Common Formative Assessments Using Study Island

Our district subscribes to Study Island for its grades 2-8 students. The software started out primarily as a NJ Ask test prep tool. It has evolved into much more. Although there are many features that i could highlight I would like to talk about the Custom Assessment tool in this posting.

The custom assessment option allows teachers to create online assessments for one student in a class, a group of students in a class or an entire class. The faculty member can browse through questions by topic. He or she can select a topic question and tell the system how many of that type of question he or she would like included in the test.

The software will andomize the numbers in a math question or change the text in a language arts question.  This allows the teacher to have multiple questions that assess the same skill.



By having the ability to create custom assessments, faculty members are able to quickly develop formative assessments that will help guide instruction. The fact that these assessments can be taken online, with a student response system or on paper provide a number of options.

The newest release of Study Island now allows faculty members to share the custom assessments that they create with the other teachers in their school. They have added a custom assessment library.

When implemented correctly, study island is a valuable instructional tool. The software offers numerous reports, customizable options and an intuitive interface. I must say I am very happy with our subscription.