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Brush Ninja

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NWEA Data Quadrant - How to Read and Understand it...

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Jessie Houghton, principal at Westwoods Elementary, talks to us about what we can learn about our students from the NWEA data quadrant report.

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For Hulbert

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Projected Proficiency Summary Report Description

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Your Data > Report Details > School and District Level Reports > Projected Proficiency Summary

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Professional Development on demand!

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Content Support

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Instructional Connections

Personalize Learning to Help Each Student Grow

We collaborate with the industry's most extensive array of instructional partners to help schools and districts get more from tools they're already using. We vet all our instructional partners to ensure superior content quality, supports a diverse student population, is standards-aligned and engages across many levels of student learning. And, because MAP Growth isn't tied to a particular curriculum offering, you can be sure you're getting an independent validation of student learning.

Featured Partner

To help teachers to unlock learning gains for every student, NWEA® has partnered with Khan Academy® to develop MAP® Accelerator™. This powerful online tool ties MAP Growth scores to personalized learning pathways so students get support tailored to their needs, whether on, above, or below grade level.

Featured Partner

To close learning gaps, educators need trustworthy data to understand what students are ready to learn, along with relevant content to engage them in the learning process and bring curriculum to life. Newsela, an instructional content platform, has partnered with NWEA to meet this important need and meet students where they are.

With precise assessment insights from MAP Growth scores and authentic content from Newsela, educators can automatically differentiate instruction for all students with captivating content delivered at each student's reading level.

NWEA and Learning A-Z work together to integrate MAP and MPG assessment results with Raz-Plus and Reading A-Z's literacy-focused curriculum resources, creating differentiated instructional recommendations for teachers to use with each student or groups of students.

Liftoff by Education Galaxy

Grades: K-8 Subjects: Math, ELA, Reading

Mindprint - MAP Growth Learning Plan

Grades: 2-12 Subjects: Math, ELA

A tool that says, 'A MAP Growth score of 193 represents this particular level of skill, and to get to this level you need to move to this additional skill,' is very useful for teachers. John Wilson, Research, Evaluation, and Assessment Director, Tempe Elementary School District, Arizona

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We collaborate with the industry's most extensive array of instructional partners to help schools and districts get more from tools they're already using. We vet all our instructional partners to ensure superior content quality, supports a diverse student population, is standards-aligned and engages across many levels of student learning.

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Since the early 2000s, student-led conferences have been making inroads into the traditional parent/teacher conference scene. The Hechinger Report published a four-part series about reform efforts in high school by focusing on this very topic. Even though I facilitated professional learning that supported teachers in implementing this practice in their classrooms, neither of my daughters had an opportunity to do this. Pretty ironic, don't you think? That said, I now realize I could have asked their teachers to let them lead or be a part of our conference conversations. Let me give you some ideas about how to do that for you and your child, just in case you are in a school where these conferences do not occur.
Why Students Should Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences
In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Monica Martinez wrote,
"Parent-teacher conferences were a good idea in concept, but they reflect a tradition that is too centered on adults. Flipping these conferences to be student-led empowers the student and facilitates a partnership between the teacher and parents that is focused on supporting what the student identifies as her strengths and challenges in learning, not what the teacher or parent identifies for the student."

It means that we are allowing our students the time and forum to activate themselves as owners of their learning. "

What do you think? What if the conversation became more about student learning, and student strengths and needs, and less about explaining or defending grades? What if we, as parents, worked in conjunction with the teacher to help our student build themselves into a self-directed learner? This means that we are working to help our learner set goals, take charge of their learning and assignments, do some self assessment and reflection, and ask questions that take them deeper in their learning. It means that we are allowing our students the time and forum to activate themselves as owners of their learning.

Consider the fact that if our learners are reflecting on what they want to share with us about themselves as learners, they will be strengthening their communication skills and their organizational skills. This reflection, self assessment, and organization will be leading them to develop complex thinking skills and work on their metacognition, which are skills that helps children learn, as well as contribute to life outside of the K-12 environment.
Approaching the Teacher Regarding Student-Led Conferences
Maybe some (or all) of this sounds like something that interests you, a potentially new and different partnership with both your child's teacher and your learner. What can you, as a parent, do about it?

