|
Skip Navigation
Assessment & Accountability
|
Acuity is a web-based platform that provides schools with assessment, feedback, scoring and reporting. Acuity provides interim and formative assessments designed to inform teaching and improve student learning. ACUITY BENCHMARK ASSESSMENTS are instructional benchmarks designed to assess student progress over the course of the school year. These benchmark assessments are designed for students in grades 3 - 11 and are intended to provide a "snapshot" of student progress as it relates to acquisition of selected 21st century CSOs. This snapshot can be utilized by teachers to guide instructional design and interventions. The objectives assessed in each benchmark were chosen from several county curriculum maps and from the input provided by West Virginia teachers. Counties are encouraged to develop their own benchmark assessments aligned to their district level curriculum maps. The benchmark assessments are designed to be administered quarterly in the content areas of mathematics, reading/language arts, science and social studies. All assessments, representing a quarterly instructional time period, are based on the West Virginia 21st century CSOs. The assessments allow educators to target instruction in all four content areas by providing important data on student performance relative to state standards. Acuity reports are available on the district, school, classroom, and student level. Teachers have access to the student results immediately after students complete the assessment, and students can be given access after the testing window ends. ACUITY INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES are available to help prepare students for classroom, benchmark and summative assessments as well as to assist in instructing those students who need additional support for certain skill sets with the CSOs. These step-by-step resources guide students through a mini-lesson targeted to a variety of skill sets. ACUITY CUSTOM ITEMS are available through the Acuity web-based program. Acuity custom items are aligned to the West Virginia 21st century CSOs. Math, reading/language arts and science items are presently available for use; social studies items will be made available at a later date. Additional Acuity information may be obtained at the following web site: New! Acuity Frequently Asked Questions (faq) Page New! Acuity Sample QuestionsAcuity Sample Questions Page Current Status of Acuity:November, 2009 We will soon have an automated roster refresh process in place. This process will update the Acuity rosters from WVEIS data bi-weekly (every other week). Student moves and additions will be kept up-to-date in Acuity as long as they are made in WVEIS scheduling. This will eliminate the need for administrators to manually move or add students in Acuity. We expect to have this automated system in place within the next few weeks. Until it is operational, please contact your school or district administrator regarding manually updating class rosters for student moves. Contact John Miller for student transfers between counties. The most recent roster data was loaded on October 13. The WVDE Benchmark Assessment Team has completed updating and revising the three sets of state-authored Acuity benchmarks for math and RLA. We have corrected any flaws or errors that were reported. We also corrected the printed version of the RLA tests so that the passages do not re-print with every question. Please note, however, due to the requirements of the on-line format, the passages in the printed version are repeated for those questions that relate to more than one passage. Social Studies tests in grades 3 - 11 have been added to Benchmark 1. We will add social studies tests to Benchmarks 2 and 3 before the recommended dates for using those tests. Physical Science (grade 9) and Biology (grade 10) tests have been added to Science Benchmark 1. Benchmarks 2 and 3 will be updated to include grades 9 and 10 tests soon. Chemistry (grade 11) will be added to Acuity in 2010-11. You can view a list of current and future tests here. The WVDE recommended dates for Acuity benchmark testing are:
New! The WVDE recommended dates for schools on block scheduling are: SUGGESTED BLOCK SCHEDULING TESTING WINDOWS – FIRST SEMESTER:
SUGGESTED BLOCK SCHEDULING TESTING WINDOWS – SECOND SEMESTER:
(WESTEST 2 May 17-28) Prior Year Reports Teachers can find data regarding their current students' performance during the previous school year by going to Prior Year Reports and selecting Roster Reports. This report will list the current class roster of students and allow the educator to click the student names to view their Student Assessment Reports for any Acuity tests that were completed in the 2008-2009 school year. This is a great indicator of student mastery of the previous grade level. NOTE: Your local Acuity server is not accessible from ouside of the West Virginia school network. If you would like to connect to Acuity from home or from anywhere outside of the state-wide intranet, you can connect to the Acuity at Home site. Subscribe to the new Acuity listserv: Send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.wvnet.edu with the following line in the body of the note: Subscribe K12-Acuity-L First_Name Last_Name (example: subscribe k12-acuity-L Charlie Brown) Remember to leave the subject blank and to remove signature information from the body of the message. For more information contact Sandra L. Foster, Lead Coordinator, at (304) 558-2546, Extension 53594. Additional Acuity resources can be located at the Acuity portion of the File Cabinet.
|