Effective, Efficient, Engaging
When preparing for an interview one seeks correct responses. The test question arises, and this is where you can answer one or two ways. Your answer can either be scripted as rehearsed or it can come from the heart. How do you prepare for tests? The answer is simple, the environment. Not because a politician or education official recommended it, but because that is the variable we as educators can change to make testing easier for students. But why wait until you test. Instead, let us look at environments students are in every day life.
Technology alone forms its own environment. Digging deeper, looking at a software that is used in several schools, iStation. iStation is a software program that offers Reading, Math, and Writing computer-based assessment and instruction for Pre-K through12 students. Students complete game-based lessons and activities led by animated characters while the program generates reports on their progress for teachers, parents, and administrators.
Every month students take a test. The test covers vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, and text fluency. Mathes et al. (2016) state each subtest has both an accuracy component and a fluency component. Fluency in cognitive processes is seen as a proxy for learning, such that as students learn a skill, the proficiency with which they perform the skill shows how well they know or have learned the skill. To be fluent at higher-level processes of reading connected text, a student will also need to be fluent with foundational skills.
IStation facilitates the teacher’s presence through webinars, a useful toolbox (as a resource center), and continual support through customer service. When students complete their monthly tests, teachers are immediately provided results. This data is represented in several ways and is used to track growth from month to month. The best part is that it is reader friendly, and the teacher is able to conference with students to explain their growth.
IStation nor any other software can facilitate social presence. However, a teacher can use iStation as a tool to increase a social environment in the classroom. iStation measures reading levels with students and based on teacher evaluations students are based in groups of about four or fewer students. They are grouped based on strengths and challenges. Therefore, when small group conferencing takes place there is a high level of communication among students and ideas, strategies, or suggestions bloom. Students then learn from one another and can help each other through these lessons.
As an educator, I like that students immediately can see their growth or their decline. One thing I do as an educator is prepare my students a day before and offer a quiet testing environment in which they will be in for the STAAR test. Each month data is posted and based on the student results we require them to complete 30, 60, or 90 minutes per week of iStation. I advise my students to not pay attention to that number. To complete as much iStation and practice. Games and assignments can be created, and we as a class incorporate incentives for growth and play competitively.
A couple improvements iStation could make would be the stories that are read for children. We forget that most students don’t know what a CD is or a VCR. Some vocabulary is dated and students would respond better to 21st century vocabulary. Students track their results and can understand if they drop points in spelling, they need to practice spelling but if they drop points in text fluency; they are unsure what text fluency is. My job is to explain that to students however, if they had examples before testing or labeled sections maybe they would well.
Works Cited
Akcaoglu, M., & Lee, E. (2016). Increasing Social Presencec in Online Learning through Small Group Discussions. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 17(3). Doi: 10.19173/irrodl.v17i3.2293
Istation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.istation.com/
Mathes, P., Torgesen, J., & Herron, J (2016). Computer Adaptive Testing System for Continuous Progress Monitoring of Growth for Students Pre-K through Grade 3. Retrieved April 9, 20202, from https://www.istation.com/Content/downloads/studies/er_technical_report.pdf