Sunnyside is moving ahead in the Technology arena but where is the state of Arizona in this situation? As a test coordinator I see the boxes of paper that we use for not only AIMS and Stanford 10 but in order to prepare our students for these high stake tests, we spend a large amount of money on Benchmark tests. How can we get the state to go paperless?
Chris, You make a great point about going paperless at the state level. Do you know of any districts or schools who give their assessments online? Is there a possibility for our teachers to give the BT formatives on the computer as well? This would save a tremendous amount of paper and would possibly give students more timely feedback on their assessments. I am curious to look more into this possibility. However, if we could start witih 5th grade since they all have laptops that would be a great beginning for our district.
Great point,Kimberly. Providing more timely feedback may prove to be more meaningful to students. It might even enhance the focus and effort that they put in to each of their tests. Using a variety of testing approaches may enhance scores as well.
I have used clickers off and on, and the immediate feedback is a great boon to personalizing instruction. On the other hand, each student must still have a paper test in front of them. If only this could be done on laptops.
I remember that a couple of years ago it was a district option to take the galileo benchmarks on line. What ever happened to that?
We tried a few years ago to have 4th and 5th graders take the Galileo benchmarks online. The problem we ran into at the time was a consistent signal that did not exit students from the test in the middle of the assessment. Another problem was that students needed to develop stamina when taking an online assessment. When they had a paper and pencil assessment they could see how much more they had to do. This was not possible with an online assessment and they fatigued quickly and it became a point and click answer rather than read, comprehend, choose the best answer. As we move forward with students being more accustomed to laptop instruction, this issue should go away. Again, we need to help students develop stamina in a new way using assessments on the computer.
Cindy, that's really interesting. I didn't realize that effort had been made a few years ago. I wonder if there's a way that students could "flip through" the test while taking it, or a little graphic representation of how much they've done so far and how much is left to go. I do remember finding that aspect of taking the GRE on a computer very frustrating -- not being able to skip ahead, come back to a problem, or even just flip through to see what I was up against. It is a different way of taking a test, that's for sure. Thanks for contributing your "institutional memory"! Sometimes that's hard to come by.
The 8th grade technology assessment (and the teacher technology assessment) had great tools as far as helping students test online. It showed how many problems there were, it showed which problems were completed, and it allowed students to skip problems and return to them later. I would hope that if this was shown or explained to the Galileo people that their technology would change to be more user friendly. Afterall, why have the option of taking a test online if it is not student-friendly. We want accurate predictions of AIMS achievement. Although, it is probably unlikely that we will really see this until after the AIMS is online because it seems that we always want the benchmark to be as AIMS-like as possible.
Our school does weekly formatives in math and in language arts. I'd like to see our district begin at this level so that we can start getting the students used to testing online and build up stamina for this type of testing. I know that when we discussed doing online testing, another problem that came up was that we didn't have enough computers in our classrooms and not enough labs for all the classes to do the testing. It was a logistical problem that we were not able to resolve. That and the fact that everyone was logging onto the servers at the same time created a problem as well.
Oh Chris....we will have to wait for the state department to catch up with Sunnyside. We will simply have to move forward as much as we can with our paperless effort saving funds for all the other needs at schools.
You are on the right track when it comes to going paperless. Sunnyside will have to move on its own, where we can. One place we can start is with the 5th graders doing their benchmark tests online. Galileo is already set up to allow this. An additional place we can look at is test result reports. All of the reports are online, yet we make copies for each teacher of a variety of reports. Why are we doing this? We need to make the transition from having pages of data in a notebook to being able analyze our data online. That would save tons of paper.
When we first started using the Galileo benchmark test, several grade levels did use the online test version. I think there was concern then that it did not match the AIMS testing experience and some students found it difficult to track back and forth through the questions, particularly when answering questions about reading passages. But it does make sense to go back to this format for at least first and last benchmark tests. That would save a ton of paper and the time it takes to scan and get results. Eventually one would hope that the state testing will catch up and offer the option for districts with the technology to support online testing. Think of the money they could save!
