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Webinar Feedback: What Teachers Think about Common Core MAP Assessment
March 11, 2013 kicked off our first webinar in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) series titled Guide to Common Core and MAP for Teachers. I was lucky to be the facilitator and Kathy Dyer moderated...
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Webinar Feedback: MAP Connections to College and Career Readiness
Our first webinar in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) series took place on March 11th and you can read participant feedback here. The next webinar in the series, titled MAP Connections to College...
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Portraits in Partnership: Urban Teacher Center and Community Academy – Amos I...
Walk into the Community Academy – Amos I campus, a preK-5 school in northwest Washington DC – and you’ll immediately be struck by the bright atmosphere. It’s awash in light, even on a winter day, and...
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Welcoming the World: NWEA Celebrates Over 500 International Partners
At NWEA, we talk a lot about our mission. Partnering to help all kids learn. It’s a big idea, a compass that guides us in decision making and wayfinding. One of the most interesting words in that...
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To Measure a Year’s Growth, Begin with the Student
At NWEA, one of the research team’s functions is to provide high-level technical support on a range of assessment issues, including the use and interpretation of the MAP/MPG norms. In that capacity,...
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KIPP Charlotte: Using Interim Assessment Data to Power Differentiated...
KIPP Charlotte is part of the national KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) network of tuition-free, open-enrollment charter schools that bring a college preparatory focus in underserved communities. The...
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No Excuses University: Using Assessment to Motivate Students
One of the greatest opportunities we have at NWEA is going into the field and hearing firsthand how our assessments and services are impacting students’ lives. Back in 2012, we were able to sit down...
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The Power of the Learning Continuum: One Partner’s Journey in Data Analysis
A few years ago, I was working with a district that was partnering with NWEA to help all kids grow and learn. This was a new experience for me. I had not experienced the power of MAP interim assessment...
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Personalized Learning Approaches Work – MAP Can Help
Findings from an ongoing study released by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provide compelling evidence that when teachers personalize learning experiences based on students’ unique needs, great...
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From Identifying Problems to Solving Them: MAP and RTI
A recent Teach.Learn.Grow blog, “Profiles in Partnership: An Illinois school finds success in early intervention using MAP,” talked about how one of NWEA’s partner districts, the Woodstock School...
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Seven Things to Consider in Preparing for MAP
The Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) K – 12 interim assessment provide essential information about a student’s continuum of learning and growth trajectory. MAP provides real-time information that...
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How NOT to Prepare Your Students for MAP
My elementary school teaching experience happened in two distinct settings. In one, a far-out suburb of Washington, D.C., most of my students lived in single-family homes and were native English...
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10 Questions to Ask about Norms
This summer NWEA will release the 2015 norms. What exactly are norms and why should educators care? Think of social norms. They are the standard or typical behaviors that we expect from all members of...
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Making MAP More Meaningful, or Creating a Feedback Loop with Students
As a professional development facilitator, when I’m face to face with NWEA partners there are two questions I often hear: “What is the best way to leverage MAP assessment information?” and “How can we...
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NWEA Interim Assessments to Help Colorado League of Charter Schools
Last week, THE Journal announced that the Colorado League of Charter Schools has partnered with us in their effort to improve student assessment at charter schools across the state of Colorado. In...
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Supporting the Civil Rights Movement on Assessment
Earlier this year, we reflected on how the Civil Rights Movement has shaped K12 assessment for over 60 years. Clearly this is a topic that is timely, as earlier this month, a dozen national civil and...
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Using Norms to Answer the “What’s Next” Question
As NWEA prepares to release 2015 norms this summer, I am exploring the thoughtful use of norms in a series of four posts. The first post focused on understanding what norms are and how to judge the...
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Put Results from the MAP Language Test to Work with NoRedInk
We are focused here at NWEA on how to connect assessment results from MAP to instruction as easily as possible. This is because educators – especially teachers – have told us often that time is always...
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Shifting Assessments and the Need for Educator Communication
Our own Raymond Yeagley penned an article in June’s School Administrator Magazine titled Shifting Assessments, in which he discusses the rightly placed expectation that test scores will be lower under...
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Why Racial Inequity in Schools May be the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time
I am sitting crossed-legged on my sofa, watching my nieces (thanks to FaceTime) who live 2,000 miles away as they excitedly show me their newly decorated rooms. It occurs to me that my young nieces are...
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Portrait in Partnership: Using MAP and MPG Assessment Data to Close Gaps
Worthington City Schools is one of the top-performing districts in the Columbus, Ohio area. Though a quarter of its 9,500 students qualify for free and reduced lunch, 30% are identified as Gifted and...
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7 Programs and Games to Help Facilitate Personalized Learning
Personalized learning, the practice of tailoring instruction to meet each student’s strengths, needs, and interests, helps create a classroom environment that engages and accelerates learning for all...
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Why You Use and Trust MAP?
Friendship Education Foundation operates two schools in partnership with Baltimore City Public Schools. Our two campuses are identified as turnaround schools in our state. Turnaround schools are...
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Interim Assessment: The Efficient Way to Inform Educational Decisions
To understand the value of interim assessment, it’s helpful to understand the different purposes it can serve. One purpose is to provide educators insight into growth patterns in student learning....
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Meaningful Assessment Data Shows the Power of Personalized Learning
Personalized instruction, the practice of tailoring learning to meet each student’s strengths, needs, and interests, helps to create an environment that engages and accelerates learning for all...
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Happy Holidays – Top Ten Posts for 2015
All the authors here at Teach. Learn. Grow. would like to extend our gratitude for a great 2015 and wish you all a Happy Holidays this time of year. Our blog experienced some tremendous readership on...
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Four Key Elements of a Quality Assessment Toolbox for RTI
Recently I was reading the latest Education Week when I ran across an article discussing Tier 2 interventions for reading in elementary classrooms. The article discussed a study which suggested that...
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Assessments that Build Student Independence
I still remember the delight from the first time I got a pair of glasses and noticed that there were individual leaves on the trees with their own unique shapes rather than one big green blob. They...
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Measuring Student Growth: What is a Scale and What Does Stability Mean?
Measuring student growth is a crucial part of an educator’s role, and the stability of a measurement scale over time is necessary in order to measure that growth accurately. So what is a scale, and...
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Portrait in Partnership: Using Assessment and Assessment Data to Drive...
Up until 2013, the Skiatook, Oklahoma school district didn’t have the right tools to help teachers drive real instructional change that would ultimately impact student growth. They had instead a...
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Arkansas Selects NWEA as Qualified Vendor
This week, the Arkansas Department of Education announced that it has selected NWEA as a Qualified Vendor for the state’s K-2 assessment program. Starting this fall, schools can use the NWEA Arkansas...
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