Ocean City Today wrote a nice summary of about 65 students from across Maryland who gathered in Ocean City during the week of March 24 in order to give tests from PARCC a trial run.
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The new tests give students the opportunity to manipulate test questions and reading passages on the computer, OC Today reports. Examples of manipulations include a magnifying lens students can move around the screen, an online ruler, appropriate calculators, and other tools that promote a standardized testing environment for all students.
High achievers, with superb word processing skills, will also find the test provides features that make it easier to use than paper tests, such as putting text passages side-by-side to make comparisons rather than flipping back and forth among the pages of a printed test.
“The kids who are the highest achievers are going to seek it out, achieve it and reach the highest heights, and lower-level students get assistance,” the paper quoted Tom Scher, a science teacher from Harford County, as saying. “Students who are the average kids are generally in larger classes. It’s harder for them to get attention,” he said, saying that he had some concerns with how well average students would be served by the technology and online format of the test.
The test will be offered on paper for the first three years, until the 2017-18 school year, but it will cost more if schools want to take it on paper instead of online. It’s not yet clear where the extra money would come from if a school wanted to take the test on paper.
But some students reported a sort of learning curve when using the new technology. “It was harder to read on the computer than on paper for me,” one student was quoted as saying. Another called the video portions of the test “distracting,” according to the article.