MOY (Middle Of Year)

 

Middle of the Year (MOY) is one of the biggest data points of the year. In the world of assessments, there is one right after another for the students. It is a tough time of year as the hope is to get through all of the assessments by the end of January. We have iReady (which is our diagnostic for both Reading and Math) and ACCESS testing (for out multilingual learners). Plus we have end of module assessments, pre-module assessments, middle of the year assessments, etc. It is tough to be a student (or faculty) in school during the month of January.

I usually spend most of January with post-it-notes all around my desk with assessments and names of missing students. I feel terrible about the students getting so bogged down with the assessments and they groan every time I mention a new one. That said, it is an opportunity for students to show what they know.

Assessments, especially iReady are indicators of where students are at the halfway point and how close they are to being proficient on RICAS. iReady also factors into teacher evaluations. I was not on an evaluation cycle the last few years, but I am on one this year. My Student Learning Objectives (SLO) are tied directly to what kind of gains we see on iReady.

For my evaluation, I need 50% of the class (13 students) to reach their typical growth goals for both reading and math. To get a higher score, I need that...plus 20% of those students (3+) to make their stretch goal. At the halfway point in the year, room 304 has shown 69% growth as a class in reading and 44% growth as a class in math. Additionally, I have 9 students in both reading and math that reached their typical (YEARLY) growth and 1 student for each met their (YEARLY) stretch goal. This is terrific progress for the class and I had data chats with them to celebrate all of their hard work. We still have a ways to go, but it is terrific progress. 

As a classroom teacher, especially having a majority of these students for two years, I see the progress every day. An iReady test or an ACCESS test won't show everything. Standardized testing is tied into school and faculty acheivement, but it won't tell you if a student has changed their behavior, if a student is working harder, if a student is being kinder... Testing doesn't tell you the real important things... Are they a good human? Are they going to be good citizens?

I am a competitive person and always want to get the best that I can get. That said, I will never let students' testing numbers define who I am as a teacher. They are just numbers and numbers will never be people.