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2015 Missouri Assessment Information for Parents

April 04, 2015

Dear Parents/Guardians:

In a few weeks, your child will be participating in the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) Grade-Level Assessments. The purpose of this letter is to provide you with general information about the assessments, and to inform you of the district's testing schedule. Please make every attempt to ensure that your child is present during anticipated testing times/dates and that he/she is prepared for testing.

General Information about the Missouri Assessment Program Grade-Level Assessments

The Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) Grade-Level Assessments evaluate students’ progress toward the Missouri Learning Standards.  The MAP Grade-Level Assessments include assessments in the subject areas of English language arts (grades 3-8), mathematics (grades 3-8), and science (grades 5 and 8). MAP Grade-Level Assessments provide important information that contributes to decisions concerning individual students, groups of students, and educational programs.   

This spring, for the first time, the MAP Grade-Level Assessments will be administered online. This approach represents a significant improvement over traditional paper-and-pencil assessments. Online assessments offer unique ways of assessing content and standards that are difficult to assess using paper-and-pencil tests. For example, listening can be assessed easily in an online assessment using a text-to-speech feature that allows students to listen to a passage and replay it as many times as they wish before responding to an associated set of questions. Additionally, online assessment allows for supports and accommodations that effectively meet a wide range of student needs. For example, a student has the ability to use a magnification feature within the system to enlarge an item. Another advantage of online assessments is that districts will receive student scores more quickly than in the past.

The MAP Grade-Level Assessments include multiple types of questions or items:

• Selected Responseitems are composed of a question followed by a series of possible responses. Students must select the correct response or responses

• Response or Short Text items require students to supply an appropriate response rather than making a selection from a list of choices.

• Tasks/Events allow students to work through more complicated items using real-world scenarios.

Technology Enhanced items make use of technology in the presentation of the item, the ways in which students respond, or both. For example, students might watch a video and then drag and drop labels into a diagram, or click on specific parts of a text to provide a response.

Parents can preview the MAP Grade-Level Assessment administration system and the item types included on each assessment by reviewing the practice tests and tutorials that are available in the Missouri Assessment Program portal, called eDIRECT. Parents can access practice tests and tutorials by going to the MAP Grade-Level Assessment website  (http://dese.mo.gov/college-career-readiness/assessment/grade-level) and clicking on Grade-Level Online Tools Training in the "Quick Links" box . No login or password is necessary to review practice tests or tutorials.

After testing, your child will receive an Individual Student Report that will give you information about his or her achievement in terms of the content and skills assessed by the MAP Grade-Level Assessment at his or her grade level. Your child's Individual Student Report will include an Achievement Level, which will describe his or her performance for the grade level and content area as Below Basic, Basic, Proficient, or Advanced. The report will also include a short description of the knowledge and skills that are typically demonstrated by students in each Achievement Level for that grade level and content area.  Your child’s Individual Student Report will be sent to your home.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) publishes a Guide to Interpreting Results (GIR) that provides additional detail about the content of the Individual Student Reports. The GIR for the Spring 2015 MAP Grade-Level Assessments will be available on the DESE website at http://dese.mo.gov/college-career-readiness/assessment/grade-level when MAP Grade-Level Assessment Individual Student Reports are distributed. 

Spring 2015 MAP Testing Schedule for Avenue City School

The personnel at Avenue City School District will administer the MAP test on the following days to the following grades: