Welcome to the Science Alternate MCA Kickoff Meeting.
We're excited that you joined us for this recording of what you
can expect for the Science Alternate MCA this spring.
I'm Stacie Stensrud, one of the Alternate Assessment Apecialists
at MDE.
Our role is that we work with the MTAS, the Alternate MCA, and
the accommodations and supports for the MCA.
I'm going to hand it over to Lauren to get started with our
meeting.
Hi, I'm Lauren Walker, and I'm also an Alternate Assessment
Specialist here at MDE.
Before we begin, we want to connect the work we do with
statewide assessments to the 10 Minnesota commitments to equity.
We prioritize equity by including students with
disabilities in statewide assessments.
And in redesigning our assessments, we ensure that they
measure what matters.
We have gone local by traveling to different parts of Minnesota
to hold our kickoff meetings before we made this recording
for anybody to access.
Our assessments help schools and districts monitor the
implementation of standards and improve conditions for learning
for all students.
Here is our agenda for this presentation.
First, we will give an overview of the Minnesota Statewide
assessments.
Then we will talk about the Alternate Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessment or Alt MCA, which is the redesigned
alternate assessment.
Next, we will talk about assistive technology forms,
which are new features of the Alt MCA.
Then we will talk about recent revisions to the Eligibility
Requirements and Learner Characteristics Inventory or
LCI.
We will conclude the presentation by leaving you with
some assessment resources and upcoming opportunities.
Now let's move into our assessment overview.
Minnesota has several assessments that are delivered
statewide.
Every enrolled student is required to take either the
General Assessment, which is the Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessment, the MCA, or the Alternate Assessment, which is
currently the Minnesota Test of Academic Skills MTAS, but will
transition to the Alt MCA in the future.
The MTAS is given to students with the most significant
cognitive disabilities.
The majority of the presentation will cover the MTAS and Alt MCA,
although parts of the presentation will also cover the
MCA.
Minnesota requires enrolled EL students to participate in the
English Language Proficiency ELP Assessments Access or alternate
Access, which is for students with the most significant
cognitive disabilities.
There is also a federal assessment, the National
Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, that is
administered to a sampling of schools in each state.
The purpose of the MCA and MTAS is to help understand how well
the standards are being implemented at the school,
district and state levels.
In order for a test to inform specific individual student
academic needs, it would need as many as 200 questions, which is
a lot of questions.
Instead of lengthening the assessments, results of the
statewide assessments are meant to be taken in aggregate,
meaning they're meant to show us information about groups of
students instead of individual students.
Aggregate data provides insight into when and where systems are
successfully implementing the standards and are in need of
more successful implementation to improve academic achievement
and equity.
There are many sources of data to determine how students are
performing in school.
At least half of all student data is collected at the school
and classroom levels, and about 1/3 is collected at the district
level.
Those sources of information should be relied on the most
when making educational decisions at the individual
student level, as they include multiple data points for each
student.
Statewide assessments are given once each year and are just one
small part of data collected at the state level.
So test scores are important information?
Yes, but they only tell part of the story.
Here is data from the Learner Characteristics Inventory, or
LCI, from 2023.
The LCI gives us information about the students who take the
MTAS including primary disability category, which we
have shown here.
This data is from 2023, which is the most recent year of data
that we have now.
The most common disability category was Autism Spectrum
Disorders at almost 34% and the second most common disability
category was Developmental Cognitive Disabilities or DCD
Mild moderate at close to 32%.
These two categories made-up about 2/3 of all the students
who took the M tasks.
There are also many other disability categories
represented in the remaining third or so of students.
Overall, then, there has been a sizable increase in students
with autism and a decrease in students with DCD severe
profound over the last few years.
The primary purpose of the Standards Based Accountability
Assessments is to measure student learning of the
Minnesota Academic Standards to which both the MCA and MTAS are
aligned.
As academic standards are revised, a new series of
assessments is developed to align with the updated
standards.
Recently, the academic standards were revised by educator
committees for science, reading and math.
Each time general standards are revised, extended standards or
benchmarks are revised about a year later.
The extended standards were revised in science in 2020,
language arts in 2021, and math in 2023.
The MTAS is currently being redesigned, and the new
assessment will be called the Alternate Minnesota
Comprehensive Assessment, or Alt MCA for short.
The Alt MCA will eventually replace the M task in all three
academic subjects.
The Science Alt MCA will be rolled out this school year in
Spring 2025, while reading and math will continue to be
assessed using the MTAS.
In Spring 2026, the Reading Alt MCA will be rolled out and we
anticipate that the math Alt MCA will be rolled out in 2028.
While the MTAS is still operational, it will continue to
be administered using only a paper mode.
The Alt MCA will offer three different modes of
administration, online, paper or hybrid, which will be a mix of
online and paper based administration.
We will talk more about these three modes of administration in
the next section.
Now let's go into more detail for the Science Alt MCA.
One of the biggest differences between the Alt MCA and the MTAS
is that the Alt MCA will offer three different ways to deliver
the assessment in an online administration.
