Tyler ISD Adopts NWEA Assessment Suite
Tyler Independent School District in
Texas has adopted a comprehensive assessment suite as part of its five-year
strategic plan.
The plan called for "innovative methods to provide skills that match the
talents and aspirations of each student," according to the document. To help
make that plan a reality, the district decided to implement computer-based
adaptive assessments that would provide teachers with immediate feedback so
they could adjust their instruction accordingly.
The district selected a suite of assessments from the Northwest Evaluation
Association (NWEA), including the Children's Progress
Academic Assessments (CPAA), Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) and Skills
Navigator. "The computer adaptive nature of the NWEA assessments will
allow us to more effectively target instruction and provide unique learning
experiences for every child," said Marty Crawford, superintendent of
Tyler ISD, in a prepared statement.
CPAA is a computer adaptive skills assessment of early literacy and
mathematics skills for use with pre-kindergarten through grade 3. According
to information from NWEA, CPAA "includes instructional scaffolding for students
who struggle and skill-specific next steps for each child and classroom."
MAP is a computer adaptive interim assessment of reading, language usage and
mathematics for use with grades 2-12. According to NWEA, MAP
"dynamically adjusts to each student's level of learning, independent of
grade level, and provides actionable data for teachers to make instructional
adjustments."
"The diverse applications of the MAP data has allowed us to streamline
our assessment program while giving us the added ability to track student
growth and college readiness," said Crawford.
Skills Navigator is a classroom assessment of math, reading comprehension,
vocabulary and language usage for students working at a K-8 level. The assessments take five to 15 minutes and are designed to
be used as often as necessary to assess skills and monitor student
progress.
Tyler ISD will use the NWEA assessment suite with more than 15,000 students
in pre-kindergarten through high school at its 28 school campuses.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].