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Do any of you have any insight/experience/pointers to finding reasonable assessment materials for a entire class of students?
I'm involved in helping a startup school, and while this isn't the biggest issue right now, sooner or later, it should be. The students will be in 9th grade in the fall, and we guess that they will have some pretty wide ranging math backgrounds. (Some were homeschooled; some were in parochial school; some were in public school. Some used Saxon, others hadn't heard of it, etc.) The school is little, of course, since it's just starting, so everyone would like it if magically, all of the kids were at the same grade/skill level (and could be put in one class.) Most will supposedly have had algebra 1, but could we really assume that means something? How will we know how strong their general arithmetic, fractions, etc. skills are?
So I've been looking to see what's available for free, and what's available for purchase in terms of assessment materials. Worst case, I'd design my own tests, but I'm concerned that my naivete will lead to big gaps in what I should have been querying, or lead me to incorrect conclusions about what they know/don't know because I wrote a poor test.
Ideally for ease and simplicity, the test would be standardized, instead of someone interviewing each student, but does anyone have experience with interaction based assessment as well? Where should I start?
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I teach an after-school prep course for SSAT. It may not be perfect, but it's supposed to be used to evaluate kids applying for entrance to private (independent) high schools. The prep book at www.ssat.org has full practice tests with timing and grading instructions. It doesn't get very deep into algebra because many kids take the test before they have had much algebra. There might even be some test score data on-line to compare with.
Both Saxon and Math-U-See have free placement tests on their websites. You may have to give some of the earlier ones to everyone to access fractions and such, I'm not sure. They're free and seem simple to give and score.
The problem with those is that is seems like I'd have to give them two 100 question tests, one for alg, and one for everything else. maybe that's the norm?
But more, I guess I want more than just placement. I want something that helps me assess WHERE they've got deficiencies so even if they placed into Algebra 1, I'd know the individual students' weaknesses. These seem mostly to be "the next 20 problems are what most 6th graders in Saxon need to know" but that doesnt' help me if I'm not using the saxon curriculum, exactly.
Have you considered using the Iowa Testing Program? It may be more comprehensive that what you were originally thinking about, but it will really show you where your students are.
http://www.education.uiowa.edu/itp/ited/index.htm
Ben, thanks for the pointer. Maybe I'm misreading, but it seems that obtaining the test is difficult for a startup school, as we're not yet officially recognized by the state ed departments, and we'd need to get help from another school. But it looks also like we'd only have access to those materials in the April/May season, and we'd not be able to use it this year, but have to wait til next. maybe i'm misreading, but I'll call them and find out more.
I wonder if you could find somebody who has a copy of the Brigance Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills-Revised (CIBS-R) and see if the math portions of that instrument would meet your needs.
I gave C. the ITBS two years ago, but it didn't give me any information about gaps -- Ben, can you order breakdowns of the scores?
I didn't see that option.
I discovered this weekend that for $43 you can order an item-by-item breakdown of your SAT scores.
Schools use Key Math (I think that's what it's called).
I think palisadesk likes it.
I assume that it's expensive seeing as how schools pay for it. But I think that's "the one."
The other place to look for free materials would be the CA state standards and tests. I think the links are posted on the sidebar.
MA & Indiana standards and tests might work, too.
These 3 states have the best standards in the country, and their tests may give you a breakout on which items correspond to which standards. (Usually states post the scoring materials, too.)
Seeing as how the state of CA formally advises parents to stay on top of their kids' math educations through the 12th grade, let's hope they post the scoring materials.
Last but not least, ALEKS will give you a free evaluation of your child. I had C. take an ALEKS evaluation 2 years ago.
You can get the ITBS from Bob Jones University, which seems to call itself BJU these days.
It's $40/student, iirc. Very simple procedure--but, as I say, I don't think you get any kind of "granularity" on skills & knowledge.
At least, I didn't.
btw, C., even with the horrifically bad math education he'd had at the middle school, still scored in the 88th percentile on the ITBS in November of 7th grade.
This is why my district can get away with murder. No matter how bad the teaching & curriculum are, the kids still do "fine" because the parents kick in with home teaching, tutoring, and, in my case, the recruitment of a whole network of "blog friends" able & willing to help out. (Barry is getting us through the end of the year now.)
The district mission statement is that each individual child should reach his or her full potential.
In reality, the goal is that the kids should do "fine." With a parent population as educated and focused as ours, that goal is assured.
Key Math is excellent for diagnostic purposes and does give you a good overview of specific strengths and weaknesses in students' mathematical knowledge. However, it isn't suitable for group administration -- it's an individual test, like the WIAT or Woodcock-Johnson -- individually administered. Depending on the student, it takes about 90 minutes to administer to one student. So it doesn't sound like what is needed here.
It is great for developing individualized plans (for acceleration, remediation or whatever) because of its specificity. It yields age norms, grade equivalents, standard scores and a variety of analyses based on the data.
It also only goes up to a grade 8 level, so you would not use it with normal-to high achieving students in 7th grade and beyond.
There are some good group-administered diagnostic math tests. I think Instructivist mentioned one --Stanford maybe?
My previous meddle school used the Brigance but teachers did not find it useful and I don't remember why.
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