In
January, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child
Left Behind Act of 2001. This law contains the most sweeping
changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) since
it was enacted in 1965. It changes the federal government’s
role in Kindergarten through grade 12 by requiring states
to create an accountable education system.This
means that states must create their own standards for what
students should know and learn for all grades. Math and reading
begin immediately and science must be developed by the 2005-
2006 school year.
States
must test every student’s progress toward those standards
by using tests aligned with the standards. Beginning in the
2002- 2003 school year, schools must administer
tests in each of three grade spans: grades 3-5,
grades 6-9 and grades 10-12 in all schools.
Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, tests must be administered
every year in grades 3 through 8 in math and reading. Each
state, school district, and school will be expected to make
adequate yearly progress toward meeting state standards.
Connecticut
has high standards of academic achievements for all its students.
These high academic standards are reflected in two statewide
tests: the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT) and the Connecticut
Academic Performance Test (CAPT). These tests are used to
monitor students’ progress in achieving Connecticut’s
rigorous education standards.
The
CMT and CAPT are administered to Connecticut students annually.
Students in Grades 4, 6 and 8 complete the CMT each fall,
and students in Grade 10 complete the CAPT each spring.
Connecticut’s educators and policy makers have established
rigorous performance standards for these tests. As a result,
classroom teachers throughout the state are preparing their
students – some beginning as early as Kindergarten –
to successfully complete these tests.However,
as all current educational research clearly points out, classroom
instruction alone, no matter how well delivered, will not
be enough to assure that students achieve the state goal standard.
Introduction:
The Connecticut Mastery Test Review Series has been designed
to harness the two most powerful communications tools in history
– Television and the Internet – to deliver focused,
in-depth and on- demand instruction in the core skill
sets required by the Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMTs).
This
cutting-edge multimedia CMT review series will integrate cablecast
with a user-friendly web-based learning application, plus
print, DVD and CD-ROM materials for a robust learning initiative.
The program is designed to take advantage of the “Education
Access Channels” provided to all school districts within
the state of Connecticut by cable providers who hold franchise
licenses issued by the state. In addition, most households
have – or have access to – the Internet, as well
as CD-ROM, DVD and/or videocassette playback.
It
will also utilize I-Nets, inter-district networks, as well
as school building cable access, high speed modems and intra-district
networking capabilities.
Currently Playing:
CMT Review has recently implemented a highly successful pilot
initiative within the Cablevision network in Stamford, Connecticut.
This project has developed, created and distributed instructional
materials for the improvement of Stamford’s students’
test scores for Connecticut’s CMTs.
The
CMT Review series consists of quality broadcast television
programs, multiple websites, print, DVDs and CDs focused on
improving the proficiency of elementary school students on
the CMTs.
CMT
Review uses teachers, curriculum administrators, and instruction
and research administrators to analyze current CMT test data.
Areas of weakness have been identified at the district and
building level and using State curriculum frameworks, instruction
is developed that is consistent with Connecticut Mastery Test
standards.
CMT
Review then produces broadcast quality on-air instructional
videos to be shown on Cablevision’s educational access
television stations in both Spanish and English. This pilot
television series is currently running four times a day on
Cablevision’s Channel 72 and has already received significant
editorial support throughout television and print media. It
is currently videotaping real teachers to exactly replicate
effective and proven instructional methodology that is successful
in teaching the CMT’s.
This
project will create a content rich library of educational
videos available to all town educational access channels within
Cablevision’s franchise areas. The programming will
be available 24 hours, 7 days per week, and 365 days per year.
The rotation of the programming will be continuous to allow
for appropriate access for students, parents and teachers
and can be customized by each town within the district to
focus on the needs of their individual student populations.
The CMT Review will create CD’s, DVD’s, and videotapes
for distribution of both video and print components. Those
students without access to Cablevision can take out the videos
from their school and local libraries for review.
CMT Review has its own highly sophisticated, yet easy to use
website. This site will guarantee access to the CMT Review
materials by both dial-up and broadband users, not only throughout
Cablevision’s franchise area but throughout all of the
state of Connecticut. The web site will consist of:
•Downloadable worksheets and practice tests in PDF,
Word Docs and HTML.
•Streaming Videos of all Broadcast Television Instruction.
•Links to other appropriate educational web sites featuring
interactive lessons.
•Proprietary Web Based Interactive Testing and Monitoring
Software.
In addition to television and the internet, the CMT Review
will distribute through community centers and libraries:
•Videotapes
of broadcast instruction.
•CD ROMS and DVDs of broadcast instruction.
•CD ROMS of all print material to allow individuals
to print
worksheets and practice tests.
