Familiarizing Elementary Students with MIST

1. Familiarizing Elementary Students with MIST Susan B. Dold, Ed. D. doldsb@scsk12.org

2. Facts about MIST • MIST is a practice site and a testing site. • The practice materials are there so students can practice using the site; responses will not be scored, and the student papers cannot be easily printed. • The practice prompts will be removed by January 31 so the February testing information can be uploaded. • Using this site will be stressful for some children; it is crucial that they practice before February.

20. Suggestions for Using the Student Practice Tests • Log in as a student (the fake one) and model it for them using your projector or SMART Board. • Show them how to log in. • Go over all the directions and demonstrate using the text editing tools. • Model highlighting key words in the reading passages using the highlighting tool. • Demonstrate how to “dissect” the writing prompts. • Show students how to go from prompt to passage, and so forth.

21. Important Information

22. More About Practice • Go through both passages and both writing tasks to show students how the system works. • Take it all the way to the “Finish” screen, or you won’t be able to exit the test. • Remember that you can assign the test to your practice student multiple times, so you can repeat this process, as necessary.

23. Final Thoughts • Give students enough practice with the system that they don’t “freak out” during the actual test. • Continue to work on improving the quality of their writing using either word processing or handwritten papers. • Refer to the TNCORE website for scored sample papers and rubrics http://tncore.org/english_language_arts/writing_test.aspx • Contact me if I can be of any additional assistance. Dr. Susan Dold @ doldsb@scsk12.org