Appendix C: About Alternate Assessments

You can add alternate assessments to sessions in the TA Site by following the same procedure used to add any other test to a session. However, the appearance and behavior of the Student Testing Site is slightly different for alternate assessments.

Navigating Alternate Assessments

The Student Testing Site can display alternate assessments in full-screen mode with the global menu hidden.

To exit full-screen mode and access the global menu:

1.Click in the upper-left corner. A message appears, asking for a password.

2. Enter the student’s first name and click OK. The global menu appears at the top of the screen.

• When signed in as a guest user in the Student Training Site, enter Guest as the password.

3.Optional: To return to full-screen mode, click Full Screen in the global menu.

Listening to Audio Content

Some test pages display ear icons, which read aloud the content for passages, questions, and answer options. These icons also appear when students take alternate assessments with TTS enabled (in addition to the TTS options available in the context menu).

To listen to test content:

• To listen to a passage, select beside the passage.
• To listen to a question, select beside the question.
• To listen to an answer option, select below the answer option.
• To stop the audio, click while it is playing.
  • You cannot pause audio content. If you select again, it will play the audio from the beginning.

Responding to Questions

Alternate assessment questions display answer options as cards, which may include text, graphics, or both.

• Students can select a card to choose that answer option. Once a card is selected, arrows appear at the top and bottom of the card along with a blue border.
• To proceed to the next question, select Next at the top of the page.
• To indicate that no response was provided for an item and proceed with the test, do the following:
  1. From the item’s context menu, select Mark as No Response.
  2. In the message asking you to confirm whether you wish to mark the item as “No Response”, click Yes.
     • The item’s response options are disabled and grayed out. A null icon () displays on top of the item to clearly indicate that no response was provided.
     • You can now proceed to the next item. For reporting purposes, the item marked as “No Response” will be assigned a condition code of NR.
  3. If you wish to reverse your decision and unmark the no response option for the item, from the item’s context menu, select Unmark No Response. The item’s response options will be enabled, and the no response icon will disappear.