What’s New at NWEA: Skills Pointer

FUSION

June 2012

What’s New at NWEA?

Our Partners Need More Evidence of Student Learning

Our partners use MAP to answer important questions about their students’ learning:

Is every child growing? Where will they be at the end of the school year?

Many partners have expressed a need for more student data between MAP assessments. They want to know:

Where are my students now? What progress are we making?

What skills are they missing?

Skills Pointer

• “I know some of my kids are behind – some are behind as much as four grades in some subjects.”

• “How can I identify which of my students are falling behind?”

• “How can I determine exactly what skills they are missing?”

Most teachers don’t have time or ability to answer these questions – many haven’t taught what their kids are missing – or they may not have taught it for years.

Why Skills Pointer?

• Rapidly expand teacher’s capacity to differentiate instruction

• Quickly identifies gaps in student understanding with assessments that are skills-based, utilizing unique back and forward mapping

• Delivers hundreds of tutorials and practice activities aligned to both the state standards and Common Core

• Instantly monitors progress for individual students, entire classes or subject areas, school or district and provides simple, informative reports detail that detail each student’s skills mastery

Skills Pointer’s Unique Value

Foundational Skills

Foundational Skills are acquired at each grade level

Features unique skills-mapped, vertically adaptive assessment methodology

Identifies foundational skill gaps for all students Creates a customized Individual Learning Path for every child,

providing detailed learning objectives to help students track their progress — a roadmap to inform IEP development

Presents immediate intervention objectives to bolster teachers’ individualized instructional strategies

Addresses students’ specific instructional needs with targeted English and Spanish-language tutorials and activities mapped to state standards and Common Core

Contributes to improved individualized instruction:

What is Skills Pointer?

Measuring Student Growth

Currently determined by: • periodic state and district assessments• local grade-level assessments

Vertical Strand Methodology

“Vertical” Assessment• Determines the foundational skills a student is missing • Provides specific concept instruction at the foundation skill level

Helping All Kids Learn

MAP identifies the goal-strand where students need assistance

Skills Pointer provides a granularview of specific gaps and a plan for appropriate interventions tailored to

each student’s individual needs

• MAP helps identify the goal strand where students need assistance.

• Skills Pointer drills into strand level MAP RIT scores at a more granular level.

• The product suite can then identify students’ individual knowledge gaps from previous grades and determine the appropriate interventions needed to address each skill within each strand.

• Answers the “What Next?” after MAP, giving deeper insight on specific gaps, missing foundational skills.

• Clear guidance to get student work back on track.

Skills Pointer and MAP

Skills Pointer and MAP

Fall MAP Testing MAP Class Report flags students needingremediation

Teacher identifiesstudents to assesswith Skills Pointer

Students assessedIn Skills Pointer

Skills Pointer createsLearning Path. Teacher reviews results andcreates remediation plan

Student completes planStudents tests againafter plan complete

Student skills masteryWinter MAP TestingGrowth!

Skills PointerLearn more at

http://skillspointer.nwea.org

Thank You!