Friday, May 30, 2008

Time to share...

What will you be doing for fun this summer? What have you done in the past that you think others would enjoy? Share it with others and we'll let you know if it works out for us.

Have a good summer, and if a spare moment arrives, think about how you will use Skills Iowa next year.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Memorial Day Memory

I was thinking about a friend of mine who I haven't thought of in years this morning. We were great pals when we were just little guys. I'd go to his home and play, and he'd come to mine. He was the only one of my friends whose parents my mom had to call and tell them to come and pick him up. He was fearless. We climbed to the top of the corn crib inside the alleyway. We went to the top of everything that seven year olds could get to. I was brave on those occasions, but he was fearless.

As time progressed, we went different directions. I went to college, and he went into the Marines. Years ago, when visiting Washington D.C., I found his name on the Vietnam Memorial. I looked his name up in the directory, and found that we were there one day before the anniversary of his death. I also discovered that my wife and he shared the same birthday; he would have been one year older. Some time after that, I was at the cemetery in my home town for Memorial Day. I found a clipping in the gathering building there that told of his death. Strangely, whoever had cut out the clipping had left a notice in about a play that I was going to perform in at college. Such different paths, and yet we seemed to be linked in so many ways.

Here is a portion of what was written about him in his Bronze Star Citation, "...while conducting a patrol near the Khe Sahn Combat Base, the Marines came under intense mortar and automatic weapons fire from a numerically superior, well-entrenched North Vietnamese Army force and sustained numerous casualties. Ordered to attack, Private First Class Anderson and several companions boldly advanced, routing the enemy soldiers and seizing the emplacement. While consolidating to continue the assault, he alertly observed several wounded Marines lying in an area dangerously exposed to hostile fire. Reacting instantly, he unhesitatingly left his covered position to aid the injured men. Fearlessly maneuvering across fifteen meters of fire-swept terrain, he reached the side of a casualty and skillfully administered first aid. Ignoring the enemy rounds impacting near him, he continued to treat the injured man, and while assisting him from the hazardous area, private Anderson was mortally wounded. His heroic actions and sincere concern for the welfare of his comrades inspired all who observed him....He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country."

It surprised me that after forty years his memory is still so vivid. I'm sorry he died so young.

If you would like to find someone from your community who gave their life in the service of their country while serving in Vietnam, go to: http://thewall-usa.com/index.asp#search and search by home of record and state.

Jim

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Before you leave for the summer...

All of us at Skills Iowa thank you for what you do for the students in your classes, school and communities. We are incredibly proud to be a part of what you do to increase student achievement. The recent changes in education have not come without some difficulty and some pain, but you have embraced change and have done what you could to insure that all students have high and equitable achievement. Thank you.

Over the summer if you have questions about how you might utilize the programs comprising Skills Iowa, please feel free to contact your project leader. We are available all summer, and will be happy to answer any questions you might have or to offer suggestions on the use of our programs. If one of us can't answer your question, we will be happy to share the question with the rest of our Skills Iowa team until we can find the solution.

Enjoy your summer. Take some time to do something that you've been wanting to do. Breathe deeply and relax. And then, when you are ready to start thinking about 08-09, we'll be there to help if you need us.

Thanks so much for everything you do for kids.

Skills Iowa in the Summer

Your students don't have to stop using Skills Iowa just because school ends for the summer. If you set up assignments in Skills Tutor for your students, they can work with them at home until July 31st. There are many ways to set these assignments up, and you are the one who knows best what needs your students have. If you are assigning a section which the students have not yet done, you could just assign the pretest and Skills Tutor will take care of the rest. If you are assigning in an area that students have already taken the pretest, you may want to assign all of the activities to ensure that the student has access to every skill. Any lessons that have already been done can be done again and again.

You might want to look at the reports and determine which students could go from the level they've been working in to the next level up in difficulty or which students need to work in a lower difficulty lesson to find success. You could also assign each of the A, B, and C levels and let the students determine where they need to work.

Students will spend their time doing something this summer, and not every day lends itself to playing outside or doing chores. If they have at least one alternative to video games, they might just keep learning. A letter home to parents with the instructions on how to access the programs, what the username and password for their student is might just insure that your kids will keep learning during the summer.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Have you found solutions to problems?

More often than not, the Skills Iowa programs work with no problems at all, however, once in a while problems do arise. Frequently, emails or calls to the project leaders can lead to a quick resolution. Sometimes, calls to the company's support numbers are needed, but lots of times the problems get solved at the local level by teachers or by the tech coordinator for the school or building. A big problem maker is pop up blockers and firewalls that have to be administered by your tech person.