The student can view all of the test content online, and either
the student or test administrator can enter the
student's responses directly into the online assessment in
Test NAV.
In a paper administration, the student would use paper
materials for both the test questions and responses.
Please note that answers would still need to be entered
directly into the online assessment, and the test
administrator would do that if the student is only using paper
materials.
In a hybrid administration, the student could use any
combination of online and paper materials to complete the
assessment, and test responses would be entered into the online
assessment either by the test administrator or the student.
We understand that students with the most significant cognitive
disabilities have complex and varying needs, and we have heard
from the field that needing to choose between only paper or
only online assessment administration does not allow
for enough flexibility to meet individual student needs.
Also, it's difficult to anticipate ahead of time which
mode is best for any particular student when no one has
administered the assessment yet.
For this.
For these reasons, we are offering the hybrid option for
assessment delivery.
There are many ways that this can look.
One way might be that a student reads the phenomena or science
stories and questions online while they indicate their
responses using response option cards.
Another possibility might be that the test administrator uses
paper materials to present the phenomena in questions.
Then the student uses a device such as a tablet to enter their
responses.
Hybrid administration also allows for flexibility if one
mode of administration isn't working out.
For example, a student might start with an online
administration, but then the test administrator realizes that
the student needs to use paper materials to successfully
complete the assessment.
The test administrator could then provide the student with
paper materials and enter responses online for the
student.
They wouldn't be able to go back to previous questions, but they
could continue the rest of the assessment just using the paper
materials for the student.
Paper materials will automatically be included when
test kits are ordered, so all materials should be available
for the student to take the test.
However, it works best for them, even if that mode changes on
testing day.
Please note that there are some test materials that need to be
ordered separately based on student need, such as response
option cards.
This part will be covered in the presentation when we discuss how
to order test materials.
Here is an administration mode checklist to help you determine
which mode of administration would be best for an individual
student.
Under each mode, you will notice that the first question asks
about daily instruction and how it is presented to the student,
and the second asks about how the student communicates on a
daily basis.
Do they use computers to access instruction or do they use more
paper materials to access instruction?
Do they use high tech assistive technology or more low tech
materials or do they use both?
Generally if you have more responses under one category
than the other then this could be a good mode to select for the
test.
The decision should be based on individual student needs and not
what is easiest for the test administrator.
Please note that you do not need to indicate which mode a student
will use on their IEP, but it could be helpful to include this
information for a test administrator so that they know
what to use on testing day.
If an IEP team does include this information in the IEP, we
recommend using wording that indicates flexibility in the
decision so that the test administrator knows that they
can make adjustments on testing day if the student needs it.
We have an activity that we encourage you to participate in
if you want to do it now, you can pause the video on this
slide.
Think of a student you work with or are familiar with who will be
taking the Alt MCA.
Use the checklist on the previous slide to choose the
mode that you think is best for that student and reflect a bit
on that decision.
So now we're going to talk about the Alternate MCA test format.
So the Alternate MCA tasks are aligned to updated extended
benchmarks.
Each of those tasks contain 3 items of varying levels of
complexity.
There's a low, mid, and high level complexity question or
item for each task, and the items in a task are all
associated with the stimulus.
For science, that is the phenomenon.
For reading, it's a reading passage and for math, it's a
scenario.
The science phenomenon is really a story or context for a student
to have an I wonder thought or to get them engaged in something
to do with science so that they're ready to engage with the
assessment and the items.
It's also used as a reference for many of the items to be
answered in science.
So we're going to look at what a task looks like.
This is our high school science sample task which is released.
On the left hand side you can see that there is the phenomenon
which is about a mother dog and her puppies.
On the right hand side, you will see the three different items
that are at those varying levels of complexity.
The one at the top is the low level, the one in the middle is
the mid level complexity, and the one on the bottom is the
high level complexity.
You can see even just from looking quickly at the three
items, they definitely increase in the amount of text you see,
how much image support there is, and the complexity of what is
being asked.
In the next slides, we'll dive into what exactly each of these
complexity level items are associated with.
So the phenomenon again is something that creates an I
wonder statement for students.
This phenomena is based on a mother dog and her puppies and
that they have various traits.
The extended benchmark that all of these items are associated
with or aligned to is to recognize that a given
population will have varied traits and predict which traits
will most likely occur in a given population.
So to present this, the either the test administrator or the
text to speech on our online would present another dog and
her three puppies have some similar traits.
Here is a picture showing the mother dog and her three
puppies.
And then this would stay visible for the student to see, whether
that's in paper or whether that's in an online
presentation.
And we'll talk more about administration of each of those
types of modes and what they're about.
So the first item is the low level complexity.
This is aiming to be an identification type of item for
students that really are just beginning to get access of this
extended benchmark.
So it's a scaffolded way for the students at different levels to
be able to look at the items.
So when teachers wrote the extended benchmarks, which
Lauren referred to earlier, they also wrote access points, which
those access points breakdown the extended benchmark into
those scaffolded skills of Access Point A, B and C that
each of these items are aligned to.
