We’re pleased to announce our Technology-Enhanced Items Showcase. Throughout November and December, and continuing into 2015, we will explain the fantastic benefits of our existing (and new upcoming) question types so you can customize creative and effective formative assessments!

Whether you’re using a tablet, smart phone, or Chromebook—across any browser—you can help your students prepare for next generation assessments and master a diverse range of crucial learning objectives.

Common Core-aligned Assessments with Technology Enhanced Items

Every event we attend—and every teacher, administrator, superintendent, and technology or curriculum specialist we talk to—the conversation inevitably turns to TEIs. Everyone recognizes their immense value in helping students prepare for next generation assessments; allowing students to demonstrate cross-disciplinary synthesis and integration of knowledge while jointly practicing higher-order thinking skills.

Our goal is to make it easier for teachers to deliver SBAC- and PARCC-styled assessment practice to students by mirroring the interactive testing experience.

So we thought it’s time we shared some of our best tips and tricks for using these technological wonders.

Countdown to PARCC & SBAC Assessments

The countdown for PARCC & SBAC tests is moving closer and closer across a number of states that have adopted the CCSS.

The inevitable question is this:

Are you effectively preparing your students for the new assessments and ready to make valuable instructional changes based on their performance?

For those of you who aren’t fully familiar with Technology-Enhanced Items, they’re the backbone of “Next Generation Assessments.” Here’s how Smarter Balanced defines them (notice that the new interactive format allows students to demonstrate new types of evidence):

Technology-enhanced items (TEI) are computer-delivered items that include specialized interactions for collecting response data. These include interactions and responses beyond traditional selected-response or constructed-response….TEI templates can be used across grade levels and content areas. An important TEI design principle is to adopt innovative technology designs in concert with measurement procedures for effective validation and use of TEI. As new technologies become available, they can be adopted when required for students to produce new forms of evidence.

How does it work in Edulastic?

Well, the answer to this question is going to be explained in practicable tutorials that cover the authoring process and instructional value of using our TEIs.

Here’s a quick preview of four technology enhanced question types you can access on the Edulastic app for FREE.

*Click on the individual images to see a larger preview of the technology-enhanced items