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Advancing adaptive

assessment in K-12
classrooms.

Technology can now amplify every aspect of great teaching, which is the key to
raising student achievement. Jimmy Sarakatsannis McKinsey & Company
Begin with technology that makes a difference Mark Stanley, CEO Literatu

January 2016

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CONTENTS
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Formative Assessment interactions and data collection ..................................................................................7
Fully adaptive assessment capability in Literatu ............................................................................................7
Insightful reporting aligns to Student learning levels .................................................................................. 12
Structured Assessment - transform and re-engage existing resources...............................................15
Achieving Time efficiences in Marking and Assessment Management .................................................... 18
Short and long form answer marking / grading .............................................................................................19
Live Monitoring of Student Assessment Interactions.................................................................................19
Learning Analytics deliver Visible Learning Metrics .......................................................................................... 21
Paper and LMS based assessments lose Valuable Learning Data ........................................................ 21
Harnessing and visualising large volumes of Learning Data .................................................................... 21
Data stories are everywhere our mission is to expose them .............................................................. 22
Built in analytics ..................................................................................................................................................... 22
Integrate Data Sources for powerful data powered insights .................................................................. 22
Integrate Literatu with existing Systems and Infrastucture. ....................................................................... 24
Instant availability of Literatu both Offline and online modes................................................................ 24
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................................... 25

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
It often feels as though our schools are designed as production line factories whose goal is to create
a single product (the successful graduate) with the same attributes time after time. Its an old
metaphor but one that continues to be used by technology commentators as an insightful
introduction into a discussion about how technology will improve the current state of education. If
only we could all grasp 21st century learning!.
Maybe it is time to break tradition, right now, and stop typecasting K-12 education as battery hen like
business. Using negative metaphors to start a new discussion doesnt work - just saying. Maybe we
need to look at what technology can do in education and how it can purposefully help teachers extend
skills development and student learning.
The latest OECD report Students, Computers and
Learning found using computers in schools is often
Schools have more data at their fingertips
associated with lower results. Students who use
computers very frequently at school do a lot worse
than ever before, so why does individual
in most learning outcomes. It seems that
learning need to remain such a mystery?
technology needs to do more than move digital
content around networks and talk up impacts that
The solution begins by bringing all of the
are contrary to research findings. Its almost like
information together to form a meaningful
some kind of revenge research is counterpicture of the student.
balancing what we hear from education technology
researchers. Understanding that teaching in K-12 is
best done by teachers might help technology types
to focus on doing more to help teachers improve learning.
Professor Robert Coes research in 2013 proved that whatever technology is doing in education, it is
not making anyone measurably smarter. Three years later, research is still on the same point. Coes
study found that feedback, homework and teachers still make the biggest impact on K-12 student
outcomes (for the least cost), classifying technology as may be worth it. Hatties masterful metaresearch also agreed that teachers and feedback made the biggest difference, not technology.
In their seminal article, Inside the Black Box, Black and William (1998, p.8), concluded Indeed it is
clear that instruction and formative assessment are indivisible. We believe this is where technology
can and should have a more operational focus. Helping teachers save teaching time, target teaching
with live learning data and personalise learning for each student is where technology needs to arrive
and assist in every K-12 classroom. That would be AAA to coin a phrase!
The good news is that in most classrooms, formative assessment practices are already aligned to
instruction. There is however, a twofold tragedy that lurks below. Firstly, many assessment
interactions are designed in a one set fits all context, fuelling the battery hen metaphor and not
helping to extend or remediate students with varying levels of capability and learning need. Secondly,

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many assessments are still paper based. Photocopiers remain atop of the most used school resource
list, year on year. Not only do teachers continue investing record levels of marking and grading time
in manual assessment processes, but critical learning data and feedback is being lost, daily.
Schools have more data at their fingertips than ever before, so why does individual learning need to
remain such a mystery? The solution begins by bringing all of the information together to form a
meaningful picture of the student. Technology does manage data and information really well.
The Grattan report 2015 highlighted a range of studies showing that at any given year level, there is a
five to six year difference between the most advanced and the least advanced ten per cent of
students. This is a significant challenge for teachers. Technology should be helping teachers better
assess, measure and personalise student learning, period.
Technology now offers different approaches to learning and assessment that are becoming
increasingly valid and more capable of engaging a range of students at their particular level of learning.
We believe that the future of education lies in the delivery of the classroom of one where student
learning and assessment is personalised to meet students at their point of need. In this scenario,
individual learning growth drives measurement, data adapts learning and the best schools and
teachers are those that enable every student to make the greatest progress in learning, regardless of
where they start fromor what device they use.
If we can aspire to a personalised education future, the conversation about how teaching and learning
can be supported with technology becomes exciting and positive.

Literatu supports the classroom of one.


Many teachers look for evidence that technology is delivering measurable learning outcomes. What
if technology was used in K-12 contexts as a digital assistant to help teachers deliver measureable
learning outcomes?
Literatu is a cloud-delivered, adaptive formative assessment platform. It is technology specifically
designed to help teachers extend and extract more value from assessment in the context of
personalising, measuring and extending student learning. Teachers need capabilities to personalise
learning for students without changing their style, content or pedagogy. Teaching to the classroom
of one while managing the class of many should be a natural extension of each teachers professional
repertoire.
Responding to each teachers pedagogy and intent, Literatu opens two flexible assessment scenarios
to help K-12 teachers.
Literatu supports both:
a structured assessment model for all students, including a pathway capability, in which
assessment is created, selected and assigned by teachers and;
a fully adaptive assessment capability that provides a more precise, accurate picture of the
achievement levels of both low and high-achieving students by dynamically adjusting
questions as testing goes along.

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Across both styles of assessment, Literatus core mission is to manage the live formative results data
needed to adapt learning and drive personalised outcomes. Having visibility of detailed learning data
is what teachers have strived to access since the invention of blackboards and chalk.
Literatu is a digital assistant for teachers. Delivery of adaptive assessment via BYOD is instant,
marking and feedback time is immediately reduced, and live assessment monitoring uncovers
learning gaps as teaching happens. Student response and learning measurement data is captured at
every opportunity and made visible via dashboards and extensive analytic reporting. Integration with
Microsoft Power BI extends everyones ability to visualise learning stories that are happening right
now. The main point in all this can do? Teachers can now target teaching and personalise student
outcomes.
Considering it is now 2016, (the other inflammatory phrase designed to start feet tapping as we wait
for action), and that supportive technology is available - hardworking, smart digital assistants, like
Literatu, can support teachers, teaching and learning.

INTRODUCTION
If we believe that education should meet each student's academic needs, why wouldn't we use
assessments that adjust to their individual achievement levels? (G. Gage Kingsbury, March 2014 |
Volume 71 | Number 6 )
The answer to this question is obviously no reason why we wouldnt. The implications of the answer
naturally lead into a discussion about what is involved to deliver adaptive learning and assessment.
Most teachers agree that personalised learning is beneficial to students. Actually being able to deliver
and manage personalised learning is what challenges them. Enabling teacher-driven adaptive
assessment in the context of the classroom of one is what this white paper discusses.
Conventional paper and static digital materials continue to drive the engagement of formative
assessment. Irrespective of the diversity offered by online content sources, checking and reviewing
student assessment, marking and providing feedback - all continue to be predominately manual
processes. Research agrees that feedback and formative assessment are the most effective
interventions a teacher makes so there is no denying the value that teachers add right here.
The time and motion required to manage effective assessment is significant, as is the volume of data
teachers generate every year. Its important to understand the simple maths on how learning data
adds up and just how much learning data is lost across time and in motion.
For example, a teacher with five classes of thirty students, or one class of five subjects, has a base
factor of 150 collection points (30*5=150). When multiplied by ten formative measurement points a
week per student, thats 1500 data points, (10*150=1500). Multiply that by 35 school weeks, that
extends to 52,500 data points. In our research this figure is at the low point. The same 52,500 data
points, if collected and made visible, can help to target teaching, make learning insights actionable,
adapt student learning and most importantly, help students take control of their own learning.

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Assessments best suited to guide improvements in student learning are the quizzes, short answer
and Bloom-aligned higher order interactions teachers test on a regular basis. If the assessment
process is adaptive to each students skill and level, assessment data is even more accurate and
valuable. Teachers trust the results from assessments they set because of the implicit direct
relationship to classroom instructional goals. Results from every assessment should be immediate
and meaningful to both teachers and students.
Visibility of each students individual learning need is the critical information teachers seek. The data
collected from assessment delivers instant visibility across who is excelling and needing enrichment,
who is performing on target, and who needs help and remediation. Teachers are looking for ways to
help them personalise and manage student achievement and feedback, without learning a new
language and proprietary technology.
The objective of this white paper is to provide an overview of the Literatu platform, how Literatu
helps teachers and integrates into existing school technology eco-systems, in a lingua franca.