Today we'd like to know what problems you've found, and what solutions you have found for those problems. It might be as simple as switching to a different browser or reloading a web page. Share your solution so others might have a starting point for their problems. If you have any questions about how to use comments, drop an email to jlippold@ia-sb.org.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Gardening

I'm a gardener, and as such, I start each day with a walk around the yard to see what's in bloom. It's the most beautiful time of the day. The light is gentle; the air is cool and crisp; and it's as quiet as the day will be. It's a good time to contemplate. I think about what needs to be done and make short term and long term plans, and when I see something that needs to be changed, I start to think about what I can do differently.

Sometimes, a plant has to be moved. Even though I have planted it where I was sure it would thrive, over and over again I find a plant struggling right next to a plant that loves the spot in which it is planted. So, I look around for a different plan. Is the soil different where this plant is growing? Is there too much shade? Not enough? Is the plant getting enough water or too much? There are lots of questions to ask, and if I do the diagnosis correctly and find the solution, the plant can be saved and can thrive once again. I have a little yellow hosta whose identity has been lost. Two years ago I moved it to a place where it would get more sun. It started recovering, and now it is a nice little clump of yellow leaves. I have another hosta that just isn't responding, and I'll have to start looking for the solution if I'm to save it. I noticed this year that I have a blank spot in one garden where a plant that was struggling has just not come back.

I wonder if education isn't a bit like gardening. We have to discover which students are thriving, and which are struggling. Sometimes, we can make easy course corrections for them with an explanation, and sometimes we just have to keep looking for the solution. Sometimes, it is difficult to notice that a student isn't thriving until we have tested the last time and are ready to move on. What happens to the student then?

Formative assessment helps us find those students and shows us just where they aren't thriving. With this knowledge, we can reteach those topics. We can provide further explanation, additional practice and further evaluation. The good news is that in doing this practice we don't only move this student forward; we move ALL students forward. Just like the garden, even those students who are doing fine can do better. It is a daunting responsibility, and a challenging practice, but Assessment Center can help in making these assessments. It takes little more than a few minutes to create an assessment that will give us great information in the reports that will let us know who is thriving, and who needs a different approach. With a little good fortune, we can find the way to help the struggling student reach the kind of success that my little yellow hosta is having. When we do, life improves.

If you would like to read more about formative assessment, Inside the Black Box, by Black and Wiliam is one of the definitive articles about the subject. You can find it here. If you need assistance with Assessment Center, contact your project leader.

Jim

Friday, May 16, 2008

Skills Tutor's Friendly Reminder

If you have logged in to Skills Tutor recently, you may have gotten a Friendly Reminder that your account is about to expire and that you should call the company to make arrangements to keep your school's account active. Don't worry; your account is not about to expire. Skills Tutor is used by schools all over the country who are not Skills Iowa schools. These schools pay subscription fees, and they do need to renew their accounts. All Skills Iowa schools will have their accounts renewed for next year without contacting the company. We're on the job for you! :-)

It's Friday!

It's one of the last few Fridays of the year, and it brings to mind evaluation of the week, the quarter and the year. How are you evaluating the student progress of this school year. We have the ITBS and ITED tests, and probably at least one other standardized test, and these are wonderful tools. Another wonderful tool that Skills Iowa schools have at their disposal is the Posttests that are included in Skills Tutor. If you have not assigned a posttest to your students, you might want to take the opportunity before the year is over. Using the posttest will do at least two things. First, it will show you and your students where the strengths and weaknesses lie right now, and second, it will serve as a review for any end of the year exit testing you will be giving.

Remember, that Skills Tutor subject areas are divided up by difficulty levels LL, A, B and C. LL is found only in Reading Comprehension, and stands for Lower Level third grade. Level A is roughly equivalent with third and fourth grade; Level B is designed for fifth and sixth grade, and Level C is at a seventh and eighth grade level. Lessons without a letter designation are designed for high school achieving students. Remember, these levels are arbitrary, and are not intended to be used only at the designated grade level; each of you has students who perform at, above or below grade level.

The posttests can be taken over and over, so they can be retaken now, even if the students have already them before. Both sets of results will be saved in the Student Detail report.

If you need assistance with making assignments in Skills Tutor, contact your project leader.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

What would you do differently?

With the year so close to an end, you might want to take a moment and think about what you might have done differently in your use of Skills Iowa.