And so for this one, the access point A is that students will
identify traits that will vary within a population.
So we ask what puppy looks most like its mother A, B, and then
the student would use the phenomenon to help them answer
this item.
You can see if there's only two answer options in an Access
Point A, which makes it simpler.
It's very image based.
A lot of times the images do have labels, but it depends on
what what the item is.
And then usually the question begins with who, what, where in
most access point A items.
So Access Point B is aligned to where students will use data now
to identify the most common trait in a given population.
So it's a little more difficult, complex Access Point.
You can see in the visual that what's added is the table which
is giving them the data that they're going to use to identify
what that most common trait would be among this litter of
puppies.
So the Test Administrator would again read this exactly as I
showed for the other item.
They would read all the information in the table also,
and then they would wait for the student to give their response.
And the response can be given any way that that student
typically communicates.
And so the one thing to note about Access Point B items, is
that they also will have an image.
This time it is the table.
But a lot of times there will be some type of picture support in
Access Point B.
It can be either in the part of the question like this one is or
it can be in the answer options.
So Access Point C is the most difficult complexity question
and it is fully assessing that extended benchmark.
And so here, there's another table that gives more
information.
And this time we're asking students to use data to predict.
So we're asking them to do some identification in the low and
mid complexity items.
Now we're asking them to use the data to predict and we're going
to ask them to predict which traits will most likely occur in
offspring of a given set of parents.
And so you can see that the question is a little longer,
it's a little more complicated, and the answer options are all
text.
There typically are not images in the high level complexity
item.
Occasionally there are, but most typically they're not.
And the answer options are usually a sentence.
They can be a little longer, but we try to keep them to at least
a simple sentence.
This is the layout for the student and it's really
important that the student can see the phenomenon at the same
time as they do see the items because especially in this
example, when we're asking the student, especially at that low
level complexity, what puppy looks most like its mother to
have that phenomenon to compare these two images to, to see
which one to see what the mom looks like and which one looks
most like its mother.
It really helps them have data to use to support that.
This slide provides additional details on the access points.
We covered most of these in the previous slides, but I'm just
going to leave it here for just a moment so that you can read
through the different descriptors on your own of the
different levels of support associated with each cognitive
complexity level of the access points.
So now we're going to move on to the Science Alternate MCA
materials.
The most important thing to think about when deciding the
online test form that a student will need is do they use
assistive technology that interacts directly with the test
form.
When a student is selected to have the Science Alternate MCA,
they will automatically be given the main test form.
But for students who use screen readers or other assistive
technology that interacts directly with the online test
form, they will need to be assigned an assistive technology
form which can either be a screen reader or a non screen
reader form.
The paper materials that you will be sent with either an
online and paper, that's a main online and paper kit or the
assistive technology forms kit will be exactly the same.
The only difference is the type of online form that you will be
assigned for that student.
There are a few additional orders which is new for
Alternate MCA.
The Braille test materials can be only ordered during the
additional orders time.
Visual descriptions can be ordered separately which contain
alternate text in a script form to be read to students that
describe the images
for students who have vision impairments and response option
cards are an additional order.
Some students need these for their response mode.
They have to be able to communicate their responses and
so those are not needed for all students, so they are now an
additional order.
So this shows the Science Alternate MCA materials, what
will come in the paper test materials, which remember, we're
not indicating whether they need paper or online.
You will get online and paper both.
But these are the materials that are the paper supports.
And so we have a Task Administration Manual, which is
something that everyone uses regardless of what mode., That
has all the scripts and secure content in it for the Test
Administrator.
There are Presentation Pages that have all the items in them
with the answer options embedded.
There's the Phenomena Book, which is what I showed you in
those items, it has the phenomenon which would be
presented separately.
And so those two are in two separate books.
And then there's a data collection form that's actually
embedded in the Task Administration Manual, but we
like to point out that it is perforated, and it can be ripped
out and moved.
So if a teacher was doing, basically the only time you
would use it for ALT MCA is if you're doing a paper
administration and we'll talk about that more later.
And then for the Braille test materials, which we're really
excited about, this is the first time for alternate assessments
we've ever been able to provide Braille test materials.
The language is going to be UEB Math/ Science format and they
will get the same exact materials as far as the Task
Administration Manual, the Presentation Pages, Phenomena
Book will both be brailed for that student.
The data collection form would be the same for that Test
Administrator.
The visual descriptions of those images are going to come as part
of the Braille test materials because students who are needing
a Braille test would need those descriptions read to them.
And you also get Response Option Cards because these versions are
Brailed and that's the only way to get the Brailed Response
Option Cards is in the Braille test materials.
And it also will include tactile graphics so that when there are
items that need that tactile graphic support, those are going
to be included in the Braille test materials.
And again, the Braille test materials are ordered during
those additional orders time.
So for paper administration, we're going to kind of focus on
that first.
These are the different materials that you would use,
and we've talked through them a little bit.
That Task Administration Manual is really your guide for
administration, and it does include all the phenomenon and
items.