Objectives.
1.

Support structured and adaptive formative assessment interactions linked to data


collection in a simple and flexible operational platform.

2. Achieve time efficiencies and insights into learning measurement. Monitor live
student performance and enhance student feedback.

3. Deliver visible learning analytics, allowing teachers to target teaching and learning to
meet students at their point of need.

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FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT INTERACTIONS AND DATA COLLECTION


There are two ways Literatu supports formative assessment interactions and data collection.
Literatu supports both:
a fully adaptive assessment capability that provides a more precise, accurate picture of the
achievement levels of both low and high-achieving students by dynamically adjusting
questions as testing goes along.
a structured assessment model for all students, including a pathway capability.
Assessments are created, shared, managed and assigned by teachers.
FULLY ADAPTIVE ASSESSMENT CAPABILITY IN LITERATU
Literatu is unique in the way it flexibly implements fully adaptive learning. Adaptive testing was first
developed four decades ago (Weiss & Betz, 1973; Weiss & Kingsbury, 1984). Origins trace back to
the creation of the IQ test by Binet in 1857. Whilst the ability to adapt questioning to each students
level is not a new concept, the power of machine based learning and adaptive intelligence platforms
is new. Technology is making adaptive assessment accessible to all, accurate and able to be
capably used by teachers with results available in real time.
The basis of adaptive assessment begins with a large pool of questions. In its basic format, the
algorithm selects individual questions for students, depending on their responses as they go along,
adjusting difficulty of the next question either up or down depending on the student response. Good
adaptive assessment platforms include the following components:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

a pool of questions to draw from with an ability to easily add to the pool
calibration to a common measurement scale
a measurement scale that self-calibrates based on the community of students
a mechanism to select questions on the basis of the student's responses
a process to score the student's responses
a process to feedback progress within time boundaries, or not
feedback that relates scores to the student's instructional needs

Adaptive assessment has been proven to offer key advantages in K12 education. (Kingsbury &
Houser, 1998; Thissen & Mislevy, 2000)
In most studies, adaptive assessment has been found to be as accurate as fixed-form tests
that are twice as long. This enables the assessment to have fewer questions and to take
less time while still providing good information about student achievement.
2. Studies also reveal that adaptive assessment drawing from large item pools can provide
much more information, and more precise information, than fixed-form assessment does
about both students who are struggling and students who are excelling.
3. Assessment allocations calibrate to appropriate learner-levels, continually looking to extend
learning when students are ready for extension, managing them when they are not.
1.

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4.

Because they are administered by computer, adaptive assessments provide immediate


feedback to students and teachers. These instantaneous results assist teachers to adjust
instruction in real time.

CREATE OR USE AN ADAPTIVE POOL OF QUESTIONS IN LITERATU


Teachers can easily add questions to their library. Questions can be included into any adaptive pool
of questions that assessments are drawn from. Literatu is working with the worlds best publishers
to include a substantial library of best practice assessment questions ready for use. The vision is to
have quality, curriculum aligned assessment, correctly rated questions available in sufficient
quantity for teachers to quickly measure learning levels in any context. Importantly, Literatu makes
it easy for teachers to build and share assessment content to ensure the continuity of pedagogy,
content and assessment is maintained.
Litertau caters for a range of question types, from simple multiple choice, to drag and drop image or
text questions, to complex maths questions. There are over 8 question types available. The range of
question types and modalities grow in every release cycle.
Questions are easily created via a rich HTML online editor. Teachers can include pictures, videos and
media very quickly. Existing questions contained in other source documents can be cut and pasted
or snapped as images and pasted directly into Literatu. Videos can be linked, sound recorded and
voice read-back of questions is supported. Building questions is simple and fast.
Whilst long text answers are a feature, they are not included for use in Adaptive assessments. Short
answer questions, multiple choice, drag and drop, maths and cloze questions are available in
adaptive assessment.

