Goals

In February of 2011, Central, Cathcart, Riverview, Centennial and Valley View began piloting a K-8 math, reading and literacy assessment system called easyCBM. Please understand that easyCBM is not a high stakes test—meaning that it is not mandated at the state or federal level and has absolutely no bearing on AYP. It is intended to be a teacher tool to guide instruction and improve student learning. The goals of this system are to:

1. Develop a more responsive reading and math assessment system which provides timely and meaningful feedback to all stakeholders and helps teachers to intervene more quickly.

2. Establish a clear and consistent bench-marking assessment cycle (fall, winter and spring) that matches the needs of teachers in terms of screening and intervention and aligns well with our standards and grade reporting periods.

3. Encourage the use of a progress monitoring system that teachers use to map student growth in relation to specific strands of learning.

The initial pilot provided us with encouraging results in regards to these goals, so the district will be expanding the easyCBM pilot in the 2011-2012 school year to include all elementary and middle school students.

Overview

In the 2010-2011 school year, Teaching and Learning Services opted to suspend the Levels/MAP testing and pilot easyCBM, a K-8 bench-marking, screening and progress monitoring assessment system. Curriculum-based measurement, or CBM, is a method of monitoring student educational progress through direct assessment of academic skills. The easyCBM assessment tool is designed to provide more timely and routine feedback to teachers, students and parents. It is a criterion-referenced assessment in which the student's performance is measured against a standard. The easyCBM system was designed by researchers at the University of Oregon who developed DIBELS. From the start, developers have emphasized that the goal of this assessment system is to help teachers facilitate student learning through informed decision-making.

The easyCBM assessments are standardized measures that sample from a year's worth of curriculum to assess the degree to which students have mastered critical skills and knowledge at each grade level. The online math assessments are based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Curriculum Focal Point Standards in Mathematics. In each grade, K - 8, there are a total of 30 progress monitoring measures: 10 aligned to each of the 3 main Focal Point standards for each grade level. The early literacy assessments of phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy/fluency are similar to DIBELS, but easyCBM adds online vocabulary and reading comprehension assessments as well.

Tutorials

   Logging in and adding students

   Student Login to Take Assessments

   Measures in easyCBM

   easyCBM Reports 

   Progress Monitoring

Resources

Teacher’s Manual

https://secure.easycbm.com/static/files/pdfs/info/District_easyCBM_Teachers_Manual.pdf

Progress Monitoring Scoring Guidelines

http://easycbm.com/static/files/pdfs/info/ProgMonScoreInterpretation.pdf

Technical Reports

http://www.brtprojects.org/publications/technical-reports

https://dibels.uoregon.edu/techreports/index.php#easyCBM_MathTechReports

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