Thinkgate’s Education Suite is built primarily around its foundation product Testgate. Testgate allows teachers the ability to test students in either an offline or online environment and assess the progress of students through its progressive reporting features. Pre testing at the beginning of the nine weeks and post testing at the conclusion allows for a genuine evaluation of the curriculum’s effectiveness and the effectiveness of the teacher’s instruction. It also allows for early intervention after assessing a student’s needs using individual response analysis. Teachers with access to applicable data are better informed to make decisions that lead to better performance in the classroom and therefore better results on state tests.
Pre testing provides the teacher with baseline information about how well their students comprehend each standard they are about to teach. Using that information the teacher can individualize their instruction for that term at both the class and student level. This allows them to use their valuable instructional time more efficiently.
Post test data then provides a comparison to the baseline measure provided by the pre test. Using this data a teacher can determine which standards need to be revisited or which students need individual help on a standard. Administrators can also use the data provided by the post test to pair teachers together by their strengths and weaknesses.
These are just a few of the ways that Testgate customers use the information provided to them. The possibilities for individualizing instruction and making data driven decisions are infinite. Best of all Testgate is completely customizable because the assessments are created by the customer. Testgate can be adapted to fit your system and its current needs.
Testgate provides diagnostic data for educators through its assessments. To engage in valid pre and post testing it is imperative to first identify the standards that are to be taught during each nine week term. Thinkgate’s Dayframe product enables educators to electronically manage the identification and delivery of standards through pacing guides, unit plans, lesson plans and student plans. Pacing guides allow a system or school to designate the order and term in which the standards should be taught. This provides continuity of instruction across the system and/or school. Unit plans and lesson plans help teachers identify what the standards are and the methods that will be used to deliver instruction. Student plans can also be drawn up in Dayframe and accessed by any teacher that student sees during the day via Dayframe’s web interface. Student plans can include IEP’s, EIP’s, ELL plans, SST plans, or any other document your system uses. Unit, lesson, and student plans are all completely customizable. Dayframe lends itself to any best practices model used for instruction.
Dayframe provides a flexible framework for system and school documentation. Once information is entered into the product it can be accessed by all relevant staff members from any location at any time. Plans will no longer just exist in one person’s file drawer, but will become living documents that aid in the exchange of ideas and promote communication across the school district.
Thinkgate’s Hallways provides a web portal for teachers, students, and parents. Each class and each student will have their own web site. Teachers can post information for parents and students about daily activities and assignments. Parent and students can access this information from anywhere and at anytime. This tool allows communication between the school and home.
Just as dayFrame provides a format for system and school level information, Dataspan manages student data. Dataspan holds all of a student’s score data in one place, be it End of Course Test, state standardized tests, graduation test, Lexile, DIBELS, etc. Teachers can concurrently view a student’s scores from various events and run comparative analysis reports. District staff will be able to scrutinize the data by student, class, teacher, school, district and AYP subgroups. This allows teachers to make direct modifications to plans based on data gathered about that student. Student data is held in Dataspan throughout a student’s education, allowing teachers to track the student’s progress longitudinally. Using this tool, long term goals can be set and evaluated.