Narrator: How do you know if your students are on track
to meeting the goals you've set for them?
This is the reason educators give an interim assessment.
It's a way to check student growth
toward a predetermined goal.
Interim assessments are different
from the formative processes used during instruction
to help figure out what's next
and they're different from the summative testing events
that are held after instruction stops
to look back on how learning went.
It turns out interim assessment is incredibly varied.
Checking on student growth can be anything
from a writing prompt that Ms. G
gives her class two times a year,
to a quarterly standardized assessment that some districts
might choose to buy from a vendor.
Because everyone wants a picture of student growth,
and in so many different areas,
it can be challenging for schools to know
how often and when to administer this type of assessment.
At the core, interim data uses multiple data points
to monitor student growth,
allowing educators to identify patterns in student learning.
What interim data is most useful for
is informing your SLO process and making decisions
about grouping, pacing, enrichment, and remediation.
These decisions should guide instruction
and intervention decisions.
So what should interim assessment look like?
The answer depends on how the data going's to be used.
Here's Ms. G, pausing her instruction
to give Andre and his classmates a writing prompt.
She wants to know her students progress
in understanding how to write for different audiences
which was part of her SLO goal.
The student's responses demonstrate
what they have learned so far, so Ms. G
can make instructional decisions.
So she's using the data in a formative way
but she's also using the data to measure how students
are progressing compared to a benchmark she's set
in her SLO goal.
When a whole grade level takes a benchmark test
written my Ms. G and her colleagues,
the teachers and students are again
pausing instruction to benchmark their progress.
This time they're looking at student's rate of progress
toward grade level standards
and expectations in mathematics.
Prior to the interim assessment,
Ms. G and her colleagues have identified the purpose
of this assessment and how they will use the data.
This is the critical first step of any assessment process.
Interim assessment relies on multiple data points
to reveal trends and patterns in student performance.
Because interim data can be aggregated,
Ms. G and her colleagues can look for patterns.
Are all of our students growing at a sufficient rate?
What do the trendlines say?
Where are the gaps?
Ms. G and her colleagues can then check on growth.
They can measure progress when they
administer the same assessment at another point
later in the year.
Standardized interim assessments purchased from a vendor
can help check whether students are meeting benchmarks
on the way to summative goals
and generally, in less than an hour.
If they're used, it should be no more than one
to three times per year.
More than that won't help students.
Interim assessment can be driven by a single educator,
a team of educators, like a grade level or department,
or it can be led by the school or the district.
In any form, interim assessments
measure progress against benchmarks.
And no matter what, educators need to be cautious
that the interim assessments they choose to administer
are high quality, are not duplicative of other testing,
and not used in isolation for high-stakes decision-making.
And also, for each interim assessment,
what's measured has to be consistent each time it's given,
otherwise you won't get comparable data.
And whatever interim tool educators are using,
the purpose of the assessment and how the data will be used
should be clearly identified.
These are the critical steps
to implementing a strategic assessment system,
one that coherently and purposefully
uses assessment information to directly
impact student achievement.
Learn more about interim assessments
and how to use them strategically
in support of every child a graduate, college,
and career ready at our strategic assessment webpage.
(gentle music)