So that's the test administrator's guide
as they're going through the Phenomenon Book. Again, it is
presented first to the student and stays visible at all the
time, at all times.
Then they give that next three items and then you would turn
the page to move to the next item.
After the first task or the 1st 3 items are presented, you would
turn the page to then present the next phenomenon.
The Presentation Pages have all of the items in them and to be
able to do that you would present the first 3 items from
it.
You read all the text and labels, kind of like I showed an
example of during the sample tasks that we showed you.
You would read all the text and labels.
You can point to each image as you present it, and then you
would wait for the student to give a response in the paper
version, paper format, or paper mode as I should say.
You would use the data collection form to record those
student responses.
Then as you give each item because you're not actually in
the TestNAV form.
And then if you had Response Option Cards that you had
ordered, this would be something that can be used if a student
needs that support.
And some students that might need that support might be
students that have fine order difficulties and maybe need to
pick up something to show you or due to their communication mode
that's how they're used to responding in instruction.
So those are some of the students that the support might
be best for. You also can use Response Option Cards to put on
an eye gaze board.
You can use them for lots of different reasons and students
would then show the response on those cards rather than the
presentation page so that they would use that response option
card to give their response.
So now we're going to have a time for you to practice using a
paper administration.
So this is how you access the materials from PearsonAccess
Next.
This is the website you want to go to
minnesotapearsonaccessnext.com and go to the Readiness Tools
area and you're going to Scroll down , the MCA Student Readiness
Tools are going to be first.
And then you'll find the alternate assessment and you're
going to Scroll down to where it says that Paper SRT materials.
And the screenshot on the slide shows where to do that.
So I would suggest you maybe pause the video and access these
paper materials, download them, and then you'll be ready for the
next slide, which is going to actually show you what the
practice activity is.
So what we'd like you to do is review that Task Administration
Manual, the Presentation Pages, and the Phenomena Book.
And after you review those, just really think of how you
administer this for a paper administration.
You might want to pause the video right now and take some
time to reflect on that and just really have a chance to look
through those paper materials so that you're really familiar with
them.
We will be using them again when we talk about the hybrid
administration later.
So it's a good idea just to keep them open on your computer.
You're able to also print print these out if that is something
that's available to you and if that's something that works
better for you.
There's lots of options because you can use these for students
and things too.
And we'll talk a little bit more about what you can use them for
later.
But go ahead and look through the materials and then come back
when you're ready to move on to talking about the next section.
So one thing to know about paper materials is that you can adapt
any of this for MTAS or Alt MCA materials, but you can do a lot
of adaptation to the materials.
There's not really a specific process to ask us about doing
that, and there's very few restrictions.
As long as the support does not invalidate the test by cueing or
cluing the student to the correct answer, the alternate
assessment offers a lot of flexibility for Test
Administrators to do what they feel is best to meet the
student's needs.
We want students to use whatever supports are provided during
instruction to be able to be used on the assessment if
possible.
And we also have object lists that may provide helpful
guidance.
So some common ways that you might vary task presentation is
that you might enlarge the Presentation Pages in the
Phenomenon Books.
For students that have vision difficulties, you might
supplement numbers and tasks with some type of counter.
In some of the science things, there are some numbered things
that you might want to use that you can copy and separate those
student answer choices that are in the Presentation Pages, or
you can do what we talked about to the Response Option Cards.
You're able to also enlarge those if you would need to.
You can use objects to represent graphs and tables.
You can also add wiki sticks, yarn, and any texture to
pictures.
You also can vary the presentation in different ways
with technology and we'll talk about that a little bit later.
So using different types of displays is also fine, even
using like a electronic whiteboard, as long as you're
setting in the classroom is an individual one-on-one setting
with no other students in the room.
That is something that you could do if that's what a student
typically is using in answering or that works better for them.
So we've included a science sample object list for you to
view.
This is has been compiled to match those Paper SRT materials
that you just looked at.
So the examples that are used for the tactile objects and the
graphics are specific to this sample task.
So we've included like objects that you could use are metal
cube, a wood cube, a cup of water, ice cube, or sticks of
wood.
Also, the water cycle model is specific to this sample task
that you just looked at.
So for each grade level there would be a science object list
that you can reference.
It's not the same as the ones that we have included in the
past which referred to the exact item that the objects you could
use were related to.
This is more of a general list, but it is specific to the topics
that are covered in the grade level test that you will be
giving.
So now we're going to move to talk about our Alternate MCA
Online Tools that would be used for online or a hybrid
administration.
And so you can see all the tools that are listed here.
And this is just a nice slide that contains every single tool
that's embedded in the TestNAV form and a description of what
that tool is.
We're going to watcht a video about all of the Online SRT,
which will explain in detail all of these tools and the
navigation for the Alternate MCA online form.
The Alternate MCA Student Readiness Tool is a place where
you can find the online form.
This is a form that you can use to interact with the actual
TestNAV content, and it's also a place where you'll see this
video that explains all of the tools and the navigation in the
online test form.
So we're going to watch the video and then we'll look at the
online test form.
