ITASCA, Ill., Feb. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Riverside Insights®, a leading developer of research-based assessments, has launched a new dashboard reporting tool designed to make it easier for educators to take advantage of the insights provided by the market-leading Cognitive Abilities Test™ (CogAT®) to promote educational equity. Championing an equitable education strategy demands balancing the needs and abilities of diverse students across varying local contexts. Navigating this complex spectrum requires the right data and tools to help educators develop a nuanced perspective of student potential.
The new CogAT dashboard provides educators with a tool specifically designed to support equitable program placement and instructional strategies that encourage student growth. The reporting format eliminates many manual steps in data analysis, empowering educators to quickly visualize the full set of ability insights from the school district, to the classroom, to the individual student.
“With the new CogAT dashboard, educators can drill down into insights about each student without manual data analysis, thereby maximizing equitable identification for specific programs and services while minimizing the time and resources to assess each student’s cognitive abilities,” said Dr. Joni M. Lakin, Associate Professor at the University of Alabama and co-author of CogAT Form 8. “This new dashboard will speed decision making and give educators the insights they need to provide an equitable education for all students – especially in under-represented populations like those in lower socio-economic environments, students of color, and English language learners.”
The CogAT dashboard offers data displays designed specifically for various educators, from district administrators, principals and building administrators to Gifted and Talented program coordinators, Special Education coordinators, and classroom teachers focusing on the most relevant insights for the local learning environment. The interactive functionality of the dashboard enables educators to intuit, frame, and answer questions they didn’t know they had – or that they didn’t know CogAT could address.
With an easy-to-use point-and-click interface, educators can quickly access a personalized Ability Profile™, tailor instruction to mirror how each student learns, better match students to enrichment programs, and uncover gaps between student ability and achievement to access intervention services.
Key features of the CogAT dashboard include:
- “Drill-down” filtering – Domain-based filters (Verbal, Nonverbal, and Quantitative) help identify students’ strengths and weaknesses. Automatic comparison between domain-based performance and the overall composite score identifies the best programs and services for each student’s needs. Filtering by sub-group allows an evaluation of student scores in context.
- Role-based reporting – Easy access to tailored reports for each type of educator (coordinators, administrators, teachers, etc.) provides actionable insights to the right person at the right time and lets curriculum directors answer questions they couldn’t answer before.
- Optimizing program allocation – The selection tool allows program coordinators to examine the effects of different cut scores and combinations with just a few clicks, so they can match students with the best available services for their needs.
- Integrated access to Ability Profile instructional guidance – Direct access to instructional suggestions linked to each student’s unique Ability Profile within the dashboard helps educators focus on a student’s areas of greatest cognitive strength for more inclusive placement opportunities and tailored instruction.
About CogAT
CogAT pioneered the multidimensional abilities test, offering students with different strengths the greatest opportunity to demonstrate their fluid reasoning, problem solving skills, and learning potential. CogAT’s unique Ability Profile lets educators engage with a holistic view of a student’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses to inform program placement and personalized instruction.
CogAT’s separate measures of Verbal, Quantitative, and Nonverbal (figural) reasoning provide deeper insight into a student’s diverse abilities and enables educators to understand each child’s learning strengths and weaknesses to ensure they have access to the right services to reach their full potential. According to Education Week Research Center’s report Gifted Education: Results of a National Survey, 54% of districts surveyed use CogAT as part of their gifted and talented identification criteria, and more than 13% of all second graders in the U.S. took CogAT in 2019.
Availability
The new CogAT dashboard is included in DataManager, the single source of support for an educational institution’s Riverside Insights® assessment program.
To learn more about the new CogAT dashboard, visit CogAT website and read the blog post.
About Riverside Insights
Riverside Insights, one of the nation’s leading and most long standing developers of research-based assessments, is led by a powerful mission: to provide insights that help elevate potential and enrich the lives of students, clinical patients, employees and organizations globally. For more information, visit www.riversideinsights.com.
Contact
Maria Bradley
Kickstart for Riverside Insights
415-509-0498
mbradley@kickstartconsulting.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/dfd85bb8-50c2-41b0-b3e4-2fb8295590b0