Within
the individual schools, teachers will have access to the following
tools for classroom based instruction and assessment:
•Educational
Access Stations
•I-Net Broadcast
•Tapes of broadcast instruction
•CD’s of instructions both print and video
•Internet based interactive testing mechanisms and CMT
Review website.
•Cable modem access dedicated for teacher use in each
school.
•Teacher Workshops and Training
Students
can be evaluated on worksheets and interactive practice tests.
Unique to the proposal is the CMT Review proprietary internet
based testing mechanism. It is a sophisticated, easy to use
software application that allows teachers and administrators
to create on-line versions of the CMT test that exactly replicate
the format of the tests. Students can log in and take practice
tests that will instantly grade and provide feed back to the
students, with prompts that pop up telling the students how
to review and correct their errors. The results of each student’s
test are stored in a data base so that teachers and administrators
can access the results and determine on a class-by-class,
school-by-school basis, any areas of weakness and focus their
resources accordingly.
This
testing mechanism, along with multi-year collaborative efforts
with state and local agencies and a dedicated staff of curriculum
developers, will allow continuous assessment and monitoring
of instruction. This will facilitate the fluid review and
implementation of desired changes to Reading and Math content
review, consistent with State Department of Education Curriculum
Frameworks,
Measurable Goals, Objectives and Outcomes.
The
overall goal of CMT Review is to help districts raise student
performance levels on the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMTs)
by reinforcing the core skill sets mandated by these tests.
The CMTs are given once a year, in the early fall, to all
Connecticut public school students in the 4th, 6th and 8th
grades. The test is designed, produced and distributed by
the Connecticut State Department of Education.
The
test covers math, reading and writing. In each discipline,
core knowledge “strands” have been identified.
For instance, the 4th grade Math CMT focuses on 18 “strands”
or subjects such as “Probability,” “Numerical
Estimation” and “Patterns” with a total
of 72 problems derived from these subjects. The primary goals
of the CMT Review project are to:
•Raise
Proficient students to Goal
•Raise
students within the High End of remedial to
Proficient
•Raise
low-scoring Remedial students within their range
CMT
test results are published by the State Board of Education
by school and by district and are disaggregated by race, gender
and income. Connecticut prides itself on setting rigorous
academic standards. And while the state as a whole consistently
scores at admirable levels vs. the country in standardized
tests, the scores by town, by school and by individual student
vary greatly. The following Table shows the profiles of the
school districts included in this proposal.
*Information
compiled from “Profiles of our Schools: The Condition
of Education in Connecticut 1999-2000.” Connecticut
State Department of Education, 2001.
The
sub-goals of the CMT Review are to create strategies within
our program that respond to:
•Minority achievement gap
•Limited English proficiency issues
•School-by-school
and town-by-town discrepancies in
achievement
By
making available free tutorials and acquainting students with
the methodology of testing, we hope to alleviate some of the
cultural difficulties typically inherent in standardized testing
among diverse populations. This is of particular importance
in the urban communities Cablevision serves where a documented
30% of the students come from homes where English is not spoken
and students, especially at the elementary level, have had
little or no exposure to the methodology of test taking.
The
objective is to analyze past student performance, by district
and by school, and to adjust teaching strategies that best
address the core skill sets necessary for the student’s
improvement. CMT Review will then produce a series of eight-minute
broadcast test review segments in both English and Spanish
(according to statistics, Spanish is the dominant migration
demographic). We will use practicing teachers, as we have
in our successful Stamford television pilot, to present instruction
carefully modeled to replicate effective, proven instructional
methodology. Concurrent with these broadcast segments, students
will be directed to the internet (or CD- ROMs or DVDs)
to access practice tests and worksheets that correlate with
broadcast instruction by subject.
The
outcome will be assessed at the first level by “involvement”.
This is defined as parental and community involvement, student
participation, teacher support and student attention and participation.
Parental and community involvement will be anecdotal as the
project is in its infancy stage.
Our
more in-depth level of assessment centers around our unique
on-line practice test application, “Sage”. Our
interactive testing application is based on several thousand
hours of already completed java script encoding. The application
can be used by both cable/DSL broadband modems and dial-up
internet access. This guarantees access to the 82 percent
of Connecticut students, documented, who have access and make
active use of the Internet at home. This is also easily available
at local libraries, government buildings and schools.This
test application may be viewed and used on line by the selection
committee by accessing http/cmtreview.com
Approximately
75% of the questions on the CMTs are multiple- choice.
This allows us to easily create internet-based practice tests
that replicate the CMTs in both form and substance while providing
feedback and database acquisition of online test results.