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ASSIGN QUESTIONS OR INCLUDE THEM IN AN ADAPTIVE POOL OF QUESTIONS
Any question, from any question library, can be assigned in a structured activity or as part of an
assessment pool of questions. There is a range of options to change the way questions are
presented, scored and managed.

Teachers choose the


interaction that will best suit
their intent and context.
Adaptive question pools are
easily created and made
available to the adaptive
engine for automated
selection and assignment to
students.

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Questions can be selected at random or by choice, previewed and re-ordered, very quickly.

Questions from any library can be included into any assessment. When schools have access to
multiple publisher content libraries, they can choose any number of parameters to create an
adaptive pool. Teachers can also simply select a level of the curriculum and let the adaptive engine
do the rest.

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ADAPTIVE ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS AND ADAPTION
Every question is linked to a curriculum level, a skill and possible sub skill, a year of study and a level
of difficulty. The level of difficulty is aligned to Blooms higher order cognitive skills with three levels
of difficulty for each cognitive level. The level of difficulty is used as a parameter in the adaptive
algorithm when assigning the next
most appropriate question to
students.
If the level of difficulty set for the
question is wrongly assigned,
Literatus machine learning
algorithm will auto correct based
on the pattern of student answers. This feature maintains the perpetual levelling of question
difficulty, ensuring the adaptive engine has access to the most current statistics from the cohort.
This feature ensures questions stay relevant and accurately applied.

THE ADAPTIVE ENGINE HOW IT WORKS


The Literatu Adaptive Engine is based on Artificial Intelligence models and machine adaptive learning
capabilities that listens to and observes each students interactions with learning activities from
curricular activities. The engine analyses and interprets student interaction data using a wide range
of inputs (e.g. time spent on a question, performance of class peers, use of online help, past
performance, speed of answer etc.). The adaptive engine also calculates the probability of students
guessing and adjusts accordingly. Both answers and unique user behaviours are analysed using
statistical modelling, well respected item response theory (IRT) algorithms and advanced machine
learning correlations, all executing on the Microsoft Azure machine learning platform.
Adaptivity is accomplished as the system applies advanced statistical models to interpret user
capability, adapting instantaneously within the session. Each students current ability is calculated
and used to decide which question they should answer next, in a split second. Further post-session
analysis is applied to update system parameters and cumulative analytic data to prepare for the next
user interaction. All data is stored and used in amazing learning visualisations.
The system can also adapt the sequencing of learning pedagogy, filter the selection of learning
activities, customise the presentation, adjust the pace of learning and adapt navigation. The
engine provides fast and intelligent feedback to students and informs teachers of their students'
progress through detailed data analysis and data visualisations.
Uniquely, the Adaptive Engine is completely soft configured, (inferencing all required pedagogical
relationships based on question meta-data definition), learning interactively as it processes
thousands of calculations per second. There are no pre-defined or compulsory data relationships

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needing to be established at the content / question library level, meaning anyone can start building
questions and making them available in Adaptive Learning deployments, in minutes. Publishers can
bulk load questions in a number of ways.

LIVE MONITOR THE LEARNING TRAJECTORY OF STUDENTS


As students interact, learning trajectory is tracked. Adaptive activities will take students to the most
suitable learning level, which could be outside of the current year level. Live monitoring each
students current trajectory through levels of learning is critical data for teachers to see, as teaching
happens. As has been discussed, many classes have up to 6 levels of student learning. Using
Literatu, teachers have visibility across the cohort and the data to make decisions.

INSIGHTFUL REPORTING ALIGNS TO STUDENT LEARNING LEVELS


The Bloom matrix that establishes the level of the questions being asked, importantly structures the
heat map reporting of learning in the context of the class and questions where learning has stopped.
Risk based ranges show where learning is moving and stagnating, helping teachers to re-design and
re-teach skills to the right learning levels of the class. The adaptive engine will hold students at their
level of mastery until they pass the level. Teachers still make the biggest difference when it comes
to re-starting learning and mentoring skills.
Literatu shows teachers where their effort will make the biggest difference.
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A Longitudinal trajectory of learning is monitored across many levels, certainly in the context of the
class, across a range of assessment activities and dates.

Importantly, its not all about right and wrong answers. Teachers need to know what skills are
lacking and possibly blocking learning from progressing. Literatu also tracks skills linked to
assessments across time lines, showing where cohorts need more support. Box plots show upper,
lower and quartile levels across the cohort.

