1. for Teaching and Learning (Version 2)
Welcome to
Assessment Tools
for Teaching and Learning (Version 2)
Online Workshop 2003

3. What’s on the CD
Reading / Pānui
Writing / Tuhituhi
Mathematics / Pāngarau
Curriculum levels 2-4
Years 5-7

4. What’s in this presentation?
An introduction to asTTle and how it fits in to the National Assessment Strategy
Purpose of the asTTle tools
How can asTTle help teaching and learning?
Effective use of asTTle in your classroom and school
Reports and what they tell us
For assistance in installing asTTle and creating tests, go to
and download the pdf file The Beginner’s Guide to Installing asTTle and Creating Tests

5. Goals of the National Assessment Strategy
The National Assessment Strategy focuses on:
setting specific and challenging goals with students
fostering partnerships in learning
using information to improve learning
developing high-quality assessment tools
developing teachers’ assessment literacy
informing strategic planning

6. National Assessment Strategy

7. High-quality assessment tools
asTTle is one of a portfolio of assessment tools available or becoming available to schools nationally.
The following two slides provide an overview of these tools and the levels at which they are used.

8. National assessment tools
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5
Yr 1
Yr 2
Yr 3
Yr 4
Yr 5
Yr 6
Yr 7
Yr 8
Yr 9
Yr 10
EXEMPLARS
In all Essential Learning Areas
English and Māori.
SEA / 6 Yr Net
ARBs (Assessment Resource Banks)
English, Mathematics, and Science
NEMP
The National Education Monitoring Project
asTTle Version 2
Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning
Initially designed for monitoring achievement for years 5, 6, and 7 in Literacy and Numeracy (English and Te Reo)
PAT (Progressive Achievement Tests)
STAR ( Supplementary Test of Achievement in Reading)
Reading Running Records
Numeracy and Literacy Projects

9. National assessment tools

10. The purpose of the asTTle tool
The main purpose of asTTle is to provide teacher-managed, curriculum-based analysed assessment information for the purpose of improving the quality of teaching and learning.
Along with other assessment tools asTTle provides externally referenced assessment information to assist teachers in making valid, reliable, and nationally consistent judgments about the work and progress of their students.

11. The purpose of the asTTle tool
At classroom level asTTle enables teachers to:
diagnose how their students are performing
give their students focused feedback
help students set learning goals
develop and modify their classroom programmes
At school level information may be aggregated and used to evaluate teaching programmes and inform strategic planning.

12. Getting started?
If you need assistance in getting started with asTTle, go to
and download the pdf file The Beginners Guide to Installing asTTle and Creating Tests.
For assistance in reading and interpreting reports move on to the next slide.

13. Reports and what they tell us.
Using asTTle data
Reports and what they tell us.

14. asTTle reports
When you have created and administered a test, marked it and entered the data, you can view reports that show:
curriculum levels (aka the skylines)
individual learning pathways
group learning pathways
the console
What Next profile
The first three report types are directly useful to the classroom teacher as they give information about individual students and the class as a whole.
The console allows for nationally-referenced comparisons with similar groups of students.
The What Next profile provides useful guidance as to next teaching steps.

15. Curriculum levels
This is the “skyline” - it shows you graphically the spread of your class over the curriculum levels.
Within each curriculum level there are three categories of ability to provide you with more precise information - these are basic, proficient, and advanced.
For reading, the curriculum functions you have tested are shown along with three curriculum processes.
For writing the “skyline” shows the seven elements the writing is marked on.

16. Curriculum levels
Clicking on a graph will take you directly to a table which shows which students are at each level.
This report allows you to (a) group students appropriately and (b) monitor that students are moving up levels throughout the year.

17. Individual learning pathways – reading/mathematics
These reports are for individual students so that you can plan for their specific needs. Each item in the test is placed in one of four quadrants.
The asTTle Reading scale (aRs) - this is your student’s overall mean score (shown by the red oval) compared to the national mean score (shown by the coloured bar).
Console information for individual students gives scores and levels for: the content areas tested overall, and surface and deep thinking, along with the national mean for their year group.