So now we'd like you to access the Science Alt MCA SRT video.
You can go to this website minnesota.pearsonaccessnext.com
and go to Readiness Tools.
You will see this screen.
This is a screenshot of where you'll find it.
You want to look for this highlighted part that says
Online Alternate MCA Student Readiness Tools.
Select that button and then once you get into the online
platform, there will be a image with a play button that you can
select.
We'd like you to select that button and then pause this video
while you're watching that one.
And then after that you can move on to playing the rest of this
video.
It's really important that you do watch this video because it's
going to give you all the information and background that
you need for the rest of this training.
So the other part of the Alternate MCA SRT is the online
form.
So underneath the video that we just watched, you're able to
select this online form and enter the TestNAV form.
As you can see, here's all the test settings they talked about
in the video.
I'm going to save and close those.
There's a few things I'd like to show you in this online form,
especially with the text to speech.
So with text to speech, once you click the listen player, if you
begin it at this play button, it's going to read the entire
phenomenon to you.
If you do that Click to listen, it will read.
I could just select water cycle, precipitation.
I can just select the image and it will read the labels in that
image.
I'm going to go to the next screen.
And now we see the phenomenon with the item.
And if I select the play button, it's going to actually read the
entire phenomenon again and then read the item and the answer
options.
So it's best to use the Click to listen option.
Or there's also another option where if you if you highlight
something, this listen bubble comes up and then you can select
that and it will use it will play the text to speech for that
section for you.
The administration is not to have the phenomenon read on
every single item.
It should only be read once when it's on its own like this.
And then when you navigate to an item, you would just present the
item.
The phenomenon is here for the student to be able to see it and
be able to use it to answer the questions.
As you can see with this one where it says what picture shows
rain.
So its much easier for this low level complexity item for them
to be able to answer that question with the image of the
water cycle.
The other thing is that in the listening settings, if you do
this begin text to speech automatically, if you select
that box, it's going to read on every single page will
automatically start and read the phenomenon every time you move
to a new item.
And so that's not really the best way to have that.
Hopefully in the future we'll have that working better so that
it will just read the items, but right now TestNAV does not have
that capability.
The other thing I just wanted to highlight is this admin button
that again you can get back to the test settings, you can use
the no response and that will mark the item as a no response.
And then if you close it, that is there. Again in the admin
settings, in this tool settings, if you select that progress mode
and save it, now I can select progress and it will.
It shows now that that was an NR item.
Any of the blocks that have an I in it, that is the phenomenon.
And so that won't record an NR or a smiley face, as it is just
an informational slide as there's no answer option to
select for that.
When you get to the very end, these last I documents are
actually administration mode questions or our teachers test
administrator questions.
And so there's one Administration Mode, that just
we'd like you to answer so that you can share what that
administration mode was like.
And we talked about that earlier in the video.
But this is where you'll find those questions.
And there's on object use and one on general feedback.
And then after you've answered those, you can go to the section
end and then be able to submit your answers.
I'm going to go back one more slide and I'm going to go into
the test settings.
I'm going to turn off the tools, the progress mode and the
listen.
Save that.
And now you can see that it's a very simple test panel down
here.
So if you close it again, you don't see that.
But when it's opened for students, this creates less
distraction.
You do need to use this carrot to open and close if you want
it.
If you have it closed, you have to open it again to be able to
navigate to the next item.
Hopefully in the future too, that'll be something we can work
on.
So thank you very much for looking at this online forum
with me and hope you will go to the SRT in the next activities
and check it out for yourself.
So now that we've looked at the student readiness tools, some of
the uses that you might have for them are being able to, for the
online, you can make assessment decisions for students.
You can use it to prepare test administrators for administering
the online and hybrid administrations so they can see
what that TestNAV content looks like and how the navigation is
so they're prepared.
They can also prepare students by having them interact directly
with that online platform and using the tools for the paper.
SRTs. Test Administrators can help also make assessment
decisions for students.
They can prepare students by interacting with those paper
test materials and they can plan for any accommodations and
material preparation that they might need for adapting any of
those paper materials for students or if they need to
gather objects or anything else they might use.
So now we're going to move into an online SRT practice activity.
We'd like you to access the Science ALT MCA SRT online form,
which is in the same place we were for the paper
administration one.
And you're going to, again, go to that pearsonaccessnext.com
and the readiness tools, Scroll down to where you see the
online, which is highlighted here, ALT MCA Student Readiness
Tool button and select that.
And then you're going to select the online form button.
I'd suggest pausing and navigating to this area before
you go to the next slide.
And then we'll talk about what your activity is actually going
to be.
So now that you've accessed it, we'd like you to have that Task
Administration Manual that's in the paper version next to you
because that's your guide to be able to know what your script is
and what you can read aloud to students and the guidelines for
walking through all the items.
And you can also follow along with the phenomena and all the
items that are in that Task Administration Manual.
So you're going to, we'd like you to interact with that Online
SRT and think of how an online administration would look like
for one of your students.
We have some reflection questions for you to think about
as you do that.