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All data from Literatu is available for further analysis in Power BI.

In the words of W. Edwards Deming, If you dont have the data you need to make a
decision, you are working with a personal opinion

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STRUCTURED ASSESSMENT - TRANSFORM AND RE-ENGAGE EXISTING
RESOURCES.
This is where Literatu initially started working with teachers, helping them to share and re-purpose
existing trusted resources as the base of improving assessment intelligence, live monitoring and data
insights. This capability is fully supported in the platform and is referred to as Literatu Classic the
structured assessment model. The proposition is still unique. From any written paper or PDF digital
source, Literatu lets teachers quickly transform assessment materials into interactive, online
activities.
Three steps quickly transform static, digital assessment content to live online student interactions.
1. Load any digital file in PDF format.
2. Overlay interaction points, into which students record their answers. Establish marking
criteria, answers, guidance and feedback to any suitable level.
3. Send the assessment for completion across any BYOD device. Workflow manages the
complete assign, hand in, marking, feedback, and hand back process. Reporting and
analytics support the process.
Three immediate benefits realised.
1. Trusted assessment resources stay aligned to existing pedagogy. Teachers have continuity
of materials and context in which they are used. No change.
2. Marking and feedback processes are streamlined with significant time savings delivered.
Students are engaged in any BYOD environment, online or offline.

3. The significant volume of student response data captured is visible through online analytics.
Combined with live monitoring, teachers have full oversight across student learning gaps
and opportunities to help target their teaching.

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LOADING ASSESSMENT RESOURCES INTO LITERATU ONLINE LIBRARIES
Each school is an online community in which teachers share and manage their assessment content
libraries. Any PDF, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel or native Google Document can be loaded
into the Literatu Activity Library, made interactive and shared amongst colleagues.

Figure 1 Example of Activity Library

Microsoft O365 customers


create Literatu assessments
directly in Word, authoring and
deploying assessments from a
single point. These O365 built
assessment documents support
collaborative assessment
design, sharing and rapid change
by teachers.
Figure 1.1 Dynamic assessment creation from Word

All Activities are linked to the


schools preferred curriculum,
ensuring reporting between teachers and classes aligns across common curriculum points. Literatu
supports several international curriculums, each able to be configured locally to meet school needs.
Literatu caters for any subject, language or class level with full multi-lingual support for all activity
content and student responses.
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The Literatu web portal operates in 5 pre-loaded languages. English, Malay Bahasa, Indonesian
Bahasa, Japanese and Mandarin. Additional languages are quickly added by uploading a translation
file. Each user can nominate the language in which Literatu will display. Chrome, Edge, IE10+ and
Firefox are all supported.

ADDING INTERACTIVITY TO ACTIVITIES.


The base content of every activity belongs to the teacher. The value Literatu adds to base content is
the student interaction layer, enabling the collection of student answers / responses that activate
auto-marking, feedback, external links and the routing of manually marked questions direct to
teachers.
The process of overlaying interactive response points over the content is referred to as mapping an
activity. This process is done online by teachers. Literatu can also organise this process for teachers.
Interactive answer choices are positioned where student responses are required. For each response,
answer properties define what students see when answering. Properties of each field include marking
style (automatic, manual and do not mark), correct answers, scoring, help, feedback and teacher
defined links to multi-media and web based resources.
Answer / field types include: short and long format text, full maths equation calculations, recordable
audio, help, linked video, checkboxes, drop down and several others.
Device cameras and finger / stylus drawing are all supported on touch devices. The array of available
interactive field types lets teachers build highly interactive experiences for their students, their way.
Activities can be set to auto-mark on submission or integrate automatic and manual marking. All
automatic marking can be over-written by teachers online via web or tablet / iPad.

Figure 2 Example of Activity Builder and field definition

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ACHIEVING TIME EFFICIENCES IN MARKING AND ASSESSMENT


MANAGEMENT
Literatus marking capabilities are designed to save teachers time. Teachers receive notifications as
students submit work. Along with progress dashboards, teachers can quickly overview the current
status of every activity.

Figure 3 Activity inquiry at question level

Teacher defined tolerances (Red / Green / Amber) set levels, show progress scores, completion
statistics, and the marking / grading required. Each activity is further analysed down to question level
and then to individual student performance. Bubble size and colour highlight the range and size of the
answer spread. Our trademark reporting is now our famous motto, the bigger the bubble, the bigger
the trouble.