First, inquire as to whether having student-led conferences is something that happens at your child's school or with your child's teacher. If so, great. If not, ask if it might be possible.

Second, be prepared to say why you are asking-what benefits you see to this change in conference format.

Third, talk with your child about the idea. Gather his or her thoughts and feelings to help you plan what to share with the teacher.

Fourth, shift your thinking to how you might become a partner in your child's learning with this approach... both to the teacher and your learner.

Building Learner Agency
What is learner agency? It is learners having the power to act. What better way to act than to reflect on their learning and where they are in relation to their goals, make plans about how to get where they need or want to be, and be able to talk it through with caring adults. As a teacher, one way to get started might be the idea of letting students lead conferences with their parents. If this idea is new to your school, you could offer parents and students a choice of a parent-teacher conference or a student-led conference. For those to whom the concept might be new, here are nine ideas you might share.

Communicate with learners about the format change.

Help students organize their work to share. Provide guidelines about how many pieces and why a piece might be shared.

1. What would you like to see as the learner?

2. What would your parents like to see?

3. What would your teachers like to see?

Communicate with parents about the change in conference format.

Set expectations, facilitate learner reflection, and practice.

Preparation and practice will be important for this to be successful.

Provide a script or talking points to support students. This is something that might even be modeled in class.

1. Thank your parents for coming and showing interest.

2. Introduce parents to teacher.

3. Ask parents to hold their questions till the end. Offer them a notecard just in case they want to make notes.

4. Pick a subject/subjects to focus on during the conference.

1. Explain what you have been doing in that particular subject.

2. Explain why you chose the work to share that you did.

3. State your goal in this subject.

5. Talk about what you enjoyed this quarter.

6. Share what you were most successful with and why.

7. Explain what you need to work on and why.

8. Ask if there are questions.

9. Thank your parents for coming.

Debrief the experience with students. Have them talk about the pluses and deltas.

1. What did you like about learner-led conferences?

2. How did you feel during the conference?

3. What didn't you like about the conference?

4. If you could change the conference to make it better, what would you do?

1. Celebrate the effort.

2. Make plans for the next time.

Teachers might also consider surveying parents about their thoughts and feeling regarding the experience of a conference led by their learner. You don't have to give up your parent time with teachers. Just consider making that a separate appointment or use another method of communication for that conversation. One of the potential after-effects might include an increase in learner-parent communication with an extra benefit that conversation is focused on academics rather than how the day was. Just imagine how your family meeting conversation might change.

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References
April 1996 | Volume 53 | Number 7 Working Constructively with Families Pages 64-68 When Students Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences Lyn Le Countryman and Merrie Schroeder

http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin112.shtml - Student-led conferences: A growing trend

Student-Led Conferences: Empowerment and Ownership Putting students in the driver's seat of their parent-teacher conferences creates opportunities for reflection, engagement, and agency. August 24, 2015 http://www.edutopia.org/practice/student-led-conferences-empowerment-and-ownership

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/01/should-students-lead-parent-teacher-conferences/let-the-students-lead-the-parent-teacher-conference Let the Students Lead the Parent-Teacher Conference Monica R Martinez
http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/ten-trends/ten-trends-2014/learning-agency http://www.personalizelearning.com/2015/09/learner-agency-missing-link.html

Kathy Dyer is a Sr. Professional Development Specialist for NWEA, designing and developing learning opportunities for partners and internal staff. Formerly a Professional Development Consultant for NWEA, she coached teachers and school leadership and provided professional development focused on assessment, data, and leadership. In a career that includes 20 years in the education field, she has also served as a district achievement coordinator, principal, and classroom teacher. She received her Masters in Educational Leadership from the University of Colorado Denver. Follow her on Twitter at @kdyer13.

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A New Twist on Family Meetings: Student-Led Conferences

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Since the early 2000s, student-led conferences have been making inroads into the traditional parent/teacher conference scene. The Hechinger Report published a four-part series about reform efforts in high school by focusing on this very topic. Even though I facilitated professional learning that supported teachers in implementing this practice in their classrooms, neither of my daughters had an opportunity to do this.

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Talking with parents.

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An example of what to address when talking about MAP scores with parents during conferences.

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How to analyze your class report! Funsies!

