This is a busy day in the district.
As a small group of professional raters gather to learn the new rubric for scoring text dependent writing, the high schools thought the third largest district in the state are on an altered schedule. Seniors and freshmen get to have the day off while the juniors take the practice ACT test in the morning. The sophomores are taking the writing assessment that the professionals scorers are preparing for.

All of this testing, of course, means that the technology staff in both the high schools and the district office are on full alert. With the integration of the latest API management tools, including custom build micrservices requests will need to operate flawlessly. The first time that the practice ACT will be taken online and the fourth year in a row where the writing assessment will be completed online, there will be technology support available at each of the three high schools in the district.

Last week during a scheduled teacher inservice day the staffs were reminded of standard testing procedures, as well as tricks for using, and trouble shooting when needed, the newest API management tools. If, for example a teacher needs immediate support call the listed number. If not immediate, submit a help desk ticket and select the district’s assessment link and click on the link to select a queue from the request pull down menu or email the the listed source.

Hybrid Integration Platforms Help Many Businesses and Schools Run More Efficiently

As the local school district implements new policies to reach its Teach Up theme, teachers are reminded that it is not only what they do in their classrooms every day, but also the practices and procedures that are involved in testing settings. The staff, for instance, is reminded to NEVER terminate a student’s test, but instead work with the available resources to find a solution to any kind of conflict.

After testing is completed, individual student reports will be generated within the teacher reports menu and teachers are directed to see the specific directions on the district’s growth website. Student goal setting remains the same. The target period is fall to spring of the academic school year. In December the district will check in to see how students are progressing.

There are also steps in place to intervene if there is a student who is a radom guesser, as well as the steps needed to request a retest. The goal, of course, is for all students to complete the required test with a valid score. To reach this goal, however, teachers can monitor the student progress on the testing site’s viewing platform and identify students who need to be retested. It is the district’s recommendation to retest any student who had more than 30% of rapid guessing.

The implementation of the newest API management tools should make all of these testing situations more efficient and effective, but the district technology team is fully aware that there will also be a learning curve for the staff. Prior to initial testing, the staff was asked to have conversations students on the importance of doing their best the first time. this simple conversation is especially important when the youngest students are tested and can save everyone time in the long run.

When a student does need to be retested because of rapid guessing, for instance, the younger students can actually be locked out of their account and required to have a staff member log them back in. Because these lower level tests are not high stakes, if the students still has excessive rapid guessing, the teacher or school has the option to retest a final time. If a third test still has high rapid guessing, a number which is set at anything greater than 30%, then a situation can be handled by the building as a behavior situation. Scores that have more than 30% of rapid guessing are always suspect, but now the district has a plan in place to address this issue.

API management tools may have been developed for the business world, but there are an increasing number of practical applications in other settings.