Students taking the online tests will receive instant feedback
in the form of grades and can be prompted to visit the television
programming or specific areas of the web site for further
review and self-correction. Teachers and administrators can
easily access test results by individual student, class or
town on a daily basis via secure password-protected databases.
Teachers will know what tests were taken, which questions
and strands are posing difficulty and where the weaknesses
lie so that they can easily modify classroom instruction accordingly.
Quality plan for developing, producing
and distributing innovative educational and instructional
programming based on State content standards:
The
CMT Review committee has assembled a professional team of
national television producers, digital content creators, curriculum
developers, administrators, teachers, and public affairs experts
who have successfully launched the pilot CMT Review series
upon which this initiative will be based. Their bios are attached.
This team of professionals is already in contact with officials
at the State and local levels as they prepare for the initial
district-wide roll out of the initiative.
To
create rigorous, quality television programming and internet-
based content, the CMT Review committee will begin with an
intensive and comprehensive evaluation of the key skill sets
required by CMT Math and Reading tests. Our educational expert
advisors, (including individuals with PhD’s in Standardized
Testing), will analyze the successful teaching methodologies
of teachers from throughout the district and the broader educational
community.
The project programming will be produced and directed by experts
in television production using the latest in digital video
technology. The production team will work in concert
with the educational experts who have designed content
to meet review criteria. Teachers presenting the television
modules will be chosen by professional television producers,
as well as teaching experts, and will be selected based
on their ability to deliver engaging and enthusiastic instruction,
modeled on prototypes of proven and effective instructional
methodology.
A
typical video module will open with an engaging 3-D computer
generated logo, followed by animated title cards and a dissolve
to the teacher in her classroom. Teachers representing all
racial, ethnic and social profiles will be used to create
a compelling mix of presenters. The teacher will then give
a detailed overview of the subject matter, using a white board
to add text and graphics. She will follow with a demonstration
of exactly the kind of questions and problems that will be
found on that subject on the CMT. She will carefully and deliberately
walk the viewer, step by step, through the problem, breaking
down each component in context of the broader subject matter.
She will share tips and strategies for approaching the problem
and warn about typical errors. She will then summarize the
subject and applicable test questions, repeating key points.
She will end by directing the viewer to the CMT Review website
where they can download worksheets, play on-line math games,
and take practice tests of exactly the kinds of problems
she has just reviewed.
Examples
of the program can already be viewed on the pilot site as
streaming video using the windows media player windows media
at http://cmtreview.com.
This
quality instruction will be delivered through user friendly,
accessible media like television, as well as interactive web
and games. These are especially approachable and flexible
for parents and students in the summer months when skill sets
may be lost. Students and parents can watch a lesson on their
television sets in their own home and be directed to the internet,
where they can download worksheets and practice tests from
the same lesson. They can watch a “streaming video”
of the same or different lesson, and use the “links”
that have been established by a team of experts to enhance
these reviews. Or, they can borrow tapes, DVDs and CDs from
the local or school libraries. These activities can take place
while students and family are at home or on holiday.
Cablevision
holds three cable delivery franchises in the State of Connecticut.
Within these franchise areas, 24 communities are serviced.
Cablevision has created “Cable Councils” that
represent the interests of the communities they represent.
A major contribution of Cablevision, through its Cable Councils,
has been the creation of the” I-Net”. This
is an inter-district digital network that brings school districts
together through the I-Net system. This allows districts to
talk to each other as well as share live instruction as well
as programming.
Content
created by this grant will be will be available through the
I- Net and to all 25 communities via the public access
cablecast stations. In addition, Cablevision has installed
a broadband cable modem in all of its franchise area schools
for teacher and administration use.
Teacher friendly with built-in support components.
Cablevision’s
high degree of broadcast and online cable modem penetration
guarantees teachers on-demand access to all review materials
for use in their classrooms. This will allow them to study
other teachers teaching styles and methodologies. This is
especially important for new teachers as the core skills sets
demanded by the CMT’s are often quite complex. They
will be able to access the broadcast through their individual
Cablevision educational access TV stations, via the Internet,
and through DVD, CD-ROM and videotape distribution. They will
also be able to down load and print worksheets and practice
tests that are geared for both class and for individual student
use.
Teachers
will be able to select the appropriate broadcast segments
for their classes, have students do the practice tests, review
performance, and assign review practice as indicated by the
interactive testing mechanism. Those teachers with computers
in classrooms can use their high speed access to allow individual
students to visit targeted sites in their area of weakness.
Integral
to this project will be staff development. Local Boards of
Education and superintendents will be made part of the strategy
for success for this project. District awareness, school building
and principal awareness and individual classroom teacher awareness
will be coordinated through a specifically selected CMT Review
presentation team. Community outreach and parental awareness
and support are integral to the success of the project.
