The intention of this initiative is to give a short, 10 question assessment on standards previously addressed to make data driven decisions on how instruction needs to be differentiated to meet the needs of the students. It is not intended to be a standardized test, but rather a tool to use for formative assessment and instructional decisions.
The assessments are based on the curriculum pacing guides for each grade level and are created by teachers within the district. Each week, classroom teachers are to analyze the data from these assessments to decide what standards need to be re-addressed to the whole class and which standards need to be re-addressed to only a few students. For this reason, it is important for teachers to understand that the district is not looking at your results as "which teacher did better"? We hate to break it to you, but it's not about you, it's about the KIDS. We are here to help, so if you notice that 18 of your 20 kids missed question #2, call us and we will help you figure out why and how we might be able to help. This is not a summative "I gotcha" test. It is a tool to help us not fall into the state's summative "I gotcha" phrase on the school report card.
The calendar of when progress monitoring is given and in what subject for each school can be found by clicking the picture below. All tests are conducted on FRIDAY unless the school schedules them for another day due to schedule conflicts. The assessments need to be completed before the weekly data meetings that each school should be hosting for P.R.I.D.E.
*Please note: "PM Due" is for the teacher creators of the tests to know that they need to turn the tests for that week in to myself and Dr. Burton.
SIDE NOTE:
PLEASE BE SURE YOU ARE USING RUBICON ATLAS FOR YOUR LESSON PLANNING AS THIS IS WHAT THE TEACHER CREATORS ARE USING TO PULL STANDARDS FOR THE ASSESSMENTS UNLESS YOU EMAIL DR. LARSEN OR DR. BURTON OTHERWISE. THE CREATORS ARE PULLING STANDARDS FROM THE UNIT PRIOR TO THE DATE OF THE ASSESSMENT.
McCormick's link to Rubicon is:
You were sent an email before the holiday break with your username and password. If you don't have it or it won't let you in, let us know.
Click "Browse" and "Curriculum Maps" to see your pacing guide. This summer, we are looking for teachers to help us edit and create units and assessments within this system. Please let us know if you are willing to help with this! ;)
This is how the teacher creators decide what standards to assess:
To make the creation and administration easier for these tests, the district has purchased a subscription to Mastery Connect. The students will take the assessments online and the scores will automatically show in the teacher's "tracker" for the class. It will color code the student's answers for each student as green (mastery), yellow (almost mastery), or red (remediation).
In order for us to do this, each teacher needs to go into your Mastery Connect account and complete the following steps:
First of all, mine doesn't always work in Google Chrome, but it DOES work in Firefox, so you might want to use that browser.
Click on "Trackers" and then "Add Tracker"
Fill in the items for the tracker. (ELEMENTARY/MIDDLE: YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE A DIFFERENT TRACKER FOR EACH SUBJECT YOU TEACH!)
After you click "Create Tracker", it will have you search for each of your students. If you type in their last name, it should bring up your student. Just click on the student that you were searching for and it should add it.
After you have added all of your students, click the "Import Students" button
If you have any problems, there are tutorial videos under the boxes beside your name (sorry, I don't know the proper name for them). If you click on "Online PD", there are tutorials for everything you could possibly think of for this program using it as a teacher. The videos are short (about 3 minutes each)
We will begin online testing February 17 unless we tell you otherwise. I hate to give you a "definite" date and then technology fail us.
If you need help or have any questions, please let us know!
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