Charles County MD and Baltimore Public Schools and ARISU™

Goal: To make it easier for teachers to use research-based assessment tools; to support consistent assessment across multiple classrooms and schools; to help the school system deploy new assessment instruments measuring child development and areas of need.

Supported by a contract from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), mdlogix developed the ARISU system for administering and tracking mental health assessments in schools. The system was designed to be easily adapted for specific studies, instruments and populations, and to support multi-site collaboration and research integration.

The project focused on implementing and deploying the ARISU system in Charles County, MD and Baltimore City schools to evaluate its feasibility and usability. It also involved development of technical assistance strategies. Two instruments were used:

Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation (TOCA-R)
The TOCA-R instrument measures teacher perceptions of student behavior and adaptation within the classroom. The teacher rates the adequacy of each child’s performance on six basic tasks:

  1. accepting authority (or aggressive/disruptive behavior)
  2. social participation (or shy/withdrawn behavior)
  3. self-regulation (or impulsivity)
  4. motor control (or hyperactivity)
  5. attention/concentration (or inattention/concentration problems)
  6. peer likeability (or peer rejection)

Work Study Sampling (WSS)
This instrument is a curriculum-embedded, instructional performance assessment used in preschool through fifth grade. It documents and assesses children’s knowledge, skills, behavior and accomplishments on multiple occasions across a wide variety of classroom domains. It relies on extensive sampling of children’s academic, personal and social progress over the course of the school year and provides rich information about student strengths and weaknesses by helping teachers observe children systematically through use of clearly stated standards and procedures.

Once deployed, these two instruments were available on the school network for teachers to access using wireless PDA’s or desktop web browsers. mdlogix set up a wireless network for each of the participating schools. mdlogix staff met with teachers each week during development and field testing to train teachers in using handheld computers for the ARISU project and to gather feedback.

Results:

Efficient computerized assessment. Teachers commented enthusiastically about the ease of using the ARISU system to record student assessments compared with cumbersome paper-based methods. ARISU makes it easier to enter, change and annotate ratings.

What Teachers Said:

“No more bubbling!” (referring to paper-based administration of WSS forms)
“Now when I need to change a rating, I don't have to go through papers, locate the student, and use an eraser. I just go online and change the rating.”
“I like being able to add notes. We have to put notes in WSS, but it requires that you carry index cards around and jot down points every day, then collate them at the end of the year and write them out. With the computerized WSS, all you have to do is type out your notes once.”
“I like the summary page...I use it to find items I skipped.”
“I can do my ratings anywhere – I like that about this little fellow (the PDA).”