One of the biggest decisions teachers have to make at the beginning of the year is how to organize their students. Do you want to group all of your students together in one class, or do you want to keep each class separate? Each has its own benefits, but you are in the drivers seat on this call. If you are frequently putting scores from Skills Iowa programs into your grade book, you might want to keep the classes separate. If you are using the scores to determine how the larger group is performing in comparison to each other, then possibly having all students together in one class is your choice. Either way, the decision will have to be made at the beginning of the school year, and changing that decision later requires quite a bit of work.

A big decision in Skills Tutor is whether or not to use the prescriptive pretests that are offered in most subject areas. These pretests are great, but using them changes the progress of the class. If you want students doing a lesson together, then using the pretests might not allow this. On the other hand, if you are using the Skills Tutor lessons to review skills that students have been previously taught or that will not be taught again this school year, the pretests might be perfect for you.

There are lots of decisions to be made everyday in education, even using Skills Iowa is a big decision. If you would like to share how you use Skills Iowa, share your stories or suggestions with others in the comments.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Preparing for next year

All assessments created in your teacher account in Assessment Center, and all assignments created in Skills Tutor will be deleted after July 31st. If you feel that you will need to save a record of what you have done this year to aid you in what you might do next year, it might be a good idea to print off a few pages from each program.

In Assessment Center, the easiest way to keep track of what you have assessed is to print a copy of your assessment.  To do this, just choose the assessment from the list of assessments, and then click the print button above the test information. You will receive an email letting you know that your test has been prepared and a copy of the test will be attached to the email, or, if you revisit that test again in a few minutes, you might see a printer icon next to the print button, and in that case, you can print the test from that page. This test can be filed away for future reference.  Another idea that can be helpful in the future is to print off the page which shows how many questions for each skill you are choosing. Since you will have to recreate the assessment next year, this page might be more useful than the assessment itself.

In Skills Tutor, choose reports and then choose the Assignment Library report. This report will give you a reminder next year of what you did this year by showing each assignment you used.

If you have a suggestion of how you keep track of your Skills Iowa use, share it with others by writing a comment.

Skills Tutor and Problem Solving

Skills Tutor has pretests, skill lessons, quizzes, and posttests, but it also has a good offering of problem solving lessons. Each of these lessons utilizes the four step problem solving process. In each lesson the student goes through a review of the process and then gets the opportunity to practice and use the problem solving skills.

There are problem solving lessons in math of course, but there are also problem solving lessons in Writing.

If you want to assign a problem solving lesson, log in to Assessment Center, and then click Skills Tutor on the left hand side of the page. Once you have been redirected to Skills Tutor, select the Classes link. Next, select the class you want to use in the white window of the page, and then click on Class Properties. On the resulting page, click on Add Assignment. On this page, you will find a Search window on the left side of the page. Enter Problem Solving in this box and click Search. Every subject area containing a Problem Solving lesson will now appear in bold type; drill down in these subject areas until you find the Problem Solving lessons. Keep in mind that Problem Solving is also a frequently used phrase in education. You will find some areas where there are problems to be solved, but which are not Problem Solving lessons. The lessons you want to find are the ones that begin with Problem Solving: and are followed by a problem to be solved, such as Matching People to Pets.

Take a look at the lessons, and consider using them with students of all grade levels.

Need more help? Contact your project leader.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Assessment Center: Overall Student Performance Report

Some of our member schools are going to be starting summer school very soon. If you have been giving regular assessments in Assessment Center, you can easily discover which tested skills the student in question needs to revisit in order to reach mastery.

Just log in to Assessment Center, click on the class in question and then click on reports. Next, click on Overall Student Performance. On the resulting page, select the individual student you are looking for and then select the desired subject area and click Show Report.

You will receive a report showing the student's percentages in the tested skills. This report can be a great help when planning a course of study for the summer.  

One of the tools you can use to address the low percentages is Skills Tutor. You can create an individualized set of practice lessons for each student. It's a great help to have each student have an available activity while you are working with other students. The students can also do the Skills Tutor lessons over and over.

Don't forget that you can create new assessments in a few minutes that will help you monitor the progress during any period of study. There is no need to keep teaching a concept that a student has mastered.

Do you have good tips on how you use Skills Iowa in your summer school?  Let us know!  Join us in the comments.

