Your monthly update on all things assessment

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like ...

After the last 18 months, it may be hard to fill in the blank in the title of this newsletter. For us on the assessment team, we are catching our breath as we make the turn for the school year. At this point of the year, we have completed two CTE  testing and reporting periods, as well as finished regional Test Coordinator Training events. The end of the year also has us reflecting on recent successes and highlighting areas needing improvement.

Throughout fall, we implemented quite a few new changes: we moved training dates, requested spring rosters early, migrated our assessment system to the cloud and added new national certification exams to CTE programs.

Any change takes a collaboration among all parties to run smoothly. We appreciate statewide CTE staff’s help in meeting these goals. We can improve even more in the areas of communication and training as we move forward this spring and in future school years. If there are aspects of our processes where we can improve or assist you better, please let us know by emailing helpdesk@rcu.msstate.edu.

For our educational technology tip this month, I want to suggest creating more problem-based learning opportunities for your CTE students.

PBL is defined as an instructional method that promotes student engagement through structured prompts that facilitate student-created products or solutions. Recent research suggests implementing PBL promotes both the mastery of content-specific CTE competencies and 21st-century skills.

A recent ad from Apple exhibits how classroom assignments and homework can foster creativity and student engagement when given as well-crafted PBL opportunities. Use this presentation as a starter for how you can specifically use PBL in your CTE classroom.

We look forward to seeing each of you in the new year. Make sure to bundle up for the cold and enjoy your winter break!

Sean Owen, PhD

Assistant Director of Research Development and Strategic Initiatives

If your CTE center has a new director or 

testing coordinator for the 2021-2022 school year, please 

let us know by submitting a Help Desk ticket with the

name and contact information of this new hire.

Important Dates

To view a full calendar, visit the MS-CPAS resources page and log in to the RCU website.

MS-CPAS

By this point, all rosters for spring testing should have been uploaded and verified in the RCU portal. We appreciate the cooperation from all of you on moving this task to the fall, and we hope that you are relieved to have this process complete!

If you have had any trouble verifying, please reach out immediately. You will have a chance to add or remove transfer students from MS-CPAS rosters until Feb. 18. If you need to add or remove a student from a national certification roster, submit a Help Desk ticket about this and get guidance from us before making any edits. It is also very important that you do not delete your fall testers from your rosters. If you have any questions about this, please contact us.

If you had fall MS-CPAS testers, those reports are now on the website under Reports > Secondary MS-CPAS (Spring 2018-present). Be sure to print these reports for your instructors since they do not have access to your district login. 

National Certifications

If you have national certification pathways, you can reference the survival guides for each certification to learn additional steps that may be required for each company. We suggest starting these steps no later than January so you will be ready to test your students when the spring certification window opens. You can find these survival guides on the RCU website by navigating to Assessment > Student Certification > Certification Tools. 

Fall Testing Option

If your students took a national certification exam this fall, remember that the official RCU reports for national certifications will not come out until Summer 2022, after all national certifications for the academic year have been completed. 

NCCER

If you have not completed an NCCER import template, you will need to submit this by Feb. 18. You can find this template by navigating to Assessment > Reports > Testing Tools. Download your template, enter the students’ NCCER ID numbers and send the template to the RCU via Help Desk.

NCCER proctor training will be held in February. Look for that date in the January Assessment Minute.

ServSafe

If your students took the ServSafe exam this fall, you will need to submit a ServSafe score import template and a screenshot of the report to the Help Desk for accountability purposes. You can find this template by navigating to Assessment > Reports > Testing Tools.

SolidWorks

SolidWorks will be releasing an updated website and new options for reporting in January. Be sure to access the online versions of assessment resources (i.e., SolidWorks Survival Guide and Certifications Manual) as these will be updated in the new year. Students will not be able to log in to test for SolidWorks CSWA using a personal email. All students must have a school email and be able to check an email from SolidWorks prior to testing.

As always, if you have a question or need assistance, reach out to us by sending a Help Desk ticket or by calling 662.325.2510. 

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