Dr. David Hopson
It’s hard to believe that by the time this column is published, it will be October and we’ll already have completed an entire month of the school year. Of course all of the indicators are easily seen – the leaves are changing color, the daylight hours are decreasing, the Big E is over, temperatures are trending down, and everyone has settled into the routines of school. I noticed a number of things as I visited classrooms over the past few weeks. I think one of the most interesting is the fact that our students and teachers have been working diligently, focused on their tasks, and at a consistently good pace starting from the very first day of classes. While this happens every year, it appears to me that over the last 10 years I’ve seen an increased level of effort, work, and starting from day one; and one that is applied even more consistently throughout the entirety of each day. As we move towards reworking curricula to embrace the national common core standards, as we’re held ever more accountable for an increasing number of items (such as health, safety and nutrition—which all impact learning but take place outside of the classroom), and as we do this within the time afforded by the traditional school day and year, it would appear that each and every moment is even more precious than it may have been 20 or 30 years ago.
Of course, part of this change is the requirement for MCAS testing that takes entire days out of the educational process, as well as the need at the district, school, and classroom level to complete student assessments (tests that measure skills and knowledge) that can be quickly used to help each student reach his or her potential. Parents of students in kindergarten through tenth grade may have heard of the new ‘MAP’ test that started this fall. MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) is an assessment taken by students on a computer, which yields almost instant results for use by teachers –rather than the months of waiting for MCAS results. Unlike most assessments that try and measure exactly what you know, MAP also attempts to determine what students are ready to learn, thus providing teachers with ideas on what to provide to individual or small groups of students. To do this, the MAP assessment actually makes questions more, or less, difficult for individuals until reaching a point where each student is getting 50% of the questions correct, thus measuring both what they’ve learned, and what they’re ready to learn. This also means that each student is essentially getting a customized assessment instrument to measure their capabilities, rather than a standardized test based solely upon what grade they happen to be in. The MAP assessment process is also scored across all grades, not only providing an idea of where that student is and what they’re ready to learn, based not upon their grade level but rather what they know and can do (i.e., the scores are based upon a common set of nationally-normed skills rather than just measuring what students have mastered at a particular grade level).
As we review the results of the MAP assessments and see what the correlation is with results of other assessments used in the district, we hope to reduce the total number (and therefore time) of assessments that are given to all students. This could make some of our currently used district assessments (i.e., DIBELS Next, Gates, Running Records) more of a progress indicator for specific students and specific instructional interventions, rather than an assessment for entire grades of students. I believe the key is balancing our need to determine how best to meet student needs (and the best, and most informative aspect of this is what the individual classroom teachers and paraprofessionals see working with students on a daily basis) with the time it takes to give assessments which take students away from spending time on learning. For an overview of the types of information provided by various assessments in the district, and an idea of the results we are seeing, view the data presentation that can be found on the district’s website (www.grsd.org ) under school committee presentations. Please remember that these assessments only measure certain academic knowledge and skills, not the equally important skills of collaboration, communication, problem solving, perseverance, and other life skills.
