Office of Assessment Weekly Update # 7 October 6, 2017
The Office of Assessment has been radio silent for a few weeks due to various staff traveling and other major events. This week’s update will be an attempt to update everyone regarding key tasks and timelines.
It was good to see many of you last week at the Better Questions workshops. The materials from the workshop will be posted early next week on Presentations - Office of Assessment webpage.
Parent Rights to Knowis an important element of ESSA requirements and districts will be monitored by the Office of Assessment to ensure that all parents have access to information about assessments.The Office has received calls from parents asking about when schools are supposed to be sending home student results. Since the Smarter Balanced test window will always close the first Friday in May, it is possible to send individual students results home at the end of the school year.
Four questions that every district needs to answer for themselves:
Have all the parents been provided with student reports for the assessments taken last spring except for science?
Are the state assessment purposes and testing windows posted on the district website in a visible location for all patrons?
Are parents being informed about other district testing such as MAPS, DIBELS, or AIMS Web?
Do the parents and students receive results and do they understand the purpose for the assessments?
ACCESS 2.0 Updates
DRC Technology Updates
The updated INSIGHT secure browser 8.0 and Testing Site Manager 9.2 were released on Sept. 6. If the district had “auto update” turned on and have started their secure browsers since that date, the updates were already applied. If districts have “auto update” disabled and/or have not completed the updates since Sept. 6, the system must now be updated to continue testing after Sept. 28.
Please take the following steps:
- Launch INSIGHT prior to testing students.
- If you see a TSM Version or TSM Connection error when launching an INSIGHT browser, you need to manually update the application, following instructions on pp. 20-21 of the Technology User Guide. This requires downloading the latest version of the software from WIDA AMS and reinstalling.
- To avoid this issue in the future, make sure the TSM is set to auto update.
Training and Preparation for ACCESS testing
Don’t forget about the wealth of information available to the schools on the WIDA website! It is never too early to start going through the tutorials and the quizzes that are part of the preparation for ACCESS 2.0 and ACCESS Alt. This infographicfrom WIDA is a great visual reminder of the steps needed to be completed before January 29, 2018 when the ACCESS 2.0 window opens for South Dakota.
Student files for ACCESS 2.0 and ACCESS alternate will be pulled from Campus in early December for uploading in the WIDA AMS system.It is important to have students properly entered into Campus by Nov. 24, 2017 for this first data upload.
For questions and support on the identification of EL students or ACCESS 2.0, Yutzil Becker, is the main contact and Joe Moran, is the other staff member supporting ACCESS 2.0 administration.
Smarter Balanced Updates
Please take time to download and distribute the SD Content Standard Crosswalk Blueprint found on the state’s Smarter Balanced page. This document provides connections between the state standards and the Smarter Balanced test blueprints. Both ELA and math are one page for a given grade and can be printed on standard paper. The above link will give you easy access to information on the Interim Assessments and the Digital Library.
It is important to coordinate with your tech coordinator as the secure browser will need to be updated before the summative window opens in March. Please direct tech staff to the Secure Browser card on the main page of the South Dakota Smarter Balanced portal .
The embedded calculator for interims and summative math tests has been updated to the Desmos calculator. Links to more information can be found on the main page of the South Dakota Smarter Balanced portal .
It is never too soon to be thinking about how staff will be trained to administer assessments. There is a wealth of short modules or webinars available for your use on the interim and summative components of the system posted on the South Dakota Smarter Balanced portal under Test Administrator Resources.
Upcoming Workshops
ACCESS 2.0 workshops – January 16, 2018 in Pierre, January 17, 2018 in Watertown, and January 18, 2018 in Mitchell. More details and registration will be available in mid-November.
SAVE THE DATES! Spring Assessment Workshops willinclude Smarter Balanced, Science, Science Alt., and MSAA sessions in a different format from the past. There will be breakout sessions for various topics and the workshops will be in three locations.
Huron January 31, 2018
Sioux Falls February 7 & 8, 2018
Rapid City February 14 & 15, 2018
As always, thanks for all you do for the students of South Dakota and don’t hesitate to ask for assistance regarding any of the assessments.