Part of a team?

If you are part of a collaborative team, Skills Iowa's programs are a good fit for you. Both programs offer you the ability to work collaboratively.

Assessment Center assessments can be shared with all of your staff, and can be made searchable so all teachers teaching the same subjects could administer the same assessment. Another feature of Assessment Center is the ability to add one or more teachers to your class. This way a cooperating teacher has the same access to data that the lead teacher has. The reports, the heart of Assessment Center, are another way to collaborate. If you have all given the same or a similar assessment, taking the performance data to a collaborative meeting will help provide the focus that your team needs to plan the next step in your teaching plan.

Skills Tutor has new features this year that allow the sharing of assignments not only between your sections, but also within your school. If your team wants to insure that everyone has assigned the exact same lessons, this is an easy way to make that happen. To set up this sharing, check out the Advanced Assignment Options button in Skills Tutor.

If you are a single section school, another way to make collaboration work is to compare your results on the benchmark assessments with those of the other Skills Iowa schools who have taken the same assessment. A teacher in a neighboring school who is finding success could be a great resource, and the communication between schools is a way that both districts can benefit.

Skills Iowa data is a useful way for you to highlight those areas where your students are finding success and those areas where they struggle. Planning the strategy to address the information the data shows you can help you increase student achievement.