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NWEA | Best of Fusion 1 | On-Demand Webinar

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Top-rated Fusion presenters and NWEA partners Lissa Brunan and Alissa Thelen reveal powerful new approaches to leveraging Class Report data to make a difference in your instruction.

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Lots of stuff here.

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Comparative Data to Inform Instructional Decisions

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Comparative Data to Inform Instructional Decisions

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I don't know how to use this yet.

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Gives reading passages at specific Lexile levels.

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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Flashcards

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To access the latest version of our MAP to KHAN Academy, log-in to teach.mapnwea.org and go to MAP Reports and the Learning Continuum.  Scroll below the Test View and click the link to MAP to Kahn Academy in open educational resource.

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Jen Hulbert, we were just talking about this... may be a good read for spec ed and sixth math teachers.

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Nate's research

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Of all of the statistics provided by NWEA in our series of reports, perhaps the easiest to understand and the most widely used is the percentage of students in a classroom, grade-level, or school who meet or exceed their end-of-year growth projection. Each student's growth projection (sometimes referred to as the student's "growth target") is based on the student's grade, starting RIT score, and the subject in which that student is tested, and represents the median level of growth observed for similar students in NWEA's norming sample. Or, put differently, the growth projection represents our best estimate of the average growth for students at various points on the RIT scale.

This statistic is included in grade, building, and classroom growth reports, and does provide teachers and principals with useful information about the performance of their students. And while this statistic doesn't provide information about how much growth students showed over the course of the year (because students either met/exceeded or did not meet their projections), it does summarize the percentage of students who showed growth consistent with what we might expect to see from them based on their grade, starting achievement level, and the subject tested.

This statistic can serve a number of purposes, as it can be useful in monitoring student growth in the classroom, it can be used to summarize school or district performance, it can be a useful guide for instructional planning, and so on. However, what we are observing more and more is the use of this statistic as the basis for teacher evaluation, which is not the intended use of this statistic. For example, districts might establish a benchmark at the beginning of the year for what the percentage of students meeting or exceeding their growth projections needs to be in order for a teacher to be considered "effective" (75% of students, for example), or teachers may need to improve the percentage of students achieving this goal by a certain percentage each year (such as an annual improvement of 5 percentage points). The use of this statistic in these ways (and more) continues to be something we observe with greater frequency, so I wanted to take a moment to share a couple of general thoughts about this practice.

First and foremost, while the growth projections based on our 2011 norms do provide reasonable goals for students and teachers to strive to attain, recall that these growth projections represent the level of growth we might expect to see from the student in the middle of the distribution (the average amount of growth). In other words, on average, approximately half of all students are going to show more growth than the growth projection, and the other half are going to show less growth. So, if the growth projections are being used as the basis for teacher evaluation, it is probably worth considering if they are appropriate for the students actually in the classroom. That is, for a classroom with greater academic, social, or behavioral challenges, the growth projections may be too high of a bar; conversely, in classrooms where these challenges do not exist, the bar may be too low. As I previously noted, the growth projections are generated for students based on their grade, starting RIT score, and the subject being assessed, so many of the other factors that likely would be related to the amount of growth a student shows (special education status, for example) are not considered in the student's final growth projection. As a result, the "bar" for a teacher's students, in the form of our growth projections, may not adequately or accurately capture appropriate learning goals for those students. Because of this, teachers may be at an unfair disadvantage in evaluations that are based on this metric simply because of the students they teach and the challenges that these students bring-factors that are largely outside of the teacher's influence or control.

Secondly, one of the other potentially problematic issues we observe is that districts set goals for teachers without any context for what might be considered effective or adequate performance. For example, we have worked with districts that have identified 75% as the district's benchmark for what is considered "effective" teacher performance, but that percentage was chosen without any consideration for the prior performance of students in the district (or the level of test performance we might expect to see from these students) as a "one-size-fits-all" approach. And, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, while this 75% benchmark might be appropriate for some students (and for some teachers), it likely isn't going to be appropriate for all students and all teachers. It is certainly true that districts want to set high standards for their students and teachers, but when this statistic is used for teacher evaluation purposes, districts should also want to identify goals that reflect what students in a classroom can actually do, and are goals that are actually going to be attainable by the teacher.