I agree with Edna about all the reports being online, and we still print out copies. We have gone back and forth with this issue at my school. One, we know how busy teachers are so we print out reports for the teachers. Then we think, teachers should be doing this on their own. Unfortunately, not all teachers follow through. With the push to go paperless, I feel that teachers should go online to view reports and save them in a digital file for their use.
My concern with testing online is that when the students use laptops it would be so much easier for other students to see answers. Tests on paper are flat on the table. Tests online would be upright for anyone behind to see.
The fill-in-the-bubble paper tests drive me nuts! It was 7 years ago that I took the GRE, and even then the whole thing was done on a computer. I really don't think cheating by looking at other students' screens would be an issue, Jasmin. Here are some reasons why: (a) there are little screen flaps you can get (like they use at public libraries) that make it almost impossible for any one except the person at the keyboard to see what's on the screen, (b) seating arrangments during testing can probably be zig-zagged if needed, for the same reason and (c) if the computer randomizes the test order or even the test content, it's probably a moot point anyway (aren't there several different versions of the AIMS?).
As far as Arizona "catching up" to the trailblazing pioneers... I'm not sure what to think. Part of me things that if enough districts go the paperless route and have awesome results -- and those results are really taken public and taken to the people and to the polls -- the state will have no choice but to follow suit. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that there are people in our state government, though, who would like nothing better than to see public education fold -- and maybe this would be expediated by hanging onto outdated methods that no longer work.
I agree that we should go paperless, at least in the 5th grade, for not only benchmarks, but the weekly DFAs as well. Since many of the DFAs are already from the Galileo, isn't there a way to merge them? The only problem I can see with it is that we want students to show their work on the math quizzes and tests so we can diagnose problems. Also, when expected to show their work, students perform better (less guessing). I suppose we could require that they turn in a "work page" for math testing. But then, does that reduce the amount of paper used?
I may not know much about paper costs, but I do know this. I've been teaching at my site for two quarters. (I came in later on in the year). I've had to give two sets of benchmarks tests, which include reading, writing, math, and science. The packets were given to me to hold to use a study source to reteach.
Last Friday, on Grading Day, I decided to take all the packets to recycling. All the packets stacked up weighed about 45 pounds and was at least 3 feet tall. That's a lot of paper.
Reduce paper use.
I think moving to online benchmarks and formatives would be a huge paper saver but I would like it to go a step further. I would like students to receive immediate feedback as soon as they answer a question, they should know if they got the answer correct or incorrect. I think that if students don't get that immediate feedback it would be easy to just "click,click, and click" with very little thought as you take an online test. It would also be informative for the student to see their ending score which helps them see if they really understood the material. I see this when the students take their AR (accelerated reader tests). They are very excited when they are the tests but are sad when they get a low grade. That immediate feedback helps them know if they understood the book or do they need to go back and read the book again.
I had experience with the paperless Galileo benchmarks and for elementary students it was not developmentally appropriate. I think ATI needs to rethink how they present the benchmarks on-line so that they take into consideration how students learn. However, maybe we could have the fifth graders take them on-line and learn from them.
One way we can begin to go paperless is to look at the formative assessments and find ways to make these paperless. These DFAs use up a lot of paper as well. We can also look at ways that teacher-created assessments can go on-line as well.
If we cannot change the big assessments, maybe we can start in small ways to move in this direction. As Project Red suggestions, incremental changes help.
I agree, that testing via a computer is very different than paper & pencil. As an adult, it was very difficult to make the change. It's a different way of reading & thinking when you're looking at a computer monitor. Switching to a computerized method might be a good idea in the future, but the kids will have to be eased into it. We actually already have example of how incongruent students' performance is on computerized tests - look at SRI results, and compare to AIMS...Often there is a huge gap in performance, (yes, different questions, etc), but some of the difference, I have to believe, is due to the varried format.
