Using Illuminate for Math Placement Assessments

On March 17,  teachers received an email from Bill Spalding regarding upcoming math placement assessments for current students in grades K-3 and grade 8.  This post is intended to provide additional support in using Illuminate to administer and score these assessments.

Copies of math placement exams will be delivered to sites on March 28. If you would like a sneak preview, these exams have already been uploaded and shared within Illuminate. Find and click on your grade level placement exam (remember that grade levels correspond to 16-17 school year) and click download materials to preview the exam.

Printing Pre-Slugged Answer Documents.

The following screencast will walk you through accessing and printing out pre-slugged answer documents for students to complete so they will be ready to scan when complete.

Hand-Entering Student Scores into Illuminate.

For grades K and 1, teachers may prefer to hand enter student scores directly into Illuminate. If so, the following step-by-step screencast will be helpful once you have administered and scored your student assessments.

Scanning Answer Documents.

If your students use the answer documents to complete the test, you can scan them directly into Illuminate using the camera on your district device.  Here's how:

1. Login to Illuminate
2. Locate and click on your desired assessment via Favorite Widget on Dashboard
3. Click Scan



4. If needed: Install GradeCam Plugin if you see the image shown below. Click on the image and follow the steps.



5. Hold Student Answer Documents up to the camera. When scanned you'll see student responses and scores.  
• Note: If student responses are unclear due to erasures or light bubbling, Illuminate will automatically generate a pop-up menu that will ask you to verify student responses. Verify and complete as needed.
6. Click Save & View Results when done scanning all student responses.

Reports. 

Regardless of whether you entered student scores by hand or via scanning answer documents, once complete you will have a number of helpful pre-made reports available to you.  You can navigate and preview the  reports available to you by clicking on reports menu within the assessment.

Need Assistance?

If you need help accessing your Illuminate account, please reach out to Melissa Oliver, moliver@wusd.k12.ca.us or complete a helpdesk ticket.  

If you have questions about the math placement exam, please reach out to Matt Wilkins, mwilkins@wusd.k12.ca.us.

Update 3/29/16
The following message was sent to affected teachers on 3/29/16 by Gwyn Dellinger regarding Math Placement Assessments for Summer School.

Dear K-3 and 8th Grade Mathematics Teachers,

Due to the importance of SBAC testing, we have determined that instituting another assessment during this critical time is not the best use of time. 

We will be looking at an alternative way of identifying students to invite to participate in summer programming.  Your site administrators will be receiving more information about summer programs in the coming weeks. 

Therefore; the Math Placement assessments are optional.   If you’d like to use them as additional indicators of math proficiency, you can.  Otherwise, disregard. 

We apologize for the confusion and wish you the best as you guide your students through the remainder of the school year.

Thank you,