So we'd like you to pause the video now, go through the
practice activity, and then when you have done that and kind of
thought about these reflection questions, then we'll move on to
talking about a hybrid administration.
We have another activity that we encourage you to try to do it.
Now you can pause the video on this slide.
Think about a student who you work with or are familiar with
using the Task Administration Manual, the paper materials, and
what you learned from using the online SRT.
Think about what mix of Alt MCA, test materials you would use for
this student.
You may use the same student as you did for the earlier activity
to determine the best administration mode.
If you do choose this same student, do the materials you
choose here match the administration mode that you
chose before?
Why or why not?
Feel free to complete this activity with another student
for extra reflection.
After the test is complete, there will be a few questions
for the test administrator to answer.
The first one asks about administration mode.
If the student took the assessment completely online,
the test administrator would select either online with
support, which would be for students who need more hands on
guidance to navigate the test and enter responses, or online
independently, which would be for those students who need
minimal support.
If the administrator switched administration modes during the
test, they should select the mode they used for for the
majority of the test.
We recognize that a small number of students may have more
complex needs and may not have an observed way to communicate
responses.
For these students, it may not be appropriate to complete the
entire assessment with this group in mind.
An Early Stopping Rule has been developed.
Here is how it is used if a student receives a no response
for a full task or the 1st 3 items on the test.
The test administrator can decide whether to take a quick
break before testing again or however long they need to have,
or stop for the day and resume on another day.
If the student then receives no responses on the next three
items of the second task, for a total of 6 no responses, the
test administrator has the option to end the test.
If they choose to do that, they can go straight to the end of
the test, answer the test administrator questions, then
submit the test.
The student's score will then still be counted as a valid
score.
Please note that there will not be a prompt asking to implement
the No stopping rule, so the test administrator will need to
be aware of the No stopping rule ahead of time.
If they try to implement the No stopping rule after more than
six no responses, MDE will need to be contacted and it will be
processed as a testing error.
Now it's time to cover Assistive Technology forms.
Many students who take the general assessment and the
alternate assessment use assistive technology or AT.
In the past, students often could not use their AT devices
on standardized assessments and either had to use an alternative
they were not familiar with or they didn't have any support at
all.
The AT forms were developed to address this.
An AT form is a version of the test that allows a student's AT
device to directly interact with the content of the assessment.
This will allow a student to use the device they use in daily
instruction and are comfortable using so that testing feels more
like their day-to-day activities and instruction and interactions
in the classroom.
Devices provided by a student's district or school should be
approved already.
If the student brings the device from home, district staff will
need to request approval from MDE for the student to use the
device during testing.
We'll have more information on that later in this section.
Most students would be assigned to the standard test form, which
is the non AT Test form.
Those that need to use an AT device to interact with TestNAV
to access the assessment would be assigned an AT form.
There are two different AT forms available, the screen reader
form and the non screen reader form.
For students who need to use a calculator with their test, the
recommendation is for them to use it separately from their AT
device, either with a second device or as a handheld
calculator.
Whether a student uses a standard form or either of the
AT forms, the test content on the forms will be the same, so
Braille test materials can be used with the AT forms.
Even with the support of AT, many students will still benefit
from the additional support of Braille materials or tactile
graphics for more complicated test content such as graphs,
images, and charts.
The Braille paper test book can also be used with the AT form
and students will be prompted to access the tactile graphics when
necessary.
The screen reader form is expected to be the more common
version of the AT form used and can be used for screen readers
as well as Braille devices.
Please note that some online tools may not be available with
this form, such as the Answer Masker.
Not all screen readers will be compatible with the AT forms at
this time.
We know that some are, such as JAWS, NVDA, Fusion, Voice Over,
and Chromevox.
We know those types are supported and we will learn more
as more and more devices are tested.
The second type of AT form is for all devices that are not
screen readers or Braille devices.
A couple of examples include Switches and Eye Gaze, but there
are many others.
Please note that text to Speech will not be available on this
form, but read aloud support can still be provided through a
human reader and script accommodation.
In order to determine if a device is compatible with the AT
form, there will be an Assistive Technology checker to test
whether a device will work with TestNAV.
The checker will be available on the SRT web page, most likely
this coming December.
If a device does not work, we encourage you to contact MDE so
that we can provide this information to the testing
vendor.
They may be able to fix the issue so the device is
compatible with TestNAV possibly even before testing starts this
spring.
This also gives us at MDE information about what types of
devices are being used by students so that we can consider
this information during the test development process to address
AT related issues.
Please connect with DACs, Technology Coordinators and
others who can help as needed.
We have developed a new approval procedure to streamline
accommodation requests and ensure we have all the needed
information to give guidance and decide on approval of the
accommodation.
This form can be used to request approval either for
accommodations not addressed in the Procedures Manual or for
student owned devices.
To begin the process, please e-mail mde dot Testing at state
dot MN dot US to ask for approval for an accommodation or
device and a fillable form will be sent.
This form asks for details about the student, the test they will
be taking, and the device or accommodation that they will
need.
