Mastery Manager...online!

As many of you know, we have an assessment tool, +Mastery Manager, that affords us many benefits as teachers. In addition to those we all know about, there are a number of features that are less well-known and if used, could provide us with a wealth of opportunities. This post will be part of a series to see how different teachers in our building are using Mastery Manager in their classes.

One useful feature of Mastery Manager is its online version. As all of our classrooms are now 1:1, it is feasible to discuss online assessments both for the benefit of the student and the teacher. Just last month, Mr. +Dan Jones decided to try out the online feature for final exam prep in his AP Calculus BC class. In order to help his students be prepared for their final exam and be familiar with the style of questions, Mr. Jones created a practice test. This document was created in Google Docs and then saved as a pdf. Once the document was prepared, he uploaded it test to Mastery Manager and began creating the online version.

After the assessment has been created, click on "Online" to access its functions.

Using the online version of a test in Mastery Manager is very similar to creating a paper test with it. The difference is that instead of printing the plain paper forms after creating the assessment, you need to “activate” the online version. As seen in the image below, the online test gives you, as the teacher, control over various settings including the timing, when they see it, what results they get, etc.

View of the online settings

Mr. Jones decided to try this online version for practice so that he could control the students’ access to the practice test. Using Mastery Manager ensured him test question security which was important to him as an AP Calc BC teacher. He also wanted the students to be provided with the immediate feedback that using the program offers. Additionally, Mr. Jones liked receiving the data on the students both as a class and as individuals for use such as item analysis and for more information on specific students’ performance.

After administering the practice final exam in this manner, Mr. Jones asked his students to reflect on the use of the online Mastery Manager. He said that the students reported that they generally liked the online format and that they thought the practice test had helped them tremendously. Mr. Jones affirmed this belief noting that most of the students scored about 20% higher on the final exam than on the practice test. He also noted that his students appear to be more intentional with the marking of answers in the online version and tend to not have “bubbling errors” that can occur with the paper format. For this practice assessment, Mr. Jones did not give the students a paper copy of the exam, but did allow them blank paper for calculations. He did note that in some of the levels of math, he and his PLT members give the students a paper copy of the test to write on, perform calculations, etc. and has them mark their answers in the online format.

As mentioned, this is the first part of a series of posts about Mastery Manager in our school. Future posts will include learning from Mr. +Chinh Pham and also Mr. +Paul Fraser about even more that can be done with Mastery Manager.

Do you use Mastery Manager in your class? Let us know and we can blog about you! Are you interested in learning about something specific on Mastery Manager? Let us know and we can blog about it! Do you like individual attention to learn something new? Schedule an appointment with one of us!