Abilities Assessment Pilot

Abilities Assessment Pilot The week of November 27- December 1, students in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th grades participated in an abilities assessment pilot. The purpose of the pilot is to strengthen the identification process for the Extended Learning Program (ELP) by adding an ability assessment as a piece of culturally-sensitive convergent data.

The purpose of an abilities assessment is to gain an understanding of a student’s thinking and reasoning skills without assessing prior knowledge. The assessments selected were the NNAT3 and the CogAT7, which have been shown to be more culturally sensitive. Students participated in both to more accurately analyze which assessment provides the most valuable information in order to best serve our students.

The Ames CSD is looking to adopt one of these assessments for the 2018-2019 school year. Once implemented next year, the multiple data points obtained will allow schools to gain a more well- rounded picture of student abilities.