R-II moves to fully online testing

Starting this spring, the Maryville R-II school district will be administering standardized tests in a different way. Students in third through eighth grades at Eugene Field Elementary School and Maryville Middle School will take the Missouri Assessment Program online for the first time. Maryville High School students have been taking their end-of-course exams online since 2010.

“The system will be more efficient,” said Ashlee James, MHS counselor. “With paper testing, we didn’t get our scores back until the next August. Now we will have our test scores back before school gets out.”

The main difference in online testing will be the test’s ability to accommodate different ability levels.

“The test will change based on the previous answer,” James said, “so it will fluctuate at different levels of difficulty based on how you are answering the questions. It’s more individualized.”

The tests are scored based on levels of proficiency, but James said she is unsure how the fluctuation will affect scores.

“The new assessment will likely be more rigorous in nature,” said Assistant Superintendent Steve Klotz. “From an education viewpoint, if the assessments are going to be more rigorous, that leads to a more rigorous curriculum throughout so students are prepared to take those assessments.”

James said online testing has been going smoothly at the high school level, but technology competence is a concern with the younger grades.

“The state has set up online practice tests, so the students can get used to using the system tools,” she said. “As long as we do the practice tests, it will make the students more comfortable when it’s time to do the real thing.”

Additionally, Klotz said many of the elementary teachers have begun integrating technology into their classrooms.

“A lot of teachers may be doing some interacting with the students electronically,” he said. “The students might be submitting assignments and tests with technology, so that will continue to evolve as we move forward.”

However, interacting with the technology could still prove to be a barrier for teachers in the pilot year of online testing.

“Now you have the ability to interact with technology impacting students’ content knowledge,” Klotz said. “We continue to evolve our computer applications that we teach our students, and all our students are digital natives. They’ve grown up in an environment where they interact with technology.

“The major barriers are for adults that didn’t grow up in technology since technology plays such an important role in teaching.”

Although there are bound to be kinks, James said online testing is the future of education.

“This is going to be the first generation of students raised on online testing,” she said. “That’s amazing if you think about it. It’s going to continue to grow. We’re not going back to paper and pencil days any time soon.”