In
addition, the internet based on line testing, while very complex
has been designed for extraordinary ease of use. No knowledge
of database code or html is required by teachers to access,
create and modify tests and websites, all of which can be
implemented from school, their homes or virtually anywhere.
Multi-Year
Content Development in Line with State frameworksThis high
degree of interactivity and teacher and administrative involvement
will greatly enhance the multi-year content development critical
to successful instruction of core CMT skills. State and local
agencies will have day by day access to data garnered from
the interactive testing application and will be able to review
and critique the publicly available television content. Drawing
upon the library of television content, shaped by the curriculum
frameworks from the State Department of Education, local districts
will have the opportunity to create customized testing review
programs based on the needs of their students.
The
yearly results of the Connecticut Mastery Tests are seriously
assessed by every district by grade, subject, gender, race/ethnicity
and income. One of the values inherent in this test diagnosis
approach is to help districts “inform instruction”.
As educators extrapolate trends within the strands and
sections and sub-sections, they will recommend that these
identified areas be strengthened. As administrators, principals,
and teachers refine their classroom instruction, the
areas of “Review” become clear.
Here
is when Broadcast content and Internet content can be modified
to reflect needed subject enhancement. This process requires
an infrastructure that will be provided by CMT Review professionals.
Also, local boards of education will be able to draw from
the extensive library of television programming already
produced if it is content appropriate for their student population.
In other words, if CMT results show that students are doing
well in probability but poorly in numerical estimation, they
can choose to run more programming about Numerical Estimation.
In
addition to the required CMT’s for the 4th, 6th and
8th grades, the State of Connecticut is developing testing,
under the “Leave no child Behind Act”, to be administered
to ALL grade levels from 3 through 8. It is the intention
of this project to replicate “Test Review Broadcasts”
for each grade level as this new testing is implemented and
funding becomes available.
Our
library of CMT Television programming and internet sites will
be very rich and diverse. Our constant collaboration with
State Department of Education and Local Boards of Education
and school districts will allow the programming to be responsive
to all levels of students. Students who are currently at the
“proficient” level, (C, B) will be encouraged
and supported to reach “Goal” (B+ to A). High
achievers working to reach “Goal” will gain content
re-enforcement. Students at the high end “Remedial”
level will have opportunity to reach “Proficient”,
while students at the lowest level of “Remedial”
can experience upward movement with the goal of reaching “Proficient”.
Limited
English Proficiency students and their families will be able
to watch the identical broadcasts in Spanish. When they access
the Internet, they will find instructions in Spanish and the
actual worksheets and tests in English. This approach allows
parents and guardians to familiarize themselves with the process,
but replicates the tests as they will actually be given.
Video tapes and CD ROM, content specific to individual students,
will be selectively given to after school programs, community
centers, faith based organizations, libraries, and all legitimate
organizations identified by principals and teachers, whose
purpose it is to offer out-of-classroom academic support.
Districts who have established community outreach networks
will be able to implement these review strategies most effectively.
Easy
Replication for Testing
The CMT review series will provide opportunity on many levels
to customize the broadcast instruction test review program
so that it replicates its effectiveness at every grade level,
and for all disciplines. Graduation standards are being established
by districts everywhere in the State of Connecticut. As these
tests are finalized and become institutionalized, it will
become increasingly necessary to provide this same high level,
content appropriate review instruction to students at the
high school level.
The
over all goals of this program, while specific to the Cablevision
district, will provide guidance both statewide and nationally
for any district which has dedicated Educational Access channels.
This is because the overall approach takes advantages of the
multiple new technologies that have emerged over the last
10 years. We are now able to:
•Deliver
instruction through multiple media for maximum
penetration and impact.
•Supply
District-wide access through multiple media for
consistent lesson delivery.
•Generate
District-wide assessments of performance
though interactive testing.
•Facilitate by ease of use: Any student parent or teacher
anywhere can access the content
•Provide
economical paperless distribution of worksheets
and test materials via the internet and television content
through free media.
•Create Permanent Archives for multi year access and
instruction: Once created, the lessons can be used over
and over with little cost.
•Use
already existing Television and Internet infrastructure
for extremely low cost-per-student instruction.
•Deliver
on-demand Streaming Internet Lessons, work sheets and
links to instructional interactive websites allowing
students to discover and focus on their areas of weakness.
•Achieve
High Visibility. The multiple means of distribution
guarantee public awareness.The
Public Service
Announcements and “Infomercials” on commercial
television drive viewers to programming and the internet.
