Assessments
Three of the key ingredients to student achievement are curriculum, pedagogy, and assessments. Our Board Adopted Curriculum is the general plan for what we want our students to know. Pedagogy is the process of teaching and learning that happens in our classrooms and beyond each and every day. Assessments are a way for us to find out where are students are at academically with regards to the curriculum. There are several formal and informal assessments that happen throughout the school day. Informal assessments might be observations made by the teacher or daily homework. These are used to make sure our students are on the right track. Formal assessments include unit tests per subject area, topic tests in math, reading levels, etc. Another formal assessment grades 3-5 complete is the Kansas State Assessment. This occurs every spring to gage how well our students, classroom, school, district and state know the state standards.
Due to new standards being adopted in the state of Kansas, we also have a new state assessment. Students took the new state assessment last spring and we are now seeing results from these assessments. If you had a student in grades 3 or 4 last year, your child's scores will be coming home in their backpacks on Friday. These scores cannot be compared to previous scores since it is an entirely different test. These results combined with other tools, such as evaluating day-to-day class work, homework, observations made in the classroom and keeping track of how students change and grow throughout the year - are all used to measure a student's progress and assist teachers in gaining insights into the skills, abilities and knowledge of all our students.
This year, all Heritage students will be piloting a new assessment called the MAP test. MAP stands for Measure of Academic Progress, which is a nationally normed test that will give us valuable information to continue to help our students achieve. We will be conducting two MAP tests this year, one in the winter and one towards the end of the year. There are two parts to the MAP test, one part is on reading and one part is on math. These will be taken on two separate occasions and each part should take somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour to complete. Heritage teachers are currently going through training to understand how to administer the test as well as how to interpret the results to make more informed decisions to best work with our students. I am excited about this new opportunity because it will not only give us data to help understand where our students are at academically, but it will also give parents an understanding of how their child is progressing over time.
Classroom teachers will be sending home more specific information on the MAP tests and when these tests will occur. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Scott McFarland
Heritage Principal
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