18. ‘Easy’ questions the student got wrong
Individual learning pathways – reading/mathematics, contd.
‘Hard’ questions that the student got wrong
‘Hard’ questions that the student got right
aRs
‘Easy’ questions that the student got right
‘Easy’ questions the student got wrong
The placement of the items in the four quadrants relates to the student’s level. ‘Hard’ items are those that would be difficult for this student, likewise ‘easy’ items are those that we would expect the student to get right – they are easy for this student.

19. Individual Learning Pathways - Implications for Teaching
Strengths
Take advantage by giving the student more work of this kind at this level
To be Achieved
Plan to teach these objectives at this level within the next term
Gaps
Investigate causes but do NOT ‘skill & drill’ teach these objectives because the student will learn them quickly, as they are easy
Achieved
Stop teaching this type of material at this level to this student

20. Group learning pathways
In this report, the bar indicates the proportion of students in the group for whom the achievement objective was a gap, to be achieved, achieved or a strength.
Gaps are shown as pink
To be achieved as yellow
Achieved as green
Strengths as blue
A predominance of red and yellow is an indicator that the class as a whole needs to be taught that achievement objective
The green and blue indicates AOs that the class has largely achieved and does not need to be re-taught

21. The console
The console gives you information relating to the achievement of all or particular groups of your students compared to nationally-referenced performance.

22. The console in sections – the top
General test information
For a multi level class you can select one, two, or three year levels.
The interaction effects you have chosen
The default selection is for the year group with the most students in it and “all” for every other category.

23. The console in sections – the sides
The Reading Console
Information relating to the three content areas you have focussed your test on. Your class mean is compared to the national mean for the groups you have selected
(For writing this would show all seven marking elements)
Note: Differences of more than 15 points (the standard error of measurement) are significant for teaching and learning
The national mean for the given year is written under each dial
Your class mean is shown by the arrow on the dial

24. The console in sections – the middle 1
This shows the level of cognitive processing by your students in the test. Both their surface thinking and their deep thinking is compared against the national mean for the comparison groups you chose.
The national mean is shown by the height of the coloured bars.
Surface thinking is their ability to use one or unconnected lists of facts, information, or ideas to answer questions.
Your class mean (+/- 1 SEM) is shown by the red ovals.
Deep thinking is their ability to relate the facts, ideas, or information to each other and to hypothesise about them in a more abstract manner.

25. The console in sections – the middle 2
This compares the total mean score for your class with the national mean score for reading, writing, or maths, based on the interaction effects you have chosen.
The score is calculated using the difficulty of the questions that your students got right.
If you have chosen more than one year level in your class you will get a reading scale for each one.
The national mean is shown by the height of the coloured bar.
The mean for your class is shown by the red circle - remember this is the average not the range and students will be outside this circle.

26. The console in sections – the bottom
This shows the attitude your selected students have to the content that was tested on a scale shown by the smiley (or not) faces.
Note when this is scored 4 = love it and 1 = hate it.
The national mean for all students is shown by the green bar.
Your selected students’ mean - remember some students will be outside the red circle.
Remember that, while attitude does not predict achievement, it is still an important facet of children’s learning

27. What Next profile
This shows you the mean level your class is achieving at in the curriculum functions that were tested; and guides you to the next level.
Your class average level
A hyper link to a resource bank which contains appropriate lesson material for each of the levels used in asTTle (you need to be logged on to the Internet).

28. Individual learning pathways – writing
For writing it is the 7 marking elements that are placed in quadrants.
asTTle Writing scale score for writing
The individual console shows scores and levels on the literacy scale, for surface and deep thinking, and the seven marking elements.

29. Individual learning pathways – writing
Strengths
Elements scored at more than one level higher than the student’s overall mean level for the writing
Gaps
Elements scored at more than one level lower than the mean level
Achieved
Elements scored at one level either side of the student’s mean level, or at the mean level
Where a marking element is placed is determined by comparing the level achieved for each marking element with the overall level of the individual student on the asTTle Writing scale.

30. What Next profile pathways – writing
This shows you what level most of your class are achieving at in the writing purpose you tested.
Your class average level in that purpose
A hyper link to a resource bank that contains appropriate lesson material for the level your class is at and needs to move onto. (You will need to be logged on to the Internet to access this.)