math+pilot

We thank all of you for your enthusiastic response to our recruitment of teachers in kindergarten through grade 8 pilot study of the mathematics problems from Easy CBM. At this point, we have all of the students we need in kindergarten through grade 4 to complete the pilot project. However, we still need more students in grades 5-8. Thus, for teachers with students in those grades, we will extend the testing window one additional week. This means that students in grades 5-8 will have until December 12, 2008, to complete the testing. If you are interested in participating in this mathematics pilot testing project, or want to know more about it before deciding, please email Denise Swanson at denises@uoregon.edu and she will send you an email with more details.
 * ===Math Measure Pilot Update=== || ===Dec. 3, 2008=== ||

 Dear Data System User: We are seeking to recruit interested teachers in kindergarten through grade 8 to pilot mathematics problems with their students. This effort represents a new direction we are now ready to pursue as part of a commitment to expand our services. Because of degree of interest in the mathematics pilot testing, the timeline for participation has been extended one week. Signing up for pilot testing will now occur from November 10 to December 3, 2008, with all tests being completed by December 5th. Note these mathematics measures are from Easy CBM and are not associated with DIBELS or Dynamic Measurement Group. To pilot the mathematics problems, students will be required to respond on-line. We anticipate that all students, with the exception of kindergarten students, will be able to independently work the problems, although some first graders may need an adult to help. The math problems are divided into two tests with 25 problems each. Completing 25 problems will take students between 15 and 25 minutes, so students will need between 30 and 50 minutes in all for this project. The goal of the pilot test is to collect enough data to understand how individual items work and behave so we can assemble them into equivalent forms for use with benchmark testing and progress monitoring. If you are interested in participating in this mathematics pilot testing project, or want to know more about it before deciding, please email Denise Swanson at denises@uoregon.edu and she will send you an email with more details. This mathematics pilot testing project is connected to one of our long-term goals: To develop assessments in mathematics - kindergarten through grade 8. These mathematics assessments will be developed for three major purposes: 1. To create benchmark assessments that can be used three times per year with all students in kindergarten through grade 8 so that teachers can identify students at risk; 2. To create progress monitoring assessments that can be used on a regular basis (e.g., every week, every two weeks, every month) with students at risk for mathematics difficulties; 3. To create diagnostic assessment of student responses (e.g., error patterns) for instructional planning purposes at the individual student level (diagnostic information for individual students) and group level (diagnostic information for groups of students). Why are we doing this? DDS customers ask frequently about assessments in mathematics for screening students for problems in mathematics and for progress monitoring. We've heard your requests, agree this is an important need, and are ready now to work on constructing state-of-the-art mathematics assessments for these purposes. To do this, we are working with Dr. Gerald Tindal and his colleagues who have been conducting research in mathematics assessments for many years. Dr. Tindal, Castle-McIntosh-Knight Professor of Education at the UO, and his research group, have constructed over 6,000 mathematics problems that will be the basis of the pilot testing project described above. Dr. Tindal is a national leader in curriculum-based measurement and has extensive experience developing assessments in mathematics, reading, and other areas for a variety of education purposes. We are very pleased to work with him on this project. If you would like to volunteer for this project, please email Denise Swanson at denises@uoregon.edu and she will send you an email with more details. We will keep all of you posted on this exciting work.
 * ===Math Measure Pilot Project=== || ===Nov. 4, 2008=== ||
 * Recruitment of Teachers in Kindergarten through Grade 8**
 * Overview of Our Mathematics Objective**

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