The e AsTTle Mystery

I had a look at my e AsTTle marking in a bit of depth because I don’t have enough to do already.  But I had a question. Why were my spelling scores low for my class? I think I found out. But I have no idea what to do with what I’ve found.  
I analysed the data to help scaffold my learners to set goals based on their learning in writing.  What I found surprised me.
For instance the rubric for Ideas.  There is a score for level 2, Level 4 and Level 5...but no rubric for level 3.  Why not? If I my students are at R3 it is equivalent to 2P, and R4 = 4B and and R5 = 5B.  ( I looked at each of the scores provided in the e AsTTle printout for my class.
The rubric for Structure is similar.  R3=3B, R4 = 4P and R5= 5P. It is hard not to score my class above or below...especially a Year 6 student.  The Organisation rubric is fair. Each curriculum level is evident and it is 2P, 3P, 4P and 5P. Vocabulary again there is no level 3 available.  R3 = 2A, R4 = 4B and R5 = 5B. The Sentence Structure Rubric has no level 3...same scoring as Vocab. Both Punctuation and Spelling rubrics are difficult to not put a student above or below.   R3 = 2B (well below for a level 3), R4 = 3P then R5= 4A (whoa...that would be a huge jump from Level 3) For those rubrics if the student isn’t exactly where they should be then it means they are working too far below or above where they might be.
So what does this mean..if anything??? I don’t know.  But wouldn’t it make more sense to have levels equally weighted?  I’m guessing that the MOE didn’t trust teachers to actually unpack e AsTTle because then it would be too easy to figure out the marking.  The last time the ministry did that...remember the numeracy project...it was kind of a flop. Perhaps if they just trusted us.  Gave us enough time to figure out and use the assessment tools effectively ...they wouldn't have to mess with things to make it difficult to do our jobs.  It is a hard enough job as it is without someone deliberately making it difficult.

It also proves I need a hobby. Next post on teacher well being....



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