3. Schedule virtual meetings with students. To communicate with English-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email or video. To communicate with Spanish-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email or video.
4. Determine how you will handle scenarios where there’s a lag:
Description
Record the meeting
Before the assessment begins, press the recording button on your video conferencing tool.After the virtual meeting, listen to recording and rescore in mCLASS if needed.Pick a decision rule for how to score ambiguous items and be consistent. For example, if you decide that you will give a student the benefit of the doubt and mark ambiguous similar sounding items correct when you can’t quite hear their answer, do this for all students you assess.
Note: Some districts do not allow recording. Please use the option below if you work in one of these districts.
Use a phone
Before the assessment begins, call caregiver’s phone using your phone (type *67 before your number if you want your number to be hidden).
Ask the caregiver to press the speaker button.
Mute yourself and your student on the virtual learning platform.
While you assess:
1. Take the opportunity to connect individually with your students as they experience so much change. Don’t make the session solely about testing, and remind caregivers and students that the assessment is a way to see how you can best tailor instruction.
2. Make student materials visible to your student.
Guidance
DIBELS/IDEL
Use the share screen feature to display student materials on your screen.
For Maze, choose the model that works best for you:
Students complete Maze online
If your student will complete Maze online during a video conferencing call, put a link to the student assessment site (mclass.amplify.com/student) and the student’s credentials into your chat box (learn how to generate student credentials in this video)
If you student will complete Maze online outside of a video conferencing call, consider providing student credentials and instructions to English-speaking caregivers using this email and video. To provide student credentials and instructions to Spanish-speaking caregivers, consider sending this email and video.
Students use fillable PDFs. Here are steps to find the PDFs and instructions for using them:
Locate the benchmark Maze materials on University of Oregon’s site
Print a copy of the form you need (e.g. BOY) for each student in your class.
Send the form home in a sealed envelope with students, mail the form to caregivers, or have caregivers get forms via school-based pick-up. Provide instructions not to open the envelope until the student is ready to take the assessment.
Provide parents with instructions on how to proctor the assessment for their child. They need to:
Give the form to their child
Sit with their child and read the instructions and practice items
Tell their child to stop when 3 minutes has elapsed
Send screenshots of their child’s work via email or text, or return the completed form to the school in a sealed envelope provided by the school.
Enter results into the mCLASS web reports
TRC
Put a link to the student materials in your videoconferencing tool’s chat box.
Ask your student to
click on the link to open and read the text. Screen sharing is not needed. (However, if the student is
using an iPad, use the share screen feature to display student materials on your screen instead).
For
PC/RB, ask your student to share their screen. Explain to your student that they should use their cursor
to point to each item they are responding to. Caregivers will need to help, especially when you’re
assessing young students.
Plan ahead for PC measure–some pre-reading skills may be better
demonstrated with a real book, such as identifying the front of the book. For those question types, a
real book may be used to supplement the PDF book that has been provided. Ask the caregiver to prepare a
book that the child can interact with during the assessment and to assist with ensuring that the book
and the child’s pointing on the book can be seen by the assessor.
For PC/RB, if the student is using
an iPad or unable to share the screen, use the screen share feature to display the student materials on
your screen instead and use the modified questions here.
mCLASS:Math
Grades K-1
Use the share screen feature to display student materials on your screen.
Grades 2-3
The measures in these grades can be group administered.
Before beginning the assessment, students should be instructed to have a piece of paper and writing tool and given the following instruction. Ask your students to put their full name and the measure name on the upper corner.Ask your students to number each item as they work through the questions.Ask your students to circle their final answer for each question.
Use the share screen feature to display student materials on your screen.
Start with the sample item on your screen and give the students a chance to answer.
Review the instructions for each measure with your students before starting the assessment.
When the assessment begins, start a 2-minute timer and stop sharing the screen at the end of the time limit.Once the assessment is complete, ask your students to take a picture of the full paper and email it to you. Caregivers may need to help.
RAN
Screening with the Rapid Automatized Naming assessment requires some additional considerations given its widespread use for dyslexia risk screening. RAN is a challenging measure to administer remotely. Here are some recommendations:
If your screening policy allows you to wait until returning in person, we recommend waiting to screen with RAN.
If you screen your students with RAN remotely, consider reassessing students who score within 10 seconds of the cut scores to ensure the data accurately represent student ability to quickly name a series of familiar items on a page.
As always, keep in mind that no one assessment should be used to determine student risk for dyslexia. Interpret students’ RAN results collected in a remote setting with caution, and consider them in the context of all of your literacy screening data (e.g., DIBELS and TRC assessments).
If you decide to administer RAN remotely, use the screen share feature to show the assessment on your screen. You will need to log in as your student because the RAN assessment is available on the student-led assessment platform.
3. Score in mCLASS.
When assessing students remotely with mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition or TRC benchmark assessments, use the newly added feature to indicate whether the assessment was administered via remote or in-person mode. Capturing this information will help better interpret student performance across these modalities.
For mCLASS DIBELS 8th Edition users, at the end of each measure, the End of Assessment popup message has been modified as displayed below to help you capture the administration mode. This data will later be available in your Download-Your-Data report for administrators.
For TRC users, the Notes feature has been enhanced to include selectors for Remote or In-person administration mode. The administration mode is not selected by default. The assessor must actively make the selection in Notes to capture this information. Clicking on the selector will pre-populate the Notes with the corresponding value. Any additional notes you want to type in should be added to after this pre-populated value. This data can be used for custom analysis upon request.
4. Consider invalidating a result and retesting with an alternative form if you have trouble scoring accurately due to background noise (e.g. doorbell, dog barking), dropped internet, or inability to see where students are pointing with their cursors.
Student materials:
These materials are provided exclusively for use during school closings or other disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, by students and teachers for whom the corresponding materials have been previously purchased or licensed. Any other distribution or reproduction of these materials is forbidden without written permission from Amplify.
Benchmark Materials
Progress Monitoring Materials
DIBELS 8th Edition
Available for free download on the University of Oregon’s website
If the publisher of the books you use for TRC progress monitoring made digital copies of materials available, put a link to the text into the chat box during your video conference.
Otherwise, choose a method for getting a copy of a leveled book from your classroom to your student’s home:
send students home with a copy of a book in a sealed envelope
mail a copy of the book to caregivers
have caregivers pick up a copy of the book at school