Figure 4 Activity dashboard monitoring panel

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SHORT AND LONG FORM ANSWER MARKING / GRADING
Literatu supports the marking of both short and long form answers, reducing teacher review and
feedback time. Teacher marking is done via web or by the mobile teacher application. On tablet
devices, teachers have access to stylus enabled marking, able to write directly over the student
submission.
Marking can be done by question / by student, by each student individually, or both ways. Each
response can be checked for plagiarism and writing style discrepancies. Recommended marks are
suggested based on the usage of pre-set answer keywords.

Figure 5 Fast Marking reduces time - increases feedback

LIVE MONITORING OF STUDENT ASSESSMENT INTERACTIONS.


Literatu has always live monitored all student interactions. Teachers can see student responses as
they are entered.
Live monitoring is important because it gives instant visibility of student interactions to teachers. As
questions are answered, teachers have access to the correctness and also the contribution being
made. Not every question / activity is a fixed right / wrong answer. Long format answers are also
monitored. Teachers see where learning is stalling as it happens, alongside students who are possibly
off task.
When combined with adaptive learning, live monitoring lets teachers see the learning trajectory of
student ability across levels of cognitive skill.
From the live monitoring screen, teachers can instantly move to fast marking. This is where long
format answers are graded, with feedback, reducing grading time by over 75%.

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Monitor student work in detail, as they are working. Leave live comments on their work, as they
work. For any questions that need a marking adjustment, make it right away.

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LEARNING ANALYTICS DELIVER VISIBLE LEARNING METRICS


Literatu records and manages all data captured from every student interaction. Response data is
stored, analysed and made visible to multiple stakeholders inside the school community, including
students and parents.

A SCHOOL WITH 100 TEACHERS COULD


EASILY GENERATE OVER 10,500,000
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT POINTS. YOU HAVE
TO SEE THE DATA!

PAPER AND LMS BASED


ASSESSMENTS LOSE
VALUABLE LEARNING DATA

Without technology support, it is


difficult for teachers to record and
analyse the volumes of data they
review and mark. Across intensive
curriculum frameworks, delivered across 35 weeks in a school year, assessment data is vast in
volume and diverse in format.
The common denominator for data collection in most schools is a grade book system of some sort,
recording overall student results rather than detailed formative assessment learning growth data.
Results stored at score level, usually by an SIS or LMS (School Information System or Leaning
Management System), dramatically limit the usefulness of the data.
Literatu focuses data analysis at the lowest level of collection, at the student answer level. Rebuilding
important data relationships into a complete data set is what transforms simple data into great data.
Single student result scores are one dimensional and can never really answer questions like what
really caused the average to drop to 45%?, what skills are lacking in this topic?, what is the best
topic to revise?, what discreet skills are causing the biggest drop in achievement and
understanding?.
As core and supporting data attributes are collected and made available, a new data culture and
mindset emerges, moving past data inquiry into finding and telling data stories.
HARNESSING AND VISUALISING LARGE VOLUMES OF LEARNING DATA
Schools have a lot of data at their fingertips. The reality is that very little of this data has the
opportunity to be aggregated and analysed. Ultimately, students respond best to great teachers who
inspire learning and maximise engagement. Across a backdrop of huge data sets, teachers need to
see student-centric learning stories that help them better target teaching and feedback.
Surfacing data so that it makes continuous sense across a school, class, subject, skill, teacher and
student is only part of the data analytics challenge. Indeed, data analysis is not limited to these
obvious criteria. The power of the data is measured by the insights that are easily derived from it.
Because each teacher will look for different insights, data analytics is not a mechanical process but
rather one of discovery, a key capability that needs to be exposed, encouraged and nurtured.
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As an example, imagine being able to look across cohort results for all writing based subjects and
compare those results against English or look for skill deficiencies by cohort prior to embarking on
new streams of curriculum that require pre-requisite knowledge. Once questions can be asked,
questions never stop and nor should they. Data informed teachers are better teachers.
DATA STORIES ARE EVERYWHERE OUR MISSION IS TO EXPOSE THEM
Volumes of data are of no use unless there is a way to see a story, find a trend or have that ah-ha
moment where something finally makes sense.
Literatu builds large data sets and presents them to a varied data audience in two ways.
BUILT IN ANALYTICS
The best type of data for teachers is data that is about them, their class, context, curriculum and
students. At any one point in time, data is both current and complete. Instant access to all of the data
within the teachers context is optimal.
Literatu builds instant operational data views for teachers across subjects, classes, curriculum and
students. These charts are live, surfacing data as results are recorded. Instant access to learning data
supports teacher agility and helps students take responsibility over their own learning. There is a range
of teacher, faculty and school based analytic reports that are available online as student interactions
move from in progress to complete.

