Teachers look deeper into test scores

EAGLE COUNTY — “My brain told me” was how one student in Eagle County Schools explained his answer on a test question.

An honest answer, yes, and true to the blunt spirit of a child, but it wouldn’t score well on the Colorado Student Assessment Program, or CSAP, says Monica Lammers, principal at Eagle Valley Elementary School.

With the CSAP, getting the correct answer is only part of it. Students are asked to explain their thinking and elaborate, and that’s where it gets tricky.

After hours of picking apart test scores, teachers at the elementary school realized that students were great at answering questions and getting to the point, but struggled with elaboration. Now, they know what to focus on this year.

It’s a good illustration of how student assessments and test scores are driving what happens in the classroom. Standardized tests like the CSAP may be something that parents and public curmudgeons groan about on the Op-ed page in the newspaper, but for teachers, they actually mean something.

Thinking in details

After teachers zeroed in on the big trouble spot last year, students at Eagle Valley Elementary started getting better at explaining their thinking on tests, Lammers said.

Still, teachers who will focus on this area hope to see even more improvement this year, Lammers said.

“It’s difficult for them to think in details — they just want to tell you the main idea and move on,” Lammers said.

For instance, after reading a short story on a test, a student might be asked, “What’s one word you would use to describe the main character?” If the student wrote “happy,” then that student would have to explain what parts of the story back that up.

A student will even have to do this in the math section. After putting down an answer, the student will have to explain his calculations, and that’s where they fall down, Lammers said.

Flood of information A new district wide database called Edmin should soon make it easier for teachers to gather useful information on students. With a few clicks of a mouse, teachers could find out how well any of their students did in every year of state testing. They can look at the number of questions answered correctly, the number missed and even what types of questions this student got wrong. They can even look up the student’s background, if they’re on free or reduced lunch — a whole world of useful information. Teachers aren’t using the system much yet but are going through training. In an age where teachers are spending more time customizing lessons for every student, having useful data instantly available is very valuable, said Jason Glass, a data analyst and human resources director for the schools.

Sticky-note standard

Last year, teachers at Red Hill Elementary analyzing CSAP results noticed that many students lacked basic writing skills like spelling, punctuation and grammar. So, teachers at the Gypsum school spent hours working on those basics and taught kids how to write sparkling sentences and paragraphs.

Then came the next round of testing. This time, the writing itself was great, but students still had a tough time giving thoughtful answers on the page.

This year, the focus will shift to teaching kids how to understand and analyze questions, making sure they know what questions mean and how to answer them, master teacher Melanie Molloy said.

Test scores really drive how teachers work at Red Hill, principal Anthony Barela says. Student progress on monthly writing assessments is tracked on large grids with color coded sticky notes. As a student improves, his sticky note is moved up a notch, and teachers examine these in weekly meetings.

Teachers take it very seriously — they’re thrilled when they see former students doing better than ever, and disappointed, and a little worried, when they see one falling behind. A P.E. teacher will see the board and realize that his star football player isn’t doing so well in writing.

“Everybody can see every single kid, and it keeps them from falling through the cracks,” Molloy said.

Data savvy

Schools have always had access to mounds of test data, but making sense of an endless stream of numbers has taken time.

“We’ve always been rich in data, but the ability to make it useable and to bring it to a classroom has been the challenge,” said Phil Qualman, assistant principal at Battle Mountain High School. “Just in the last two or three years, we’ve made strong strides. It takes time working with data, and over the years, you start seeing what it can do and what it can’t do in a class.”

Something as simple as a schoolwide spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel has become a valuable tool for teachers at Battle Mountain.

A teacher can run a search and find out everything she needs to know about the students in her class — past CSAP scores, past NWEA scores, ACT scores. All that information can help that teacher customize lessons and make sure they’re teaching at every student’s level.

“We try to get every student what they need as it’s reflected in their test scores,” Qualman said. “It’s very important to make sure we have appropriate curriculum and grouping for every kid’s needs.”



Staff writer Matt Terrell can be reached at 748-2955 or mterrell@vaildaily.com.