“Ending on a Positive Note”

So much to do… so little time. When I was a teacher, I was sure thinking that about now. Where on earth did the school year go? Trying to complete the organizational mess of finishing up the year is hard enough let alone the emotional prep necessary to move those kids out the door and on to other things. Hope your year end is going smoothly.

I found this article called “Ending on a Positive Note” by Mary Ellen Bafumo you might enjoy.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3666/is_200605/ai_n17184868

How do you get through the end of the year and still manage to sit up and take nourishment? Share your tips. Thanks!

Susie

Friday, May 9, 2008

Assessment Center: Tech Check

If you have some computers in your school that work just fine with Assessment Center, and some which may cause problems, it may be time to do a tech check on the troublesome computers. The Princeton Review has a tech check which can help. You can find it at asc.princetonreview.com.

Below the login windows, you will see this link: Is Your Computer Assessment Center-friendly? If you click on this link, The Princeton Review will do a review of your computer system and let you know where the problems might lie. If you need more detailed information about what the minimum requirements for Assessment Center are, there is also a Tech Check button where you can download a PDF which gives detailed information about how your computer should be configured.

Still need more help? Of course, you can always contact your project leader, or you can call The Princeton Review's support number: 1-888-778-7737

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Have you visited the Skills Iowa Web Page?

The Skills Iowa Blog is only one of Skills Iowa's online resources.  We hope you visit our web page as well.  Here you will find links to help you use Assessment Center and Skills Tutor.

We have posted links to other resources, lists of our schools and project leaders, documents that will help you use our programs, and timely reminders about our programs.

If you haven't bookmarked our web site, take this opportunity to go to: www.skillsiowa.org

Let us know what you would like to see on our web site as well as here on the Skills Iowa blog.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Assessment Center Teacher Tip: Overall Class Performance by Standard Report

The Overall Class Performance by Standard report is a useful tool to see how well a class has mastered a skill that has been administered over several assessments. This report will show what percentage of the class has fallen into each of the four performance levels. By clicking on any of the percentages in the bars that represent each skill, you will be sent to a page with the names of the students who fall into each performance category and you will also get their percentages for that skill.

To use the report, log in to Assessment Center and click on the name of the class you want to work with. Next, click on Reports, and when the page refreshes, click on Overall Class Performance by Standard. On the next page, select the subject you have assessed (remembering that ELA is reading) and the type of assessment that has been given. If you are a teacher and have created the assessment, you want to choose teacher created, TPR means The Princeton Review. Then, click Show Report. Your report will will show on the next page. Click on any skill, and you will be shown the list of students who have fallen into each of the four performance categories. To print this report, it is best to use the window just above the report that says, "Select a Format". You will probably want to select Acrobat (PDF) file. As always, your computer will deal with an Acrobat file the way it deals with all PDF files; it will either save it to a specified place (usually your desktop), it will open it, or it will open it from within your browser. You will need to print the report from within whatever program your computer is set up to use for PDF files. If you need help with this report, or any report, just contact your project leader.

This information will allow the teacher to determine which students have mastered the skill, and which still need more work on it. It's a fast easy report to use for a quick look at the performance of the class.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Skills Tutor Tip: Using the Student Detail Report

Skills Tutor has many great reports, but if you are looking for the most comprehensive information about an individual student, you want the Student Detail Report.

To get started, click on the Reports link in the left menu, and on the next screen, you will see Student Detail listed among the classroom reports. First, indicate the class for which you want information in the small window in the center of the page. Next, click on Student Detail. What will result is a list of the students in that class; either you can click Select All from the menu on the left or you can select the individual student or students for whom you need information, and then, click Continue on the left. The next screen is a list of all subject areas in Skills Tutor. You can either Select All to insure that you have all areas in which a student has worked, or you can select the subject areas that you are interested in. Next, click Continue and on the screen that results select the time period for which you are interested. After selecting the time period, click Continue and the report will start to download.

Depending on how your computer is configured to work with PDF files, the report will either open, download to your desktop, or be displayed from within your browser. If you have trouble with this, ask your school's technology person for some help, or contact your project leader.

This report will show every student's complete Skills Tutor work history for the selected time period and subjects selected. It will not only show the score for an activity; it will also show how many times a student has done the activity, how many minutes the student spent on the activity, the percentage, and the time of day the student did the work. Having all of this information helps you get a complete picture of how a student is using Skills Tutor.

Remember, each lesson in Skills Tutor is limited to a single skill, so the percentage a student has scored on an activity is the student's performance percentage for that skill.

Still need more help? Contact your project leader.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Using the Skills Iowa Blog

Here are a few tips on using the Skills Iowa blog.

