Pat's response to The Prichard Blog's "Quickies from Interim Education"

In her August 11, 2009, 8:24 PM blog, Susan Weston states that "Formative assessments for classroom use is another area where KDE is concerned."

Study Island provides classroom teachers with the data they need for real formative assessment for learning. Because Study Island is built specifically from Kentucky Core Content Standards and not just aligned to them, teachers can have confidence they have a tool that will help them help their students to master their required standards. In a very user-friendly manner, teachers and administrators can monitor the academic progress of each student, class or sub-group of students (i.e., Title I, Free/Reduced Lunch, Special Ed, etc.) to assure they are on track for making AYP.

Ms. Weston points out that "Associate Commissioner Ken Draut described that 'daily, weekly, monthly' data source as 'what [changes] teacher behavior,' but as also [an] area where it may be difficult to provide the help schools and districts want."

Study Island provides the "daily, weekly, monthly" data teachers need for true formative assessment. This real-time data is available to the teacher, school and district to drive instruction and meet the needs of individual students. Through continuous monitoring of students' results on Study Island assessments, teachers and administrators (building and district) have the necessary data for flexible grouping and can differentiate instruction for every individual student and class.

Soon, teachers will be able to get "live" feedback from students as they do their work. This feature will allow teachers to take immediate corrective action if they notice students not indicating mastery of particular standards. Another terrific feature that will be released soon is called "Parent Notification" with which parents can receive automatic email messages of their student's upcoming assignments, reminders of due dates, results of assignments and much more! What an effective and efficient means for home/school communication!

Equipping teachers with such a powerful tool as Study Island will make the climb up the "steep hill" to which Ms. Weston refers much easier!