When using any type of assessment tool, educators are working to identify student strengths and opportunities for improvement and meaningful growth. We tend to have vast amounts of data at our fingertips, yet sometimes we have difficulty sifting through that data and making informed decisions to truly drive instructional opportunities with intentionality. MAP® Growth™ and MAP® Reading Fluency™ reports can help.
Those who are assessment literate understand how to gather dependable evidence. They are then able to utilize that evidence to productively support and certify achievement for students. According to the National Task Force on Assessment Education for Teachers, “assessment is the process of gathering evidence of student learning to inform education-related decisions. The impact of decisions turns on the quality of the evidence gathered, which in turn, depends on the quality of the assessment, and associated practices, used to gather it.” That’s a mouthful!
I’m the first to admit that during my time in public education, I did not always feel confident and comfortable using data to ensure the various needs of all my learners were met. In hindsight, I could have leveled the playing field for my students by triangulating data, using intentional formative assessment, and providing temporary scaffolds to students needing additional supports to access grade-level standards.
MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency can each be one data point in an effective, balanced assessment system. I would like to share some ways campus leadership, interventionists, and classroom educators can potentially use assessment data to drive opportunities for students. Below you will find key questions to use as you analyze MAP Growth or MAP Reading Fluency data.
MAP Growth reporting for school leaders
The MAP Growth School Profile report can help campus leaders use MAP Growth data to identify student needs and impact outcomes. Using the School Profile can help you answer the following questions:
- Which grade levels or classes are excelling? Which need additional supports? These questions can lead to conversations about trends and create opportunities to ask teachers what is working and what they are doing to make gains in their classroom. Teachers each have unique teaching styles and methodologies to ensure students are comprehending standards. If leadership can make time and space for educators to discuss successes and struggles, they can gain insight from one another. This is incredibly valuable as it creates a culture of collaboration and promotes brainstorming and inclusivity.
- Are our programs having an equitable impact? If leaders explore and sort the data based on programs and data like ethnicity or gender, trends can be analyzed to ensure the needs of all learners are met. This is critical to close gaps and ensure high-achieving students in particular have access to rigorous content.
- What trends indicate opportunities for further exploration? This question can lead to conversations regarding analyzing and understanding the impact of the curriculum, instruction, and supports you are providing. It may also help leaders identify educators other educators can learn from and educators who may need additional supports. This should never be approached as a “gotcha” moment. We are all always evolving and growing. Making space for meaningful opportunities for educator growth is valuable.
- Do teachers have time to collaborate across disciplines? Working across disciplines provides meaningful opportunities for collaboration, including creating units or topics that align across multiple contents, and offers additional insights, such as student Lexile levels and behavior supports. If there are opportunities for a topic to be embedded across disciplines, students can build background knowledge that becomes transferable.
MAP Growth reporting for classroom teachers
The MAP Growth Class Profile report is an interactive report that allows teachers to see overall class performance, create small groups based on instructional areas, and get insight into who may need scaffolds, extensions, or enrichments. The Class Profile may help you answer the following questions:
- How are my classes performing overall? Knowing how each class is performing compared to 2020 NWEA MAP Growth Norms and your state’s linking studies can help you gain insight and think about where your students are and where you want them to be.
- What instructional areas stand out as strengths or opportunities to grow? Asking this question can be incredibly powerful when we take the instructional areas and see how they align with our curriculum. Analyzing this data can help us identify students who may need scaffolds to access grade-level standards, students who will likely be fine with Tier I instruction, and students who may need grade-level standards presented with more rigor.
- How can I adjust opportunities to support access to grade-level standards? For students who may need additional support with a subject or within a specific instructional area, it’s critical to explore what scaffolds you can temporarily put into place to ensure all students have access to grade-level standards.
- Do I use assessment data as part of a formative assessment cycle? MAP Growth data can create opportunities for goal setting. We can work with students to create specific goals and offer opportunities for prompt, targeted feedback. Helping students see how the instructional areas within MAP Growth connect to a curriculum can promote an understanding that MAP Growth is not something we do just three times a year. Rather, the data allows educators opportunities to make curriculum connections while working to support students all year long, allowing students to take ownership of their learning.
- Am I engaging in conversations across content areas? The example I find myself referring to often is the Lexile level MAP Growth Reading provides. If you’re a reading teacher, are you sharing student data on reading and comprehension across content areas? If a student’s Lexile level is below the Lexile level grade-level text aligns to, your colleagues in other content areas can provide supports to ensure all students have access to complex, grade-level text.
MAP Reading Fluency reports for school leaders
Campus leaders can use the MAP Reading Fluency Term Comparison report to identify student need and impact outcomes. The Term Comparison can help answer the following questions:
- What trends do we notice as we compare terms? As we compare data between terms, do we see student growth? It’s important to look at how many students are below grade-level expectations, approaching, meeting, and exceeding.
- Do we have more students with oral reading data at the end of the year compared to the beginning and middle of the year? It’s important to analyze data for students given the Adaptive Oral Reading portion of the test to see who routed to Oral Reading rather than Foundational Skills as an academic year progresses.
- How have grade-level performance levels shifted? Ideally, we should see students move from below grade-level expectations to approaching, meeting, or exceeding. When this happens, we can see the impact of our instructional programs.
MAP Reading Fluency reports for classroom teachers
Classroom teachers can use the MAP Reading Fluency Benchmark Matrix and Screener Outcomes reports to answer the following questions:
- What students have data in Foundational Skills? Oral Reading? Having this data will help you have a better sense for the learning trajectory to put in place for your students.
- What domain stands out as a strength or an opportunity for growth? As you sort through each of the reporting categories, notice if there’s a specific area that stands out as a strength or opportunity for meaningful growth. Knowing where students are can help you focus on specific areas during whole-group and small-group instruction.
- How can I adjust opportunities to support access to grade-level standards? As you analyze the data, aim to identify specific instructional areas that will need to be scaffolded to provide students equitable access to grade-level standards.
- Who are my flagged students? How can I provide additional supports to meet student needs? As you start to explore students who are flagged as possibly showing signs of reading difficulty, including dyslexia, you can ask yourself if this aligns with other data points and your observations. If students are flagged in Foundational Skills, analyze what specific domains need additional supports.
- For students needing additional support, what will intentional interventions look like? As you look at students who need additional supports, including students flagged in the Screener Outcomes report, plan for intervention supports. Ask yourself whether you’re continuing to utilize progress monitoring as an additional data point to gauge the effectiveness of interventions. MAP Reading Fluency progress monitoring can help you in tracking progress.
Start where you are
As you think about these questions, please know there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to create collaborative opportunities between educators and growth opportunities for students. One of the best things we can do is simply get started.
Explore the MAP Growth and MAP Reading Fluency reports available to you. Get comfortable with them. Find your favorites and focus on those. I also encourage you to ask questions, lean into your colleagues as resources, explore our YouTube channel for great informational videos, and reach out to your NWEA representative if you need more support.