I think the varied format would have an impact on performance. I also would be concerned on how students would use the various strategies that some of the teachers go over in class especially when it comes to math and various strategies such as highlighting or underlining key words. I could see some students getting done with a 2 hour test in half the time, if all they had to do was click a button (some students get done quickly already and they have to take the time to bubble all the answers). Yes, a lot of paper and money is spent on these tests but I agree with Maggie that going completely paperless is something that the students need to be gradually eased into.
Debra what a great idea. Start small and do what we can. Teachers have laptops they can create their weekly assessments or use other created ones. Our 6th grade teachers will benefit from this if we can figure out a way that students and teachers can get instant feedback once the assessment is completed. Even if the initial data is raw it would at least give a teacher knowledge of who the students are that are mastering and not mastering for instructional purposes.
I would love it if the district went paperless with our testing. This would not only save a lot of money for the district, but it would also save the teachers a lot of time grading the weekly assessments. In my classroom we using the "clickers" or response pads and it has cut down on so much grading and gives me a lot more time to focus on other things I need to get done. Hopefully this is the way all teachers will be able to assess their students some day.
I have come across the idea of "clickers" in a couple of places here in the forums. Sad to say, I do not know what they are and how they are used.
Could someone please explain?
Hi Gerry. "Clickers"/Responders are small hand-held wireless devices that are used to respond to True/False, multiple choice or short answer questions to instantly measure and record responses to quizzes, surveys, bellwork, etc. They look like simple calculators.
They are fun for faculty meetings too. Most schools have 1-2 class sets. You load the software on your computer and then display your questions for each student to respond to. At middle school, we sometimes use cellphones and a website like www.polleverywhere.com to do the same thing. Students like using them and while their response is anonymous, you can see who is having trouble with the concept or is not responding.
I agree that we need to make all efforts to reduce the usage of paper. In our class when the students are using the V-Math program, they are required to solve all the problems in a white board and show all their work before answering the questions online. Also, when they make mistakes, they have to go back and check their work before they go on to the next problem.
Jonathan is right about the advantages of "clickers," and especially beneficial is the reduced amount of grading work for the teacher and the ability to use the time to work with students instead! I also like the idea of using cellphones for the same purpose on Mary's post.
Does the "Vision" software offer any similar functionality?
I love the logic behind your thinking, but we at least have the capability to do all of 5th-grade Benchmark testing online now that they each have their own computer. Flowing Wells uses their computer labs to complete all Benchmark testing in grades 2-9, which saves the District lots of money. I'm hoping we can get all of 5th-grade on board and then figure out ways to get the other grade levels testing online in the next year or so. The money spent on printing could be better utilized in so many ways!
I am not sure how I feel about testing and paper costs. I think we really need to look at other avenues for determining students understanding (performance assessments, surveys, small group and individual time with teacher). I do, however, realize that the high-stakes testing and benchmarks are not going away soon. One state that is working to get their tests "paperless" is Oregon. They have begun using a computer adaptive testing format that adapts as individual students respond. I think that students are able to take the tests when they are ready and can retake as necessary without threat of making them invalid. This type of assessment (if reliable and accurate), could give great data that works for kids. As the former superintendent of Austin schools said about the end of year tests - they "are like 'autopsies' because they come too late to help kids."
Oh yes to that! Let the state lead the way. It would make our accountability (test counts) much easier if tests were done on line. However, as at my site there are the issues of enough devices and consistency of staying online that would impede doing even Benchmarks on line. I think that this is the wave of the future and well worth the effort and initial expense to make it possible. Again, my son took the ACT online at school, so this will be more real for our students NOW to be doing all high stakes assessments on line.
