Digital Directions - Summer 2013 - (Page 13)
Test-Driving the
COMMON CORE
By_Leslie Harris O’Hanlon
M
ore than a million students across
the country have traded their No. 2
pencils, test booklets, and bubble
sheets for computing devices to
participate in a pilot of math and
English/language arts online assessments tied to
the Common Core State Standards.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
launched a pilot of its computer assessments to glean
information about the performance of different test
questions and the test-delivery system under real-world
conditions. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness
for College and Careers, or PARCC, another consortium
developing online tests for the common core, also
has piloted some of its prototype online-assessment
questions to support educators as they transition to the
new standards and to PARCC assessments.
Although there were bumps in the road for some
schools that took part in the pilot testing, many
educators say test-driving the assessments helped them
better understand how they need to prepare for the
time when all their students in grades 3-12 take the new
tests, starting in 2014-15.
Don Matthews, the director of educational services
for the 1,400 student Larkspur-Corte Madera school
district in California, says that involvement in pilot
testing has made him and others think hard about
what they need to do to improve their technological
infrastructure to support online testing. About 300 5th
and 6th graders from his district were tested in the
Smarter Balanced pilot in April. The students used
MacBook laptops to take the tests.
“We want to make sure our technology is
compatible and as flawless as possible,” Matthews
says. “Obviously, there is concern that if computers
are three years old, they won’t be able to do certain
things. So we are examining what we have in place and
determining what we need to have in place to do what
we need to do with online testing.”
The district plans to upgrade its Wi-Fi system and
bandwidth this summer, he says. It is also considering
buying more devices so that students can take the
online assessments in their classrooms and in the library,
rather than having them all in computer labs.
“We are looking at [Google] Chromebooks,” says
Matthews, referring to the devices, which are similar to
netbooks. “They are a very affordable option compared
to buying laptops, and they are compatible. They also
are good for portability.”
Preparing Test Administrators
One of the most important lessons learned for
some Vermont educators was that not only do the
students need to be prepared for the assessments,
but so do test administrators, says Paul Smith, a
curriculum and assessment specialist for Windham
Southeast Supervisory Union, a school district of 2,600
students in Brattleboro,Vt. While it was a relatively
minor bump, there was some confusion about how
to log students into the system and other procedures
during pilot testing. Sixty students in grades 4, 6,
and 7 used mostly Mac laptops to take the Smarter
Balanced pilot test in April.
“It was a new set of procedures, and we need a couple
of times to go through it to practice it,” Smith says. “If
I introduce a new piece of software to staff, there is a
learning curve there. This is the exact same thing.”
About 1,300 students in the 90,000-student
Albuquerque public schools in New Mexico took part in
a PARCC prototype pilot last year. Out of the 20 schools
in the pilot, 14 had connectivity problems, says Michael
Loughrey, the district’s assessment manager. In a high
school class of 34 students taking the test in a computer
lab, almost all the participants kept getting bounced off
the system one after the other. Students mostly used
Spring/Summer 2013_ DigitalDirections >>
13
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Directions - Summer 2013
Digital Directions - Summer 2013
Contents
Editor’s Note
DD Site Visit
Bits & Bytes
Test-Driving the Common Core
Flipped PD: Building Blocks to Success
Virtual Learning in the Early Years
Kindergarten the Virtual Way
7 Steps to Picking Your LMS
Cracking the Code
Powering the Crowd
Digital Directions - Summer 2013
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