Assessment In Our Lives

Most of us have to mow our lawn once a week, pull weeds and prune bushes at our homes.  We also have to keep our vehicles working properly so we can get from place to place.  Each time we begin to work on our landscaping or check over our vehicles, we must go through a process of assessment and evaluation.  The assessment and evaluation of our environment whether our landscaping, or the vehicles we drive, keeps us on track. Columbia School District also uses a system of assessment and evaluation for our students' learning environment.

This year the Columbia School District has adopted the iReady assessment program for our students in kindergarten through eighth grade and students who attend Options High School.  The program is designed to assess an individual student’s skills across multiple grade levels to pinpoint strengths and gaps in their learning in mathematics and English language arts.  The assessment may be given to students up to four times per year and will allow teachers to target areas where there students may need additional work.  

The iReady is a computerized adaptive assessment which uses a dynamic mode based on student response patterns to derive large amounts of information from the test items.  For example, a second grade student who has strong math skills may begin at the second grade level and end up in some strength areas at fifth or sixth grade.  The iReady will also give teachers information on the areas where that student may need additional assistance.  This is a different ideology compared to the old bubble in traditional fixed-form tests.  The adaptive tests give students an opportunity to push the limits of their knowledge base and efficiently pinpoints the student’s educational needs.

This type of assessment program is beneficial for providing differentiated instruction based upon strengths and for identifying gaps spanning back multiple years.  Columbia teachers will use this information to individualize next steps for instruction for each student.  One of the strengths of the iReady assessment program is that student results are tracked from year to year.  Based upon the results of the adaptive diagnostic, the program will provide individualized online and teacher-led instruction which is appropriate and targeted to each student’s unique needs.  Teachers are able to print out reports and action plans for groups of students or individual children.  The reports also include the tools to present the information in the most appropriate way for each student’s learning needs.

Next time you check your vehicle’s oil, fill up the gas tank, or strategize a plan for your landscaping, think about the iReady assessment program used by Columbia School District to help support our students as they learn and increase their knowledge base in mathematics and English language arts.  If you have any questions regarding the Columbia School District, email me at pamela.campbell@myeagles.org or call at 5175926641.​