Tip number one: Searching the Blog-You might not have noticed that there is a search window in the upper left corner of this page. If you are looking for something in particular, you can just type a key word into this window and hit search. If you want to find some help using Assessment Center, you might just type in Assessment Center and all of the articles containing the words Assessment Center will be shown. The down side of this is that we mention Assessment Center in lots of articles. If you get more specific, such as Gradebook, you will be shown only those entries which contain the word Gradebook.

Tip number two: Using Labels-Some of the entries have a label following them. You will find it just below the article on the right margin. If you click this label, you will be shown all of the entries which also have this label. So, if you want to read all of the Assessment Center Tips, clicking on the label Assessment Center will display all of these entries.

Tip number three: Comments-We would love to hear from you, and if you use the comments, we will. If you click on the Comments link below the entry, you will be taken to a page where you can leave your comment. You will need to create a Google/Blogger account to post, but this only takes a minute or two to complete. Your comment will not be visible immediately, but it will show up soon.

The point of this blog is to create an online presence to help you help students to reach their potential. We invite you to be an active participant in this endeavor.

Summer School

Skills Iowa and summer school make very good companions. Assessment Center is a great tool to find the gaps in student understanding. It only takes a few minutes to make an assessment in Assessment Center that will help determine the gaps in student understanding. With this knowledge, the teacher can address these gaps using a variety of teaching strategies including Skills Tutor. It is very simple to set up an individualized set of Skills Tutor lessons for each student.

Skills Iowa will be available for use by your school until July 31st. If you would like assistance setting up your summer school program, your project leader can help.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Skills Tutor Tip: Finding and Using the Gradebook Report

Skills Tutor breaks down its reports into two main groups: Assignment Reports and Class Reports. After clicking on the Reports link on the left side of a Skills Tutor page, you will see all of the Class reports, but you will have to click on Assignment reports to find the Gradebook report.

After clicking on an assignment on the right and then clicking Gradebook, you will get a report that matches our expectations of what we might find in any gradebook. One feature that is unique however, is that Skills Tutor will display a "-" rather than a score for a student who has been assigned a prescriptive pretest and has tested out of a particular skill.

There are two things to remember. First, this is a report for only one assignment, not for everything that a student has done in Skills Tutor. The second point to remember is that this report is a bit slow to download, especially if your class is large and your assignment is comprehensive. There is a lot of data in this report!

The Gradebook report displays the student's last, best score. If you need to see all of the information on a given student, take a look at the Student Detail report.

If you have comments on how you are using the gradebook, please take a moment to give your feedback in the comments. If you need more assistance in using this report, please contact your project leader.

Assessment Center Teacher Tip: Assessment Results Report

Assessment Center offers six reports to the teacher. The first of these reports is called Assessment Results. This is a great report to get a quick overview of the performance of the entire class on one particular assessment. Let's take a look at three of the main features of this report.

First, the class gets broken down into four performance groups: Below Standards, Approaching Standards, Meets Standards, and Exceeds Standards. In each of these divisions, the teacher gets an alphabetical listing of each of the students who fall into those categories. Each of these students has, following his or her name, the percentage which he or she received on this assessment. Clicking on this percentage will take the teacher to that student's assessment. There, the teacher can not only see how the student answered each question on the assessment, but can also see a breakdown of how the student performed on each skill on the assessment. This can be very helpful in answering the question of, "What part did the student not understand?". This report can also quickly point out which students need reteaching of the skill, which can use some practice, and which are ready for enrichment activities.

The next part of this report is a list of students who have not yet taken the assessment. Simple, but important information!

Finally, the teacher will find a series of bar graphs. The bar graphs are designed to show how a class performed on each of the skills found in the assessment. Obviously, this is more useful than the entire percentage since it points out where students are struggling, and where they are showing mastery of a skill. Each of the performance groups is represented on the bar by a percentage of the class who fell into this performance group. Again, there are two easy uses of the report. First, the teacher can quickly see what percentage of the class has met the standard, and how many need more work. Secondly, by clicking on the percentage representing each segment of the bar, the teacher can drill down and get a list of the students who fall into that performance group on that skill. The resulting report will look much like the first part of the Assessment Results report in that there will be four lists showing which students have fallen into each group, but the difference is that this information is representing just one skill, not the entire assessment.

If you have comments about how you use this report, please share it with others by clicking on the comments line below this post. If you have questions about how to use this report, contact your project leader.