Please make sure not to use any information that could
personally identify a student such as their name, initials, or
birth date.
If you have any feedback regarding AT forms such as how
well they work or don't work which devices students are
using, or feedback about any devices that are commonly used
by students in your district, please e-mail us at alt dot
assessment dot mde at state dot MN dot US.
We are especially trying to collect more information about
refreshable Braille devices.
Next, we will talk about the updated alternate assessment
eligibility requirements.
The eligibility requirements are used by IEP teams to determine
if a student has a most significant cognitive disability
that would qualify them for the alternate assessment.
With the redesign of the new assessment, the eligibility
requirements were also updated.
The overall content in them has not been changed drastically,
but it has been revised for clarity and there is now a
statewide definition of what is meant by a student with the most
significant cognitive disability.
The definition has 2 main parts.
The first part is that the student is determined to have
significantly lower than average cognitive functioning.
To meet this first Part, 3 criteria need to be met.
There must be data that indicates a student's below
average cognitive functioning, the student must be impacted in
multiple environments, and the student must require intensive
and specialized instruction to acquire academic and life
skills.
If these criteria are met, then the IEP team can go to the
second part of the definition that the MCA is not an
appropriate measure of the student's knowledge and skills.
This part has three criteria that must be met.
The IEP team reviewed available universal supports and
accommodations on the MCA, then determined that the MCA would
still not be appropriate even with the use of available
supports and accommodations, and the decision with reasoning was
documented in the IEP.
This is the Decision Making Tool that IEP teams can use to
determine a student's eligibility for the alternate
assessment.
Here is the website and link to access the latest version of the
eligibility requirements, including the Decision Making
tool.
We have another activity for you to try.
Imagine you are working as part of an IEP team to decide which
state assessment a student will take.
Use the Decision Making tool to determine if the student is
eligible to take the alternate assessment.
If you can think of a student you know or are familiar with,
feel free to do this activity with that student in mind.
After you have gone through the steps, reflect on the process.
What made the process easy or difficult to follow?
What helped you come to a decision?
So now we're going to talk about the Learner Characteristics
Inventory, or the LCI as we refer to it, and talk about the
new revisions that have been made.
So the place to find the LCI is in the user guides on Pearson
Access.
Next you can see highlighted in purple where the Learner
Characteristics Inventory is, and you'll be able to read all
the different characteristics of what's been revised.
So some details about the LCI.
MDE uses this form to really collect student LCI data and
assistive technology information for students.
You need to enter this into Pearson Access Next for each
student, and that data must be entered into Pearson Access Next
for each student before data can be entered for them.
This data can be entered up to two weeks before the testing
window opens, which is new.
It used to be only one week.
You can also enter it anytime during the testing window.
This form must be kept on file in a secure location for one
year following test administration.
And also remember that the LCI is perforated in that task
administration manual and can be torn out so that it can be used
by the Test Administrator and then given to whoever enters
that data.
So the highlights of the LCI revisions that were made are
that it is now, if you access it on PearsonAccessNext, it's a
fillable PDF that can be printed or saved electronically.
We've included less characteristics to fill out for
students.
The descriptions for each characteristic have been made
clearer and simplified.
We also worked with our special education low incidence
specialists to be able to make sure that the descriptions
underneath each characteristic we're asking about were
accurate, and there's also a place for teachers to enter any
additional student information You think it would be helpful
for MDE.
This data does need to be entered into PearsonAccessNext.
The fillable PDF does not count as a way to give us the data.
But one thing about having that PDF electronically, it can
either be sent to Test Administrators with the data
maybe filled out by the DAC so that the birth dates, all of the
MARSS numbers are accurately entered by one person instead of
multiple people entering that data.
It also can be saved electronically and kept for a
year rather than having to be printed out in paper and kept in
a file somewhere secure.
So we have some different assessment resources to share
with you before we end our presentation.
So the Minnesota Question Tools is the first resource and this
is a place where you can find the released test questions from
past MCA tests and the alternate MCA released items.
This is really a great place for educators to visit to really
understand how the MCA and ALT MCA are aligned to the Minnesota
K12 Standards.
The website is listed there for you to be able to find and it
will help you understand a little bit more.
You can even look at like what's a higher level question that you
might find on the Alternate MCA, like those high level complexity
items, and really look at what those look like and how you
might use some of those same ideas to do some of your
instruction.
Not that we're teaching to the tests, but just so that students
are exposed to those different types of items.
Something that we hold each month is an Alternate Assessment
Chat and Connect and this is the time for informal discussion,
Lauren and I are always there.
We sometimes have some other guests who join us depending on
the topic for the month.
It's a place that you can come and ask questions, give us
feedback.
You can network with other districts about what they do for
certain topics.
We always begin every single chat and connect with a time for
you to share or address any questions, concerns, any
feedback you'd like to give us.
And then we always have a monthly topic that we also
address.
And we do prepare some slides and give some resources and
handouts also that are helpful.
These always happen the third Tuesday of each month and
they're from 4:00 to 5:00 PM.
