Making Assessments in Illuminate

Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free:

• Presentation template by SlidesCarnival
• Photographs by Unsplash

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Types of assessments available-Click on the name to be taken directly to the instruction slides for that type of assessment

Flexible

You create the answer key in Illuminate and upload a PDF of your paper assessment. Ideal for tests you have already created but want to give online.

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Item Bank

Use the item bank to create an assessment. You can choose from their questions or make your own.

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On the Fly

Quick multiple choice test. Ideal for exit tickets that you scan on your camera

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Skills

One on one assessment using words, letters, numbers, or images. Mostly for kindergarten and snap words.

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On the Fly

You do not put the questions in Illuminate for this type of test. You would project or pass out your multiple choice test.

First you will need to print generic answer sheets for your students and answer key.

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Creating Generic Answer Sheets in Illuminate

Click on the Assessments tab. Under Scanning select Print Generic Answer Sheets.

You need to decide what type of answer sheets you want

• Pre-slugged
• Has student name and student id already filled in so they just have to fill in the answers
• Blank
• Students have to fill in their student id and bubble it in
• This would be one you could use for an answer key

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Decide how many questions you want to appear on the answer sheet

• If you want to use these repeatedly (laminate them and use dry erase markers) pick the largest number you might use
• It’s ok if your answer sheet has more questions than your test, it will only grade the number you select when you create the test.

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Now create your test

Click on the assessments tab, create assessment, then choose on the fly. Select the number of questions your test will have then click create.

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Taking the test

• It will prompt you to scan or enter an answer key
• You can choose to scan an answer sheet (a blank one that you fill in the correct answers) or you can type the correct answers into the answer key
• Then the blue button scan student responses should be available
• It defaults to the teacher view which will show all the students data
• You can choose student view which will only show their score
• When you are finished scanning you can save the assessment at the top-if you do not click save you will not have access to it again without rescanning
• You can also click view visual results
• It can show you overall summary or you can switch to response frequency to see how students did on each question as a class

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Skills Assessment

Click on the assessments tab, create assessment, then choose Skills. Fill in the basic information for the test.

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How to create the prompts using Basic Question

Basic Question

• In the prompt box put what the student needs to look at.
• It will show a preview in the tablet underneath.
• You only have a few font choices
• Underneath put what you would say to the student in the directions box.
• Question groups would be if you are assessing multiple types of questions that you want to be able to pull into groups (ie single digit numbers and multi-digit numbers)
• You don’t have to use these
• Before hitting create, if you are going to use the same directions, click the create another box, it will duplicate everything except your prompt for the students

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How to create the prompts using Image Question

Image Question

• In the title box put the title of the prompt (this will not show on the student view)
• Click Upload an Image and select your photo
• Underneath put what you would say to the student in the directions box.
• Question groups would be if you are assessing multiple types of questions that you want to be able to pull into groups (ie single digit numbers and multi-digit numbers)
• You don’t have to use these
• Before hitting create, if you are going to use the same directions, click the create another box, it will duplicate the directions

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How to use the assessment

• After your assessment is created it will take you to the details page.
• From here you can see all the questions on your test
• It gives you the option to manage questions
• Click here to add or edit a question on the test
• This is also where you will test students
• Click the Test Students button
• It will list all your students
• Click test next to the student you are giving the test to
• If you do not want to click on correct or incorrect in front of the student you can type 1 for correct and 2 for incorrect
• You can also use the arrows on the keyboard instead of the previous and next buttons
• If you need to stop and come back later click the review button, exit will not save the progress

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Reports for skills assessments

• Flashcards
• Allows you to print flashcards for all prompts or just the ones students miss
• Item Analysis
• Will show you a summary of how students did on each question
• Parent letter lets the parent know how their student did, you can include all the flashcards in this letter
• Student list will give you all your students tested and how they did on each question

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Flexible Assessment

Click on the assessments tab, create assessment, then choose Flexible. Type the title for the assessment and click create.

