We really need to go to on-line assessments. At Chaparral, we have weekly formatives in either math and LA. Even though we only print out one set of questoins per class, each student has an answer sheet. That is at least 700 sheets weekly. The assessments are at least 3 pages, so add in another 2100 sheets of paper per week. This isnt even including the benchmarks. We use an incredible amount of paperwork. This is also very taxing on the machines. If we did the assessments on-line, thats a pretty big savings.
I entirely agree with you. At the elementary level, we also have weekly formatives in reading, and math that need to be printed out. THen add homework packets to that. And not only that, but at our school it seems that worksheets are a must in the daily instruction delivery. Let's not forget Galileo Benchmarks every quarter district wide. I can't even add the reams of paper needed for that.
I agree. Besides the paperwork, students need to get used to testing online, which involves learning some totally different strategies than paper-pencil. Even drivers' license tests are on-line today, and pretty much any post-high school endeavor is going to require this skill.
Many of the college inital assessments are online as are CLEP tests. Students will be served better in their future for learning how to take online assessments today instead of waiting (not to mention cost savings and teacher benefits).
I also agree with you. As a math teacher at Sierra, I also have to print off lots of formative assessments. If we moved to on-line assessments it would save money on paper and copy machine costs. In addition to saving money, it would also save lots of time freeing teachers to focus on other things. Lots of time can be spent at the copy machine waiting in line and finally making copies. Once the assessment has been taken, it also takes a lot of time to grade and input the data. With moving to online assessments, grading can be done automatically allowing for immediate feedback and grades could be exported to IC. All in all, it would be a huge benefit. I hope that next year we are able to move to online assessments.
And let's not forget repairing the copier every other week. That must be extremely expensive.
I couldn't agree more with these posts. Environmentally, going paperless is the responsible thing to do. In terms of people-hours, think how much time we could save by doing benchmarks online and having them instantly graded. No more printing documents, no more scanning documents, no more hand-grading. This is the way SUSD needs to go. In TUSD, when I used to work there, all benchmarks were done online and teachers had instant feedback. We all know the importance of having instant feedback for our students. Going to online assessments gives us that opportunity for instant feedback, which means that they can go to reteaching or enrichment when appropriate.
I'm looking forward to being able to do the formatives online. Not only would it save time making sure we have enough copies of each of the grade level tests, but we don't have to go looking for answer docs when a student has had a schedule change and is in a different class. We would also be able to get immediate feedback on student scores and not have to spend staff time feeding the answer documents. Students wouldn't need to keep a sheet of paper to track their formative scores as they can record their results in a spread sheet on their computer.