From lnelson at osrhe.edu Mon Apr 9 16:53:09 2012 From: lnelson at osrhe.edu (Nelson, Lisa) Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2012 16:53:09 -0500 Subject: [Counselors] Questions?? Message-ID: During the Counselor Summer Institute, June 25th-28th, we will have a State Department of Education Regional Accreditation Officer, RAO, as one of our speakers. So.... I need your questions. Please reply to this e-mail with the questions that you would like answers to or maybe questions you have been too scared to ask the SDE. I will gather those questions, no names will be listed, and I will give them to the RAO so they can be answered at the Summer Institute. Please reply with your questions by June 1st. (I know it's testing time, please don't forget to breathe; I know you have a desk under that pile somewhere! Hang in there!) Send those questions, yes, even the frustration ones! Thank you so much, Lisa Nelson Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Field Coordinator for Student Preparation 580.614.1328 lnelson at osrhe.edu www.okhighered.org "Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks." ~ Johann Gottfried Von Herder -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.onenet.net/pipermail/counselors/attachments/20120409/cba17783/attachment.html From lnelson at osrhe.edu Mon Apr 23 13:46:43 2012 From: lnelson at osrhe.edu (Nelson, Lisa) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:46:43 -0500 Subject: [Counselors] Giving grades for preliminary test scores Message-ID: Counselors, Please provide feedback for this counselor: Do other counselors provide the teachers with a list of all the preliminary scores that the students get and then the teachers give them a grade based on the preliminary score. The counselor before did it and the teachers who have been here a long time want them. It has become an issue. Just wondering. Thank you, Lisa Nelson Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Field Coordinator for Student Preparation 580.614.1328 lnelson at osrhe.edu www.okhighered.org "There is always a better way...your challenge is to find it." ~Anonymous -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lnelson at osrhe.edu Tue Apr 24 09:10:55 2012 From: lnelson at osrhe.edu (Nelson, Lisa) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:10:55 -0500 Subject: [Counselors] Comments about giving grades for EOI Preliminary scores Message-ID: Thank you Counselors for your responses! I have listed the responses I received below. I removed the names to protect the innocent! J If you want to add other comments to this for others to see or other questions you would like answers to, please reply to this e-mail. Thank you so much and have a great day! Lisa J I give them the scores, but they don't give them a grade! Our teachers do not give a grade for test scores. Yes, I have had the same request. However, NOT, for a grade. At our alternative school a list of student that have scored satisfactory or advanced is given to the teachers. The student and teacher decide whether a grade will be issued. Normally a grade of a "C" is issued for satisfactory and a "A/B" is issued for advanced since these tests show that the student have mastered this subject and is shows "competency" versus "seat time". Competency is what the students must show to pass a class while attending an alternative education program. However, at our high school the student cannot receive a grade for passing their EOI Test.!!! We, the counselors, do not provide teachers with preliminary scores. I don't know if anyone else does. I do know some of our teachers use the benchmark scores as grades. I have never heard of that.... Yes, I do give the raw scores to those teachers teaching that subject. Some teachers give grades, some don't. Some give as a daily grade, some as a test grade. Some curve the grades, some don't. I will say that the students have been informed before they take the test that the teacher will give them some kind of grade for it.... We tend to think that students try a little harder... especially if they have already passed 4 of their 7. We do not at Stillwater JH It is my understanding that it is against policy to give a grade for EOI scores. It may just be against our BOE policy, but I would say it's against best practices anyway since the "cut score" changes every session. You can only guess what is "passing." Our test administrators do write down the students' preliminary scores, but only as a rough estimate for how many students may need remediation. Our scores are kept by the principal and are not given to the teachers. We give the teachers a list of preliminary scores, what they do with it is up to them. We've had teachers give bonus points (their score is the number of bonus points), we had a teacher buy dinner for the student who scored the highest in her class, but for the most part, our teachers just like to look at them to get a general idea of how the students did so when we get the actual score reports it's not a shock. How we do it, is we have the students write their score on their authorization ticket and hand it back to the administrator before they leave the room. Then, the administrator writes it on the roll sheet for the testing group. No, we do not give a grade for the test score. grades for a preliminary score on a state test? NO WAY! All students write down the preliminary scores from the test. Several teachers want to see them and some do not care. We allow teachers to see the preliminary scores. I do not know anything about grades for the EOI tests. At our school, we let the teachers know the raw score, and what they do with that is up to them. If it is high enough, some teachers here will use it in place of the final test and give the students an A for the grade, while the rest of the students will still have to take the semester test. Sometimes the teachers use it as a cut-off score for a pizza party or something similar. So really, we only use (if at all) in a positive way, never to give a bad or failing grade. Do you mean the teachers give the students a class grade that is averaged in with their other grades for the semester, based on how they do on the CRTs or EOIs? Anyway, no we don't do that. A student's grade in the classroom is not supposed to be tied to a test score. My opinion is that it would be inappropriate to issue a grade based upon a preliminary score since the OSDE itself does not issue a cut-off score until all results are in. The preliminary score is just a raw score of the number of questions a student marked correctly and is not to be used for any "purpose". I would recommend that the counselor speak with Joyce DeFehr at the OSDE if they have questions. We give the teachers prelim scores for an FYI, but never give grade on, ridiculous. Our teachers get the eoi preliminary scores and some do give some type of credit for them. It has helped the students have a better idea of how well they did on their EOI's. We don't do that at my school. We get the raw scores from the test administrator, but I'm not aware that the teachers use them as a grade. We were told a few years back that legislators did not want this to happen at all. Yes, we give the preliminary scores to each of the subject area teachers. We (and all the test admins/monitors) try to write down the scores. We test by teacher and hour, so they usually provide a roster to keep track. Some use them as a class grade, others use them as incentives/class competition. That is crazy for a couple of reasons: first of all, I don't agree with teachers giving a grade for testing and second, those are called PRELIMINARY scores for a reason, they are not final. I'm not sure the teachers should even be given the students' scores. I give the teacher of that subject the preliminary scores but we don't even tell our students what their score means. Just because it was done in the past doesn't mean it's the right thing to do and I know it's hard being the new guy, but sometimes that's the best time to make changes. Lisa Nelson Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Field Coordinator for Student Preparation 580.614.1328 lnelson at osrhe.edu www.okhighered.org "There is always a better way...your challenge is to find it." ~Anonymous -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lnelson at osrhe.edu Tue Apr 24 09:17:39 2012 From: lnelson at osrhe.edu (Nelson, Lisa) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 09:17:39 -0500 Subject: [Counselors] Work Keys Business Writing Exam Message-ID: Can anyone give me some ideas on how to prepare for the Work Keys Business Writing exam. I seem to be missing something.....Thanks, Judy Please reply to counselors at lists.onenet.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jmoery at hps.k12.ok.us Tue Apr 24 23:51:43 2012 From: jmoery at hps.k12.ok.us (Jill Moery) Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:51:43 -0500 Subject: [Counselors] question on work keys Message-ID: On a related note, has anyone used workkeys as an EOI alternative assessment? How difficult is it to become approved to administer and/or administer, and how much does it cost? Or, are there any test sites in NW oklahoma that I could send a student to test? -- Jill Moery Guidance Counselor Hennessey High School Phone: 405.853.7922 Fax: 405.853.4644 Email: jmoery at hps.k12.ok.us HHS Counselor Corner Webpage -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: