Freshman and Sophomores Take On The CDT
Kate DeVries
Staff Writer
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The CDT (Classroom Diagnostic Tool) test is a new addition this year for the freshman and sophomore classes. The test is used to find each student’s strengths and weak points in the subject in which they are tested.
The test has no time limit and has approximately 55 questions. As of right now Level 2 and 3 English classes in 9th and 10th grade, and possibly the Algebra 1 and in the future the honors english students. In March Mr. Jesse Bortner and Ms. Cara Uhrich went to Capital Area IU in Enola to get a better sense of what the test covers and also to see how it would help in the classroom.
“This test an updated version students used to be able to do them on paper now they have transitioned them on to computers. Now this updated version is diagnostic and it adjusts to the individual student. The test is from the state and from a company called DRC and they provide this to help identify areas where schools can help their kids to improve,” Ninth grade English teacher Ms. Uhrich said.
“The way this test is new because like each student is going to get individualized questions and it is going to adapt to them while they are taking it, so if they are really struggling with vocabulary it will keep giving them vocabulary based questions so it can spot their weak point.”
This new and updated test has many improvements and benefits that will help the teachers know how to build their lesson plans, so that they can feed the students the information they need to master topics in class.
“A great thing about this being adapted to the individual students there are new ways to read out the data.The other thing the district is putting in place this year is a new SLO ( Student learning objective ) most students probably don’t know what an SLO is its part of our evaluation from the state. The state basically tells us what to include as part of our teacher evaluations and we can decide how to implement it,” Urich said. “The SLO is teachers going through and collecting data on their students, and we look for growth or mastery of concepts.The CDT will allow us to target specific areas and we have to identify our SLO’s a bit earlier this year with the support of this data.”
Overall the CDT Test seems to be a beneficial tool to help teachers and students address the areas where more attention should be brought in class.