6.20.13 NWEA K-12 Assessments and Teacher Evaluation: Using Data to Help Teachers Strengthen Their Practice In a three-part guest series at Getting Smart, NWEA leaders consider the impact of using data from tests designed for instructional purposes to guide educator evaluations and call for a renewed focus... Read more
6.12.13 Dr. Anne Udall New Literacy for Teachers, Student Data, and Educator Evaluation NWEA authors have been featured recently on leading educational blogs and we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss their insights! Below we provide a brief highlight of the topics they touch on and... Read more
6.12.13 Andrew Hegedus Creating High-Quality Test Items Welcome to the third post in a series of entries about how MAP assessments are aligned to content standards. Previous posts in the series discussed how we ensure test items align to... Read more
5.29.13 Andrew Hegedus MAP Test Design as Informed by NWEA Guiding Principles This is the second post in a series of blogs about how MAP assessments are aligned to content standards. This post was authored by NWEA content specialists Eric Dombrowik, Alane Ferland, and Roy... Read more
5.14.13 Michael Dahlin Using NWEA Norms to Establish Goals on State Tests Question: How do we use NWEA norms to identify student performance and growth goals around meeting state proficiency standards? Answer: Simply put, we can’t. NWEA performance and growth norms... Read more
4.22.13 Andrew Hegedus Aligning the MAP Assessment to Content Standards As assessment data is increasingly used in high stakes evaluations, a major area of discussion is the alignment between the assessment and the responsibility to teach content in accordance with the... Read more
4.9.13 Nate Jensen The Differences Between the Student and School Norms As we approach the end of the school year, I’ve started to receive an increasing number of questions from partner schools and districts about how to interpret the growth of students. More... Read more
3.12.13 Michael Dahlin Measurement and Standard Error This morning when I stepped on my bathroom scale and felt that familiar twinge of guilt and disappointment, I quickly reminded myself that bathroom scales are imperfect measuring devices. In all... Read more
2.27.13 Nate Jensen Student Effort and Test Score Accuracy The one question I get asked most frequently from partners has to do with the accuracy of test scores, specifically in the context of whether a student has given appropriate effort on the test. This... Read more
10.30.12 Kelly Goodrich Assessment in the Classroom: Factors that Cause Poor ISV Getting students to apply and demonstrate their true level of proficiency while taking assessments is a challenge for every classroom teacher. If we think the student is not demonstrating their... Read more
10.2.12 Michael Dahlin Do the percentiles reported on MAP reports equate to specific standard scores? Question: Do the percentiles reported on MAP reports equate to specific standard scores, as one would normally find in a normal distribution of scores (Bell Curve)? E.g., does the 16th percentile... Read more
9.26.11 Michael Dahlin What Does Regression to the Mean Mean? We’ve been encouraged by the attention received thus far from journalists, bloggers, and the general public about our study, “Do High Flyers Maintain Their Altitude? Performance Trends of Top... Read more
