1. STARS Training – How to Give District Tests

2. Elementary Tests in STARS during 2016-2017
This August the Math Diagnostic Tests in grades 1 to 8 will be administered through STARS. These are the same tests that are posted on the Curriculum website and have been given during the past two school years. New this year are the formative assessment benchmarks designed by MPS Curriculum specialists and teachers. The tests are designed to be given three times a year in Reading, Writing, and Math. The assessments are scheduled at various times throughout the school year. The calendar in this slide is also posted on the Educational Services planning website.

3. Secondary Tests in STARS during 2016-2017
This August the Math Diagnostic Tests in grades 1 to 8 will be administered through STARS. These are the same tests that are posted on the Curriculum website and have been given during the past two school years. New this year are the formative assessment benchmarks designed by MPS Curriculum specialists and teachers. The tests are designed to be given three times a year in Reading, Writing, and Math. The assessments are scheduled at various times throughout the school year. The calendar in this slide is also posted on the Educational Services planning website.

4. mpsaz.org/stars
Ed Tech’s website for STARS contains all the information you need to access STARS. Here you will learn how to navigate the STARS website, how to give tests, and review the formative assessment benchmark blueprints. You should use this website to get into STARS. Use the Teacher Login icon to get to the staff STARS page, and use the Student Login icon to get to the STARS student portal. STARS works in all browsers but some schools have reported that it works best in Internet Explorer on district computers.

5. STARS – Teacher Login
mpsaz.schoolcity.com – Direct Link to Teacher Login
Use Active Directory credentials to log on
Click here to adjust options
This is the home page for the staff login. Your array of flipcards may not match mine. You can adjust the icons/flipcards that show on initial logon by clicking on the gear indicated on the slide.

6. How To Give A Test in STARS
The next few slides will walk you through the process of finding a test in STARS and activating it for your students to take through the student login.

7. Step 1- Click on Assessments
Activate the test
Click on assessments and you will see a list of tests available for you to administer
In order for students to take a test in STARS, that test needs to be activated for them to take. Let’s go through the steps for how to activate a test for your students. First, you’ll click on the word “Assessments” at the top of the teacher login page.

8. Step 2 - Find the Test
2. Find the name of the test you are giving. You can use the search box to do so. You can find tests by searching using a keyword. In this example the test is called, “1516_Training” and I am searching on the word Training. Once you click enter or the magnifying glass to search, you will get a listing that looks like the following image.
The easiest way to find a test is to search by a word within the test’s title. A list of every district test available through STARS will be posted on the Ed Tech website.

9. Step 3 - Administer the test - Online Admin
There are a number of icons listed to the far right of the test name you searched for that allow you to work with the tests. Depending on the test, you may be able to view supporting documents or adjust test and item security. For today we are only concerned with the fourth icon from the left which is the Online Admin button. It looks like a computer monitor. When you go over it with your mouse within the STARS program, you’ll see it says “Online Admin”. Find it and click that.

10. Step 4 - Pick your Teacher/Period
School Level (Principal/Title I)
Teacher Level
On the Online Administration screen your prompts will be determined by your level of access. If you have school level access, you will be able to give a test in STARS to any student at your school. If you have teacher level access, you will be able to give a test in STARS to any student on your rosters. These rosters are updated nightly from Synergy. In the example above, you can see that as a teacher you can choose to activate ALL your students at once, or you can activate tests by class period. Once you have made a choice, click the Refresh button for the list of students to populate below.

11. Step 5 - Activate the Roster
Once you’ve made your choice a list of students will automatically populate. Let’s go through the various boxes on this screen. First, notice that you can choose to activate ALL students at once by checking the box in the blue green square and then clicking “Activate”. Please note that if you’ve activated one or more students on your roster for a test already the activate all check box will not be available to you.
This screen is the main page for monitoring student progress as they test. When a student starts to test, it will show you how far along in the test they are. If the test is timed, it will show you how much time they have remaining to complete the test.