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Adding standards and materials to your flexible assessment

• Click the filter standards button
• Click providers, common core
• Select your subject
• Select your grade level
• Click the circle next to the standards you want to select
• Close the box when you have selected all the standards
• You can go back and add more standards later if you wish
• Click upload materials to upload your PDF copy of your test

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How to add questions to your Flexible Assessment

• You can choose to add one question at a time or all your questions at once
• Click the +add button to add one at a time
• Click the lightning bolt to select how many questions you want to add

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Questions Types-MC

MC-multiple choice;true/false;select all

• Choose how many/which type of answer choice you want
• If you need something different at the bottom you can select Edit Choices to create your own list of options
• Click all the correct answers so they turn green
• Weight is how many points it’s worth
• Click the standards button to get a dropdown list of the standards you selected (you can also click edit standards if you left one off to add more choices)
• Question groups is optional if you want to use them to sort by something later
• You can also choose if it is extra credit

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Question Types-MC Ptl

MC PTL-multiple choice select all partial credit-can deduct for incorrect answers

• Choose how many/which type of answer choice you want
• If you need something different at the bottom you can select Edit Choices to create your own list of options
• Click all the correct answers so they turn green
• Weight is how many points it’s worth
• Click the standards button to get a dropdown list of the standards you selected (you can also click edit standards if you left one off to add more choices)
• Question groups is optional if you want to use them to sort by something later
• You can also choose if it is extra credit
• If you want students to lose points for incorrect answer choices by sliding it on (green bar)

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Question Types-CR

Constructed Response-fill in the blank, short answer, matching where the answer can be subjective

• Choose how many points for the rubric
• Weight is how many points it’s worth
• Click the standards button to get a dropdown list of the standards you selected (you can also click edit standards if you left one off to add more choices)
• Question groups is optional if you want to use them to sort by something later
• You can also choose if it is extra credit
• You can choose what the paper background would look like if it is printed

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Question Types-CR Exp

Explicit Constructed Response-fill in the blank, short answer, math problem, where there is one correct answer

• Type in the correct answer in answer choice
• You can add alternative correct answers
• Good for common misspellings, with or without commas for a number, etc
• Weight is how many points it’s worth
• Click the standards button to get a dropdown list of the standards you selected (you can also click edit standards if you left one off to add more choices)
• Question groups is optional if you want to use them to sort by something later
• You can also choose if it is extra credit

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Question Types-MC Adv

Multiple Choice Advanced-way to add alternative correct answers and change the point total based on which choices they selected; way to weight answer choices i.e. AE=2 pts but A=5

• Select one of the correct answer options
• You can add alternative correct answers options
• Weight is how many points it’s worth-select for each alternate answer option
• Click the standards button to get a dropdown list of the standards you selected (you can also click edit standards if you left one off to add more choices)
• Question groups is optional if you want to use them to sort by something later
• You can also choose if it is extra credit

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Questions Types-CR Adv

Constructed Response Advanced- for essays or longer answers with a rubric

• Choose how many points the rubric goes up to for answer choices
• If you need something different at the bottom you can select Edit Choices to create your own list of options
• Give a weight to each choice of the rubric-1=1pt, 2=2 pt, etc
• Click the standards button to get a dropdown list of the standards you selected (you can also click edit standards if you left one off to add more choices)
• Question groups is optional if you want to use them to sort by something later
• You can also choose if it is extra credit
• You can choose what the paper background would look like if it is printed

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Finishing the Flexible Assessment

• Click done when you are finished
• Gives you the option to share or administer it
• If you need to edit it later, you can click the edit button in the upper right

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Item Bank Assessment

Click on the assessments tab, create assessment, then choose Item Bank. It may take a minute or two to open the item bank.

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Choose what you want to create in the item bank

• You can start creating an assessment and then add items later-I recommend standard mode-gives you more control over which questions are used in the assessment versus quick mode
• If you want to make your own items please make an appointment with me to go over all the different options

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How to create a standard mode assessment

• Give you assessment a title
• You can choose which other options you want to include
• Choose your standards that you want on the test then click next
• Click on the item bank options, make sure everything is checked so you get all the options
• Choose any other filters you want to limit your test to and then click search
• You can search multiple times if you want to find specific types of questions each time
• Look through the options and click add for any item you wish to add to your test, when you are finished click next
• This page allows you review the items you selected, change the order or remove any you no longer want, click next when you are satisfied with the assessment
• This page allows you to customized what a printed version of the test will look like if you choose that option, click next when finished

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Publishing an item bank test

• The last page of test creation allows you to decide is you want to turn on any question groups for sorting later in reports-this is optional
• You can also preview the test by clicking the button in the upper right
• When you are satisfied with your test you can click publish or publish and administer
• Only click publish and administer if you want to set up a test administration for students right away, you can assign the test at a later date as well
• Once you publish a test you will be very limited in what changes you can make to it, so only publish when you are sure you are ready
• You cannot give an item bank assessment until it has been published

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