What did I learn from my experience at the South Carolina Regional NWEA Conference? First, MAP test data does give good data on how well students are doing in school. Second, MAP test data shows teachers and administrators what students need to work on to achieve more in school. While MAP test data is good for individual students, it could have a potential of overwhelming teachers. Individual student growth plans are a good idea but putting those plans into practice could overwhelm the one tool in the classroom which will not be added, a classroom teacher.

So how do decision makers help out teachers? One way many schools have taken is RIT Band Classes. This means grouping students into classes based on RIT score levels. Teachers will be working with children of similar abilities and deficiencies. This would help tailor lesson plans to promote academic growth. Another means would have prepackaged lesson plans and activities prepared for teachers to use with students of different RIT Ranges.

Technology can help teachers work with kids of different RIT Ranges. Services such as Compass Learning provide lessons and activities on computers. The problem with this solution is the lack of technology infrastructure. More computers are needed in individual classrooms so some students can work on individual lessons while teachers can work with smaller groups or individual students. One educational tool with great potential is the use of gaming. Gaming allows students to learn at his or her own pace. Students must learn or master a skill to accomplish a task before moving on to the next task. If you don't believe it, just watch kids play games on Play Station or X-Box. Another benefit to gaming is how students will collaborate to solve problems or share information to help each other achieve the next level. Again this would be a great benefit to teachers who could use help in working with students. Also, this teaches students to become life-long learners, a skill that will be needed in the workplace of today.

Unless computers can get into classrooms, this opportunity to increase student achievement will be lost and the task will become harder.

Yesterday was the second and final day of the South Carolina NWEA Conference in Hilton Head Island. I attended two breakout sessions to round out my conference experience. The first breakout was on Academic Audits done by Sandra Chavez. The second was about NWEA's Knowledge Academy or its online instructional tool to help clients implement MAP testing and later use data the tests yield to make informed educational decisions.

Beaufor County was the first school district to use Academic Audit in helping boost academic achievment of students. Academic Audit is based on the research of Dr. Lauri Bassi of McBassi & Company. Dr. Bassi's theory is that investments in human capital will produce meaninful returns on that investments. Too many organizations look at labor and the training of labor as a cost that reduces bottom line profits. However, Dr. Bassi demonstrated that organizations that invest in continued training of employees and reducing the barriers that hinder employee productivity, while reducing profits in the short term, will increase productivity and organizational profits. For a school district, student achievement is considered the profit of such an organization. Surveys are conducted on how well employees believe they can perform their job at various schools. The data is then grouped and shared with school principals and district administrators. With the data, leaders can work on making changes that allow increased productivity and eventually increased student achievement. As a side note, I have used Dr. Bassi's work in my economics classes. In my opinion she has rewritten the factors of production for the new service/information based economy of the 21st Century.

The second breakout session was about NWEA's Knowledge Academy. Knowledge Academy are mostly online tutorials to help client schools conduct MAP testing then use the data the tests generate. This is a great idea but unfortunately it is also, unwittingly, a well kept secret at NWEA. A recommendation I made was to make links to Knowledge Academy more prominate on the Association's website, www.nwea.org. Hopefully, they will take this suggestion and run with it. Such information would have helped me greatly when I was trying to set up and run MAP testing back in August and September of 2006.