We need to find a way to merge the DFAs from BT with Galileo. The DFAs were created in Galileo, so it shouldn't be difficult. If they were easily accessible for use on the student laptops, they would be much more useful and effective. Immediate feedback for teachers and students. Results could be used to drive interventions and reteaching without delay.
If I am not mistaken, I believe there is a way to schedule formatives to be taken online in Galileo. With the 5th graders having laptops I think it is a great idea to do some online assessments. As you said, feedback would be immediate.
Edna is correct. Formative assessments can be taken online through Galileo. All students can be given a username and password so that they can login and take tests that you have created/scheduled. When you create tests through Galileo I believe all you have to do is create a schedule for when students can take the test and then publish the test. Once this is done they can take them online resulting in immediate feedback.
Online formatives is what we need to begin doing. Not only does it save time grading, it also saves money due to less copies being made. You can schedule galileo tests and quizzes to be taken online. The immediate feedback is wonderful. I can quickly assess what my students are struggling on and can begin any re-teaching or enrichment right away. I am hoping that the district will come up with a way to make the formatives on beyond textbook online as well. I would love to have my students take the BT quizzes by going onto the class moodle site or something like that. It would save so much time and money!
What both ladies (above) have written about really needs to be shown to all 1 to 1 teachers, possibly with an in-service. The benefits of using online assessments via Galileo are numerous - with a relatively simple how-to seminar, I think most teachers would be thrilled to embrace this.
Earlier this year, I spent quite a bit of time preparing several math assessments through the Galileo item bank, and also went ahead and printed and copied all of the test booklets. Now that all of my students have their laptops, all of that time I spent in the copy room and the paper I used was wasted. Along with saving paper/copy machine expenses/my own time making copies, having my students take these assessments online will save me the time of scoring the assessments, etc... AND, I will also have immediate data to use for intervention groups, etc... Designing assessments online with Galileo is simple, putting together a 10 question quiz takes about 5 minutes, a 30-40 question assessment takes about 20 minutes. Once you square away your students with log on and passwords, actually creating the quiz or assessment is about all the time a teacher will need to spend.
I agree that looking into "online formatives" is a great idea. Another thing that we could look into is a "submittable" .pdf. I have received .pdfs where I select my name/school and then fill out the form and then submit it to the person requesting. Couldn't we use this same technology with BT formatives? One concern I have about computer formatives is that we don't automatically upload all formative assessments. Obviously, primary grades need to have some of their formatives read aloud (manipulating sounds, etc.), but there is also merit to seeing students work as they solve a math problem (how would they show their work?). Just some things that I worry about missing with an online test. The cost and time savings would be great, especially if the submission of the test could automatically populate the data sheet that teachers normally collect (date, score, problems incorrect, ?). That way the teacher would just have to analyze the data, not do the data entry!
Access to data from online formative assessments would also be useful to those of us teaching intervention groups. Currently when my group takes their post test it is given in the classroom so it is difficult to know if my teaching was effective. If I had access to the data it would be easier to monitor and adjust my instruction. I do agree with Amy that it is helpful to see their work in math to understand their thinking. And of course the AIMS is still given in the paper/answer sheet format so students need to still practice that. But with all the cuts to education, I don't think it will be too long before districts with the technology to support it will be given the online option. When we first began to give Galileo test, we gave them online in 4th and 5th grades. Some students had trouble tracking up and down and back and forth in the pages to answer the questions. I am not sure why the practice was discontinued. But some of our 5th grade classes did take their reading inventory on their laptops. So we are beginning to move in that direction.
We definitely need access to formative assessments and tools to make the scores usable for lesson planning and individualization. I would think that this would be a good step toward having students take more responsibility for their learning. Tracking their own scores on their own computers might make specific learning more personal.
Since almost all (if not all) standarized tests to get into college and grad school are on the computers, such as the SAT, ACT, and GRE, it would be very good preparation for students to practice now. We all want our students to be college ready and start preparing for that now, so it would be in our students and our best interests to have them take the Galileo Benchmarks online and eventually even the AIMS test. It is important for our elementary students to be geared toward college, even as we know many of them will not attend college.
How true. It would be much more beneficial to teachers and students if test results were immedidate. It is possible. We just have to do it.
making the results immediate would be great for teachers and students. Too often, students take the assessments, walk away and here about the results a few weeks later. This is too long, and the assessment impact is lessoned.
I have reduced the use of paper for my quizzes and some of my formative assessments. I am using Mytestbook.com. This is a cool site where you can upload your class list and create a username and password for each student. I go in there and create my tests (rdg and grammar, math, and science). I post them to for the students. They log on take the test. It's then graded for them, and their grade gets saved in their account. I can see it on my list and voila! It's awesome and the kids love it too.
Thanks for sharing, Michelle. This is the kind of information that should be shared with all teachers. If we can at least use online assessments for our own assessments, it will help cut down a little on copying and paper costs. The really cool thing is that students know right away how they've done and that you can use that information immediately to plan interventions and/or enrichments.
The website you mentioned is an incredible resource that would save time and energy while giving students the accountability we all strive to give them for their own learning. It could also allow parents to get a better view of their students performance. Many of our teachers and staff have great ideas like this one and it is rare that we are able to share these resources to increase student achievement and reduce redundancies in our system. I find many schools using so many different tools to achieve the same outcome. Many of our schools have very different resources or have allocated those resources differently that are extremely effective. If we could share those ideas more quickly and collaboratively we increase our productivity and frustration and change. Thanks for the suggestion.
I can't pretend to know the answer to how to combine the BT Assessments into Galileo, however, I can support the importance of doing so. The instant feedback being able to quickly supply reteaching opportunities is a wonderful thing. At my site, we've started uploading our own weekly assessments on to the Galileo site and it is amazing.
I've been using clicker technology for the BT formatives and the immediate feedback is wonderful. I agree, wish there was a way to get those formatives onto the laptops.
I strongle agree, been able to do formative assessment and having the system graded for you will allow us more time to see the results and modified our lessons to individualize it and strike those areas of needs. I am not sure if we are having BT next year, but if we are it would be nice to see if IT can help us in this area.