We hope to have some more specific guidance about what our recommendations are for using our tests for teacher evaluation purposes, as well as some of the considerations and concerns we have about this process, so stay tuned for that. But, in the meantime, if you are reading this and you are using our tests for teacher evaluation purposes (especially the percent of students meeting or exceeding their growth projections), it's important to restate that the growth projections are just that-projections (which are great for use in setting student goals)-and not definitive targets for where students should be by the end of the year.

If you have more questions about teacher evaluation, or want to share how your school/district is using MAP data for teacher evaluation purposes, please share your comments/thoughts below...we'd love to hear from you, and can perhaps offer our own thoughts on your particular situation!

Nate Jensen is a Research Scientist at NWEA, where he specializes in the use of student testing data for accountability purposes. He has provided consultation and support to teachers, administrators, and policymakers across the country, to help establish best practices around using student achievement and growth data in accountability systems. Nate holds a Ph.D. in Counselor Education from the University of Arkansas, an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Framingham State University and a B.S. in Psychology from South Dakota State University.

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Using the Percentage of Students Meeting of Exceeding Their Growth Projections as an Evaluation Tool

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Of all of the statistics provided by NWEA in our series of reports, perhaps the easiest to understand and the most widely used is the percentage of students in a classroom, grade-level, or school who meet or exceed their end-of-year growth projection.

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This workbook will help you learn how to read all the different reports in MAP.

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Lots of tools here!

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How to talk to students about MAP testing.

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As school gets back underway and students get into their groove, teachers begin to think about winter testing. Many schools administer the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) K - 12 interim assessment around this time of year to gather information on student learning that gives them the data needed to make informed instructional decisions. Getting students ready for the MAP test is not difficult, but there are some steps teachers can take to prepare them for the assessment. Here are some valuable discussion points:

1. Talk about the purpose of MAP testing. The test results will show teachers how well students are performing so teachers can best help their students in class. It will also help teachers know about what each student should be working on to improve the most. It's even better if you can specifically talk to students about the purpose of the winter test and how the results will be used.

2. The MAP test builds a unique test for each student. The computer displays one question at a time on the screen. Students select an answer using the mouse or the keyboard. The difficulty of the test will adjust based on how the student performs on the questions. MAP will build a test that is specific to each student.

3. Students are not expected to know the answer to every question.

4. Students cannot skip items, and they cannot go back.

5. Students may change an answer as many times as they like, but once they have clicked the Go On button, or pressed the Enter key on the keyboard, the answer cannot be changed.

6. The tests are not timed, but students need to work productively.

7. Students should use their best test-taking skills. Review test-taking skills with students:

sounding out familiar words

looking for root words

using prefixes and suffixes

looking at surrounding text for clues

reading directions and an item completely, and

eliminating wrong answers

The MAP test is a computer adaptive test, so be sure to include the following discussion points:

1. Find out if students are comfortable using the mouse, keyboard, scroll bars, and a pop-up calculator. If they are not, you might need to schedule a time to familiarize students with the lab and computers.

2. Tell students about the assigned seating arrangement in the computer lab.

3. Remind students that they cannot use textbooks, other materials, or hand-held calculators during the test.

4. Discuss the importance of listening to the proctor's directions before beginning the test.

Teachers are an integral part of the MAP testing experience and students generally do better when the teacher is positive and encouraging. Some additional MAP test resources that teachers may find helpful:

MAP and MAP for Primary Grades (MPG) Warm-Ups - These videos explain how students will interact with MAP and the MPG test for K - 2 grades. The warm-ups also feature sample test questions.

A Parent's Guide to MAP - While primarily aimed at helping teachers have conversations with parents about MAP, the guide is also a great resource for commonly asked questions about the test.

Finally, MAP results from winter testing provide a great opportunity to talk about student goals and goal setting at the mid-year point. Check out some posts from our contributors on student goal setting:

The MAP test can accurately measure growth, project proficiency on state accountability tests, and inform how educators can differentiate instruction, evaluate programs, and structure curriculum. These tips and resources can help teachers ensure that students are prepared and ready to put their best foot forward.

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11 talking points for teachers preparing students for the MAP test

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As school gets back underway and students get into their groove, teachers begin to think about winter testing. Many schools administer the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) K - 12 interim assessment around this time of year to gather information on student learning that gives them the data needed to make informed instructional decisions.