Massachusetts District Adopts Assessment Platform To Give Teachers More Control
Malden
Public Schools sas adopted a new assessment platform in an effort to give educators more control over the learning process. The district selected Performance Matters' Unify to
author, administer and analyze student performance. The 6,500-student
school district
started using the assessment platform in September.
Unify allows users to:
- Write
and review instructional materials;
- Administer
assessments that improve learning;
- Analyze
student data from multiple sources; and
- Act
on the information with resources that
improve teaching and learning.
"Previously,
we worked with a company that
provided item banks and testing for us, but we needed more than that,"
said
Malden Public Schools Superintendent David DeRuosi. "We needed a
partner that
would work with us to support our students, not just create more work
for us."
The
seven-school district has begun to use
the platform to both author and administer benchmark assessments as
well as
mid-term and final exams. By the end of this school year, they will use
it to
analyze and act on the data on a very granular level, from the point of
view of
the entire district and individual students.
"One
of the main benefits of Unify is that it
puts information in the hands of the teachers," DeRuosi said. "Teachers
will be
able to access data from our benchmarks, mid-terms and finals, and see
it in an
easy-to-understand format. They'll also be able to create their own
assessments
for their classrooms."
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.