Figure 6 Data Analytics drive immediate inquiry

INTEGRATE DATA SOURCES FOR POWERFUL DATA POWERED INSIGHTS


Schools use multiple systems and apps to record thousands of teacher student interactions per
day. Many interactions are not recorded in structured database systems; many are simply recorded
in Excel or in app or something similar. No matter how the data is collected, the strength of
individual data sources is only realised when data is consolidated. Believe it or not, the most
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common data attribute collected across all interactions, is student name. This is at least
encouraging.

From summative assessment data sources, to adaptive formative assessment results, student
learning data is usually abundant in supply. The true value of this data is in the aggregation and
analysis of this data.
Literatu opens all of its data collection capabilities to the power of Microsoft Power BI. Via an active
API data link, schools can quickly move assessment data from Literatu into Power BI data models,
ready for analysis and visualisation.
Power BI extends the power of data aggregation to every organisation, truly fixing what used to be
called data aggravation. Consolidating data sources to visualise and discover data stories offers
positive and rewarding outcomes. Being a very agile component of Office 365, Power BI is web
delivered and built for anyone with a base understanding of Excel, to enjoy data discovery.
Power BI can report across large swathes of data, driven by English syntax questions and queries.
Asking the question, Which teacher is getting the best results for Chemistry? is now as simple as
asking Power BI the question.
Power BI also manages the distribution and accessibility of data dash boards, making reporting
available on mobile phones and tablet devices. There really is no excuse for teachers not to have up
to date information at their fingertips.

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INTEGRATE LITERATU WITH EXISTING SYSTEMS AND INFRASTUCTURE.


In a recent survey about what types of in
class technology frustrations teachers
experience, over 90% of teachers selected
password wont work as the most
frustrating and time wasteful. Slow Internet
access speeds came in a close second, just before BYOD application support.
Literatu offers a single sign on feature (SSO) with Office 365 Google and Edmodo. This integration
allows students logged into any of these platforms to automatically login to Literatu.
Literatu deploys native teacher and student apps for Apple, Android, Chromebook and Windows
devices, all available in the respective stores.

Each of the platform applications work in an


online and offline mode, meaning an Internet
connection is not needed to keep working
with Literatu activities.

INSTANT AVAILABILITY OF LITERATU BOTH OFFLINE AND ONLINE MODES


Not every school or student has unlimited access to the Internet. When Internet connection resources
are limited or slow, this can have a big impact on class activities that are delivered only online. Internet
speed was nominated by teachers as the
second most frustrating technology issue in
class.
Literatu allows students to synchronise
activities to any device (iOS, Android,
Windows and Chromebook) in both online and
offline modes. When students go offline, their
responses are saved locally and synchronised
when they come back online.
This blend of online and offline capabilities
makes it very easy for teachers to keep going. Remote schools can use whatever bandwidth they
have to allow students to synchronise their work at school, or home. All student answers and data
analytics are preserved.

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CONCLUSION

If teachers can be better supported by technology, teachers can spend more time teaching.
It sounds simple but thats what technology needs to make happen. To help teachers spend more
time teaching, we looked at where technology can make significant contributions. The biggest
contribution Literatu technology makes to teachers is by providing adaptive assessment capabilities
to deliver data-informed insights into where teachers should target their teaching to meet students
at their point of learning need, every day.
Data informed insights need to be powered by technology because teachers dont need more work
to do. Technology needs to be the digital assistant for teachers, managing the critical relationship
between instruction and assessment. Technology needs to measure student learning, adapt to
student learning need, collect evidence of achievement and build data insights.
Literatu does this well because we get it Literatu is technology that better supports teachers.

LITERATU

SUPPORTS A FULLY FUNCTIONAL 30 DAY TRIAL .

GO TO : www.literatu.com

Advancing Adaptive Assessment in K-12 Classrooms

FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Literatu Pty Limited 2016

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