Report+from+the+2010+ERB+conference

I wanted to report back to you from the 2010 ERB conference in New York City that I attended last week. I'm hoping that by sharing some thoughts and takeaways with you, two things will happen. One is that you will consider sharing your professional development experiences in this same way - rather than waiting for an opportunity at a faculty meeting, for example. The other hope is that I can spread some of the inspiration and ideas generated at the conference - both to your teaching and to your own pursuit of meaningful professional development opportunities.

There were several workshops about the CTP (Comprehensive Testing Program), which as you may know is the standardized test that is developed by ERB and administered by CEE in grades 2-5. The most helpful thing for me was to attend a day-long seminar on reading, interpreting, and sharing the results of the assessment - something that Lois has always done and will continue to do. However, since I will be working with grades 2&3, I felt that I should learn about the exam itself and about how it does or does not reflect our curriculum and mission. For example, as you know, Emily used some of the item analysis of our results to inform her leadership project looking at our math curriculum. I thought it would perhaps be a useful exercise to do the same in reading/language arts, especially given our exploration of different literacy programs. The bulk of the assessment is on the verbal (versus the quantitative) side, so it would probably mean selecting certain focus areas. This is something I am hoping to do and would welcome any thoughts about things to look for.

ERB is in the process of beta testing an online version of the CTP. While they have not indicated that the paper and pencil version of the test is going away, it is certainly a direction that they seem to be leaning towards. As you know, CPAA (Children's Progress Academic Assessment) which we use in EC2-C1, and which is also developed in partnership with ERB, is an online assessment. The ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam) may be heading down this path, along with the ECAA, which is the Early Childhood Admissions Assessment. All this to say, it is on our radar screen as something to be investigating. The biggest change that using the online version would bring, aside from the change in format/logistics/administration, is that, like the CPAA, the CTP Online would be adaptive. Students would all take a router set of 15 or so questions, and then would take a more or less difficult assessment based on how they performed on that router. Reporting would change significantly as a result of the adaptive nature, but the goal would be to truly track student progress over time, and to use the data from this differentiated assessment to allow for more and better differentiated instruction.

Thinking along those same lines of using a differentiated assessment for differentiated instruction, I attended a workshop about CPAA, even though we are in the process of using it and of evaluating the new version we have implemented this year. Since I did not have to focus so much on the question of "should we buy this?" I was able to kind of ignore the sales pitch and concentrate on the aspects of the program that I don't feel I understand/use well enough. I think we are all in agreement that the California standards-aligned assessment we are now giving is a better fit with our curriculum at CEE in the primary grades. We like the format, the game-like feel, the way we can administer it to a large group of students at once. I would encourage those of you who use it, then, to think of taking advantage of some of the reporting features available to you, and to making instructional decisions based on what is reported out, when appropriate. For example: In general, there are features of the CPAA that make it the //formative// (vs. summative) assessment that it purports to be. I am here to support you as you take advantage of those features - in your teaching, in your reporting to parents, and in your thinking about the direction of your grade level curriculum and our divisional goals.
 * consider retesting students if there are red flags (potentially using a "lower" version of the assessment if needed) as well as if there are indicators that a child could use more of a challenge (by using a "higher" version). Since users should have the software for the assessment installed in their classrooms this could be done on an as-needed basis without waiting for the whole group. Also, since the assessment is adaptive, and since the item bank is so comprehensive, even if a student retests he/she will not be seeing the same assessment twice.
 * scaffolding and hinting are noted throughout a child's individual report - so that is good information for you to have - meaning, if a child couldn't answer a question correctly without a certain kind of hint or reminder, then knowing that can help you differentiate instruction for that child - or for a small group.
 * there is a parent report available consisting of a short narrative about the student's strengths and challenges, accompanied by a set of suggestions for activities to do at home. The parent report does not include the 1-2-3-4 scale or ranking in a numerical form, so that parents won't focus on that aspect. This may be useful to you as you write conference reports, and to provide some objective data to support what you are seeing on a regular basis.
 * the class reports allow you to do things like cluster kids who are all struggling with a certain skill, as well as identify activities to do with those groups.
 * there is an administrative report that I need to get much more comfortable with, and that I hope to use for broader discussions about our curriculum.