e-asTTle and Mathematics (Pāngarau) Team Day Workshop 15 April 2010

Content Introduction to the e-asTTle Assessment Tool and Mathematics option within it. Introduction to e-asTTle reports

Learning Intentions Develop an understanding of e-asTTle as an assessment tool. Learn what options it offers in the Mathematics curriculum. Learn how to evaluate different report data. Develop an understanding of how e-asTTle data can be used to feed-forward to teachers and students, informing teaching and learning.

It all must start with NZ Curriculum It all must start with NZ Curriculum. E-AsTTle sits within Teaching as Inquiry. It provides data that informs the impact of teaching on learning. It informs students of their next learning steps and provides links to resources and activities to facilitate this. It provides data for teachers to support their teaching practice.

WHAT IS e-asTTle? e-asTTle is an online version of asTTle which stands for Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning (He Pūnaha Aromatawai mō te Whakaako me te Ako). It includes reading, mathematics, writing, pānui, pāngarau and tuhituhi, as well as e-asTTle Numeracy Project Assessments and several new features in response to feedback from teachers and principals who have been using asTTle v4.

WHAT DOES IT DO? e-asTTle provides teachers, students, and parents with information about a student's level of achievement, relative to the curriculum achievement outcomes, for levels 2 to 6 and national norms of performance for students in years 4 to 12.

To assist teachers with tracking and identification of student achievement, each of these levels has been divided into 3 sub levels: B Basic P Proficient A Advanced

Slide title The flow diagram depicts the different functions that can be carried out in e-asTTle.

e-asTTle uses the curriculum strands from the 2008 New Zealand Curriculum documents. After selecting the level, teachers make a choice from the strand options identified. The strands are subject-specific. Each strand area aggregates a number of achievement objectives as derived from the appropriate curriculum statement.

e-asTTle Home page

E-asTTle Menu options

Create Test Options. Customized allows you to select subject, difficulty and and strands. You can also specify other options e.g. delivery method – paper or online. Comprehensive allows you to select subject and level. A range of items from all curriculum strands will then be generated. Adaptive allows you to select subject, difficulty and strands. E-asTTle then generates a test framework which adjust as the student sits the test.

The Curriculum area is selected from a drop-down menu.

e-asTTle allows you to select the test duration.

In the Custom test you can select 1 to 3 ADJACENT curriculum levels.

In the Custom test you can select between 1 to 2 Curriculum Strands.

The Strand option breaks the 3 Curriculum options down to allow more specific assessment.

At the start of every e-asTTle tests students are asked a number of ATTITUDE questions. The default setting gives some general options but you can choose more specific questions if creating a shift in attitude is one of your goals.

Focus areas are Attitude, Engagement, Self-Regulation and Motivation – General and Motivation and Interest specifically in Mathematics.

At this point a summary of all your choices is displayed allowing everything to be double-checked.

Then a test is created.

Once you have approved and accepted the test you must assign the students who you want to sit the test, to the test. This is quickly done at the click of a button.

The final step is to assign a start and finish date and time to the test or click the NOW option.

Once the test has been sat by the students – either online in which case it will be marked as the students go – or on paper and the scores entered by the teacher – the report data can be viewed.

What do the Reports look like? There are a number of reports available that report on group and individual data. Console Reports Learning Pathways Curriculum Levels Report What Next Report Tabulated Data

Console Reports are about “How are my students doing compared to similar students/”. Using box and whisker graphs the range of scores is shown – from the maximum score achieved to the minimum score achieved. The box is bisected by a Median line which divides the Upper quartile (75th Percentile) from the Lower Quartile (25th Percentile) Surface thinking – is the ability to use one or more unconnected lists of facts, information or ideas to a answer a question. Deep thinking is the ability to relate the facts, ideas or information to each other or to hypothesize about them in a more abstract manner. The Attitude circle indicates the confidence and liking of the students relative to the national norm.

The tabular report is a snapshot of how the students are performing at that point in time in a format that allows the data to be saved into an Excel worksheet and for the data to be used at a later date. It lists each students – asTTle score, curriculum level, depth of thinking both shallow and deep, average attitude score and asTTle strand scores. It also provides an average curriculum score and level for the group which can be used for comparison purposes over time.

This report allows for speedy identification of areas in which the students have significant remedial needs (red) significant strengths (yellow) areas in which further instructions is not required (green) and areas requiring the introduction of planned teaching (blue) as a way of prioritizing and focusing teaching. Look carefully at and take into account the number of items being used as the basis of result – fewer than four items should be viewed with some caution.

This report allows the Teacher to identify “Where are students relative to the targets of Curriculum Levels 2 to 6”? It also provides an easy visual way to monitor the effect of teaching and learning activities on students progress within levels and across time.

The Curriculum Levels report also enables Teachers to quickly identify what students are at which Curriculum level – either overall or various strands or objectives, depending upon what was selected for the test. This helps with identification of students who would benefit from a remedial programme or from accelerate intervention.

Console information for individual students gives scores and levels for: the content areas tested overall, surface and deep thinking, and the national mean for their year group. Achieved ‘Easy’ questions the student got right Strengths ‘Hard’ questions the student got right To Be Achieved ‘Hard’ questions the student got wrong Gaps ‘Easy’ questions the student got wrong. The central bar shows the students mean score compared to the national mean

The What next report shows the mean level at which either a student or a group of students is achieving for the curriculum functions tested. The report is hyperlinked and opens a resource bank within TKI which contains appropriate material for each of the levels used in asTTle. You need to be logged on to the internet for this to work. This enables the teacher to identify and plan for the student’s next learning steps.