by Cirrus. - Exercises and Projects provide opportunities for students to further develop and demonstrate skills covered in each chapter and unit. Exercises and Projects are completed live in the Office application and are automatically scored. Detailed feedback and how-to videos help students evaluate and improve their performance.
- Multiple-choice Concepts Exams assess student understanding of the chapter content.
Instructor Support
Cirrus tracks students' step-by-step interactions, giving instructors visibility into students' progress and missteps.
With Exam Watch, instructors can remotely join a virtual, live, skills-based exam with student-a helpful option for struggling students who need one-to-one coaching, or for distance learners.
Accessed through Cirrus and visible only to instructors, the Instructor Resources for the Benchmark Series include the following support:
- Planning resources, such as lesson plans, teaching hints, and sample course syllabi.
- Delivery resources, such as activity answer keys and online images and templates.
- Assessment resources, including live and annotated PDF model answers for section work and review and assessment activities, rubrics for evaluating student work, and section-based exam banks in RTF format.