They're virtual and you can register for them with the link
if you want.
Again, for this link, you will be able to see our e-mail on the
very last slide and you can just e-mail us with a request for the
handout of these slides.
And once you register, you register for all of the chat and
Connect series for the rest of the year.
And we usually hold these, and when we say each month they
happen from October through May.
And so we have topics that are kind of relevant to the testing
season that goes with it.
Lauren and I work with all Alt assessment things, so MTAS and
ALT MCA, but we also work with the MCA accommodations and
supports.
So if you have questions that are related to that assessment
and those accommodations and supports, this is also a place
you can come to get those questions answered.
So the universal supports and accommodations resources that we
have available to you include the guidance document, which
explains in detail all of the universal supports and
accommodations for all of the statewide Minnesota assessments.
The QR code is a way that you can access these resources where
the information listed in this guidance tells you what test it
can be used for, what students it might be best for.
It gives you a deeper description of what the
accommodation or support actually is, and gives you some
information about administration considerations.
The other resource that's available at this web page is
the MCA Supports and Accommodations infographic.
This is only specific to MCA, not Alternate MCA or MTAS, but
this is like a tool list for supports and accommodations,
list for everything that's available on the MCA and lets
you use this to maybe come up with some ideas at an IEP team
meeting or talking with parents.
And once you look at a support that you think is something that
the student uses in their daily instruction, you can then go to
the guidance document to get those deeper details to ensure
that that really is something that's best for the student.
There's also the website path listed here that you can use to
access this resource.
One thing that's included in the Task Administration Manual is an
MTAS/ ALT MCA Test Administrator Checklist.
This is something that the field asked for, and so we added this
a couple years ago.
This is a place where you can find all of the preparation for
administration, any kind of tasks that really are important
to be done in preparation or administering or things to do
after you've administered the MTAS or Alt MCA.
It gives you a brief description and then where to look at it in
that section for reference.
So if you need to go read more about it, We do suggest you
read the entire Task Administration Manual.
But if there are things that you're looking for specifically
after you've done that, this is a place where you can go to and
look at those specifics again.
It's also available online at the Pearson Access Next site
under the User Guide section.
One of the opportunities we'd like to share with you is
becoming part of our Educator Review committees.
This is the flyer.
And you can use the QR code or you can use the path located on
the screen.
We have Educator Committees for Alternate MCA and also for MCA.
So there's many reasons why you would want to join an Educator
Review Committee, but some of them are: that you have an
opportunity to gain valuable insight on how students are
expected to demonstrate mastery of those academic standards for
MCA or the extended benchmarks for Alternate MCA.
You get to network with other educators from around the state
who teach the same content and grade level.
You also are paid an honorarium if you aren't teaching and for
Alternate MCA,
all of our committees happen in the summer so most teachers are
not actively teaching so they'd be able to be paid an honorarium
for the day and a half, is what most of our committees run.
If you are teaching you would be able to get a substitute
reimbursement for those instructional days.
You also earn continuing education units for attending.
We have two different types of committees.
One of them is a New Item Review Committee.
This committee looks at test questions, passages, phenomena,
scenarios for math, and they judge the appropriateness of the
content, the cognitive complexity, and ensure that we
have language that's inclusive,
make sure the images that are included with the items are
helpful for students and just really give us lots of feedback.
We then adjust the items based on the feedback from this
committee before those items are available to then to be field
tested the next spring.
The second committee is a Data Review Committee, and this
committee looks at the item, the data from the items that were
given to students as field test items in the spring, and they
review the data and look at the item content to see if those
items should be accepted into our operational pool of items.
It's not to look at content and adjust it.
It's to look to see if the way we expected students to answer
questions is actually how students did answer.
And that helps us know from the data that we compile if those
items are good items for students or if they're not and
they need to be rejected.
These last few slides just have all the resources and links to
them that Lauren and I have shared with you.
If you would like a handout of these slides, you can e-mail us
at the slide that we will show you at the very end and ask us
for the handouts.
In the handouts you will have access to links that take you
directly to all of these resources.
So one of the resources we like to highlight that's on this
slide is the Accommodations Toolkit from NCEO.
This toolkit has research and best practices around each
accommodation that you might consider for the MCA or ALT MCA.
So this is another place where you can look up information if
you're trying to decide if there's certain accommodations
that you think would be helpful for a student.
It gives you some research based information to make those
decisions.
We also have the Educator Edition newsletter that you can
sign up for and this is a place where Lauren and I communicate a
lot of the opportunities we have related to alternate assessment.
Lauren and I would really like to thank you for taking the time
to watch this recording of our Science Alt MCA Kick Off meeting
our information for answering any questions you might have
after watching this video or asking for a copy of the hand
over the slides to get access to the links.
And the information we've shared can be given if you e-mail us at
alt dot assessment dot mde at state dot MN dot US, or you can
call us at the number listed here.
And that rings directly to my phone.
So thank you again and we look forward to hearing from you.
And if not, we wish you a great testing season ahead this
spring.