CORTNIE BELSER'S MSED PORTFOLIO
Quantitative Academic Growth
Students demonstrate at least 1 year of academic growth on district-level high-stakes standardized assessments
Table of Contents
​
Introduction to i-Ready Diagnostic Assessment
​
i-Ready Assessment Sample and Scoring
i-Ready Data: Whole Class and Grade Growth
i-Ready Data: Individual Student Growth
Teacher Reflections
Introduction
​
The i-Ready Diagnostic assessment is a student-centered adaptive online test program that tailors the instructional assessment to the student's performance as they are taking the exam. The assessment results are available immediately after the student completes the exam. Then, the online platform uses this data to provide grade placement-level online lessons based on students' greatest standard needs. Even though it is an extensive online standardized test, the adaptability of its program and even the brain break games that students are required to play, demonstrate why my district expects primary and secondary teachers to utilize the i-Ready data to drive academic growth.
i-Ready Assessment Sample and Scoring
​
Since the i-Ready assessment is highly adaptive to student performance it is difficult to know what a sample of the student tests and experience is like. Likewise, the scoring and standards mastery level are provided by grade-level and a scale score. While the grade-level provides a quick reference point for teachers, an analysis of the scale score deepens your understanding of where students are and the progress they must reach by the end of year.
The document above is a sample of selected questions provided by the i-Ready assessment program. As the first slide shows, one of i-Ready's main standard domains is Vocabulary, in which students are provided a sentence to utilize context clues. As shown in Slide 2, as students move closer to grade-level the questions and application of skills also progresses. As the high school sample on Slide 3 shows, i-Ready also integrates listening and multimedia standards as reflective of 21st-century students and schools. However, as it is provided in the sample, it is almost certain that there will be multimedia in every student's assessment in which access to headphones is essential for students to take full advantage of the test resources.
The document above is how the raw scale score provided in individual standard domains correlates to grade-level reading placements. As the second red box indicates, students can also be designated as Early, Mid, and Late grade-level placements depending on their scale score. Thus, to measure the quantitative growth of students, my school focuses on demonstrating at least 1.5 years growth using a raw scale score.
i-Ready Data: Whole Class and Grade Growth
​
I chose to highlight the i-Ready data of my 8th grade honors section to represent how individual students can impact whole class data trends. Additionally, I also include my Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) performance data chart that is used for district-level professional performance. Each of these pieces of quantitative data provide one lens into the academic growth of my students from beginning to middle and end of year.
As shown through the beginning, middle, and end of year data, 8C as an honors class is loosely structured and based on being on or close to grade-level. Rather my school builds the honors class through behavior, social skills, and intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy of students. With an average Grade Level 4 reading, many of the students in this class also struggle to read fluently even though this has been deemed the upper tier class. While there are some students who have maintained or increased their academic growth, the whole class data is difficult to interpret because of the inconsistent pool of students. While 23 students remained on the roster, it was never the same students testing in each assessment window. However, this class's data shows one of the more consistent populations and academic growth from beginning to end of year.
The document above shows a better representation of the academic growth of the 8th grade class. With a total of approximately 65 students, the SLO data synthesizes growth over time for all 8th grade students who were present for instruction. Group A represents students who are 2 or more reading grade-levels below at the time of beginning of year assessment. Group B represents students who are reading on or 1 year below grade-level. As my school focuses on reaching at least 1 to 1.5 years growth, an individual goal is set using each student's raw score. Between Windows 2 and 3 students have the opportunity to demonstrate this growth at the middle and end-of-year assessments. As the red box indicates, for students who I was able to collective diagnostic and subsequent data (from Window 2 or 3), roughly 87 percent of students in Group A met their individual targets. Additionally, all students in Group B also met their targeted growth by end of year.
i-Ready Data: Individual Student Growth
​
Between test fatigue and intrinsic motivation, demonstrating the academic growth of students through high-stakes test performance will show the up and down trends of students' engagement in assessments.
The document above shows individual student growth in beginning, middle, and end-of-year assessments. Whether students increased drastically as in Student C's case or gradually maintained growth over time as Student B shows, each student was able to not only meet my school's goal of 1-1.5 years growth but surpass this measure. For Student A, their desire to re-take the test demonstrates how students are invested and engaged in monitoring their own academic progress. Overall, across all three samples, each student demonstrates how the collective class performance does not provide a full view of the academic growth individual students are accomplishing.
Teacher Reflections​
​
Honestly, I was just as surprised to analyze the whole-class data performance as a class snapshot will highlight how students are making academic gains. However, there seems to be several factors that may be contributing to the gaps in performance growth that is observed from the whole-class data. First, my school's testing culture is not always conducive to high student focus and investment. Secondly, while I offer coach class and intervention circles, I could be more intentional about the direct instruction provided whole-class that address common misconceptions in skills mastery. Third, as previously stated, there were several school closing and delays that inhibited students from finishing the Test 3 end-of-year assessment they may have started. Lastly, while i-Ready offers an in-depth data analysis of each student, the online lessons are highly recommended to monitor student goals and progress, which my school does not have authorizing license for. Nonetheless, for many individual students, they were able to take advantage of instructional content, knowledge, and skills, and apply it to the i-Ready assessment to better gauge their current reading level. For other students, I must continue to practice the relevant skills across the three standards domains to ensure that all students' needs are being met and that there is apparent dramatic academic growth.