Once again connectivity challenges arise as we address the standardardized testing issue. However, we need to look at beginning to move to online assessment. We need to prepare students for the real world and that is more than AIMS. Students need to be able to take assessments on-line. College entrance exams, job applications and assessments are being given on-line. As we move toward this we need to be aware of the format as well as the skills students will need to be able to take an on-line assessment and then prepare them for this type of experience.
Another place where we can look to cut down on copying and paper are our in class quizzes and formatives. Michelle Pompa shared the site she uses in a post to another discussion. I believe it is mytest.com. Michelle, if you see this please correct me if I am wrong.
Our district does use a lot of paper for quarterly benchmarks, and for Beyond Textbooks and galileo assessments.
I heard an NPR news cast about certain districts in the state of Oregon taking their writing assessment by computer meaning they could use Microsoft Word, including spell check.
With 1 to 1 computing, we would not only go "paperless", but we would probably be able to receive test results sooner.
That is a great point. I wonder how much we spend as a district on benchmark testing resources as well as AIMS testing. Are these resources available in an electronic format? What are the benefits or drawbacks of testing online? Do students need access to a hard copy to be able to highlight, cross off incorrect answers, make notes on a page? I think the questions here are many and difficult to assess. There must be research on this and I know that the SAT< GRE, and ACT are all going to an e-version or have already done so. Can we do the same?
My goal with the 6th grade 1 to 1 is take make most of my assessments paperless. If most teachers were to do this as well, this would really save the district money on both paper and copy machine maintenance however, it would be nice to see the state follow and make it so educational assessments do not mirror the 1800’s.
This is a great point Chris. Going into the 1:1 this next year at the middle school level has opened a number of questions that were all feeling excited, anxious and nervous about because if paper and copy machien costs go down, lets hope there are still funds available to purchase these, we still have weekly assessments, and other quizzes kids wont be able to take online and so we do need paper still. AS we learn to function without so much paper in the meantime we still need it. It would be great to have Benchmarks online that also provide that immediate feedback to kids once they have chosen an answer.
It would be great for our kids to have access to online benchmark prep tests as well.
Chris, it would be great to have the 5th graders test on-line. It would save a a lot of paper and time for you as the test coordinator. The data would be available instantly. I don't think that the teachers and students would mind taking their next benchmark on-line .
I think the idea to go paperless for the testing would need to be practiced by our students. Then we go back to an earlier forum question about computer labs, because lets face it... 5th grade has the laptops but we don't have many options for practice with our other grades. At Elvira we don't have a lab (yet) and in the library only 13 desktops and 8 of those are currently not working. We also have two portable laptop carts and those are so slow, most teachers don't bother checking them out.
If we did have more available computers, what about programs like Study Island? They use that at my daughter's school for test prep and it's an on-line program that your site purchases.
Karen,
I fully agree with you about going totally paperless with the students needs to be practiced. The students in Kinder, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades should be gradually getting experience on computers in preparation for the 5th grade one to one computing. This is best done through the computer labs in the library, if yes, there were enough computers to go around and the infrastructure supported the wireless environment.
My own children are enrolled in the Arizona Virtual Academy, which is a state run charter school whose curriculum is fully online. Study Island is one of their resources that is a wonderful extension of academic opportunities. If the schools in Sunnyside were able to purchase the Study Island portion, the students would all be better for it. I really like the online curriculum for my own kids, and I think it will someday be great for our students also.
I think if the district can get our benchmark test online for those grade levels that have laptops that the district could save some big bucks with coping and paper cost. I would like to see us do this if we can.
This is a great point! To expand on this, if we are doing our jobs right, this won't be the last time students are taking a high-stakes test online. Most college entrance exams (SAT, GRE, etc) are now being given online. If our students have not had experience with online testing, we are, once again, putting them at a great disadvantage compared with their peers. We need to expose our students to a variety of formats and media, with an emphasis on developing critical thinking skills. In todays' world - and the world they are preparing themselves for - the ability to learn, think, and grow is what provides the REAL advantage!