12. Next Steps – Monitoring Student Progress
Let’s talk about the various information on this screen that will show while students are testing. You’ll note there’s a filter box you can use to limit your list by the various possibilities. If a student chooses to exit a test without submitting their answering, this is the screen where you will see that their test is incomplete. In that situation, you would need to activate the student’s test for them again in order for them to finish. On the student test side, when they save their work without submitting it, it also tells them that they will need to get their teacher to reactivate their test again before they can finish.
In the example here, the second student’s test is incomplete but not submitted. It’s a bit blurry but you can tell that by the red box with a 1 in it . The last student on the list is incomplete too. The teacher would need to reactivate these tests on this screen before the student could log in to finish. Students with yellow boxes are currently testing, and students with green boxes have finished the test and submitted it.
The number within the boxes indicates how many items the students completed. All district tests can be activated again for a student on another school day if they do not complete the test in a single session.

13. Getting Ready to Administer a test
Students need their MPS Perm Id number to login.
This information is available in the roster report on STARS or through Synergy.
online.schoolcity.com/mpsaz – Direct link to the Student Login
Student Username: st+MPS Perm ID (Example: st134768)
Student Password: st+MPS Perm ID (Example: st134768)
Once you’ve activated a test for your students, they will be able to log into the student STARS website and take it. When they log in, they will have a screen like the one displayed here. The Take Asssements flipcard will list all tests available for the student to take. Once they’ve completed a test, they may be able to immediately review their scores through the review scores icon depending on the type of test and the test settings. For district math and reading assessments, students will be able to review their scores immediately. For district writing assessments, students will need to wait for their teachers to score their tests.

14. How to Run Reports Click Reports Icon, Click Class Roster Report
There are a number of report options in STARS. You can choose to use the predefined reports to view test results, or you can design your own. In this example we are reviewing how to run a class roster report

15. How to Run Reports
Another way to see all the reports available to you is to click the report manager. This will pull up the same list that you found on your flipcard in slide 14. This screen gives a description of the various reports available to you so that you may choose the ones that best suit your needs.

16. Run Class Roster
Your options for running reports vary depending on your level of access. In the first example, school level staff can run reports by teacher. Teachers can run reports for their students. A teacher can choose to run their entire roster at once or by class period. There are also filters available for course name. Once you’ve made a decision about what kind of report you wish to run, click refresh.

17. Run Class Roster
The class roster report is the easiest way to get a list of your students MPS IDs from within STARS so that you can teach them how to log in. Remember the username and password for the student login is st+MPS Perm ID.

18. Optional Practice Activity
Click here to get to the Ed Tech Stars Suite site – (Slide 4)
Click on Teacher Login and log in with your Active Directory (Slide 5)
Click on Assessments (Slide 7)
Search for the test called Training (Slide 8)
Click on the icon that looks like a computer screen – Online Admin (Slide 9)
This and the next slide will allow you to practice assigning a test to a student, logging into the student STARS portal as that student, and taking the test you assigned. The slide references within this powerpoint refer back to where this was described earlier in the presentation.

19. Optional Practice Activity
6. Select School and/or teacher (Slide 10)
7. Activate the test for a student at your school. (Slide 11)
You can activate it for any student in any grade level
Write down the Teacher name and MPS PermID of the student for which you activate the test
8. Log in as the student at online.schoolcity.com/mpsaz and take the Training test (Slide 13)
Reminder: the username matches the password and follow the logic of st+MPS Perm ID
9. Complete the test and submit. You can immediately view scores on the student portal by clicking here:

20. STARS Testing Process Summary
Step 1
Search for the test you want to give on the teacher login page
Step 2
Activate the test for some or all of your students
Step 3
Have students take the test on the student login page
Step 4
Review results through reports and plan for next instruction based on results
Here is a summary of the steps involved in giving a test through STARS. First you must find the test in STARS. Next you activate the test for your students. This screen is also where you monitor their progress as they test. Step 3 you have your students take the test through the student login. Once they’ve completed the test, go into the report manager on the teacher login page to review results. Students can also see their results on the student login side if the test is automatically scored by the STARS system.

21. Questions/ Feedback
Contact us : Director of Assessment Cindy Bochna – Assessment and Data Use Specialist Cara Steiner -