Assessing with Technology: Projecting Individualized Student Growth Targets in the Classroom with Web-Based Assessment Lauren A. Menard, EdD. Northwestern State University Louisiana United States laurenannmenard@gmail.com Abstract: Establishing initial baselines is crucial for evidencing student growth in value-added teacher evaluations. This article described a process utilizing web-based assessment to (a) efficiently gather baselines from a sample self-contained class in the classroom, (b) project individualized academic growth targets, (c) progress monitor performance on English Language Arts constructs aligned to state standards, and (d) develop a scoring plan to evaluate teacher effectiveness. The following Student Learning Target was developed: Eight of the ten students in the class will demonstrate growth in literacy skills as evidenced by 20% or more growth between baselines and post assessments with easyCBM™ measurements. The method is especially applicable to low-performing students in multiple grade level and multiple content learning environments. Keywords: classroom assessment, special education, technology, value-added models Introduction As teachers across America are learning to instruct to rigorous common standards, teaching effectiveness is simultaneously being evaluated with ascendancy of student academic growth (Noell & Burns, 2006). Fidelity to common standards and grounding in standardization of lesson planning, instruction, and assessment are recent hallmarks of instructional pedagogy. Although appropriate, individualized instruction holds educational benefit for all students, especially students at-risk, teachers may be unfamiliar with individualized data driven instruction and assessment. A purpose of this article was to inform classroom assessment practices and promote a teacher’s potential of evidencing student growth for low-performing students. A description of easyCBM™ followed sections of Implementing CCSS and Value-added Teacher Evaluation and Student Academic Growth. The sections of Sample Class, Growth Targets, and Teacher Scoring Plan were followed by a conclusion. Implementing Common Standards and Value-added Teacher Evaluation As a foundation, Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a beginning of standards-based educational reform from which classroom teachers need direction and implementation support. The need for support was acknowledged, “The release of these Common Core State Standards is just the beginning of the effort. As states move forward to implement the standards, they will need to translate standards into classroom teaching that will help all students master these new standards” (Statement on National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs Common Core Standards, 2010, ¶4). Before CCSS, instruction was likely to center on thematic units, basal manuals, or pacing guides. In Leading the Common Core State Standards: From Common Sense to Common Practice, Dunkle (2012) noted, “Our profession has learned a few things since the days of dumping three -ring binders full of standards at the schoolhouse door and telling teachers to read em and weep” (p. ix). Teachers in states recently adopting CCSS and value–added models (VAM) of teacher evaluation may find this observation overly optimistic. Teaching and assessing to the same standard is a cardinal principle of effective teaching. Weeping is understandable with realization that standards-based reform requires lesson planning, instruction, materials, and assessments to align with common content by grade level standards—a challenge in classrooms with multiple contents and multiple grade levels. Effective implementation of CCSS requires collective collaboration among educators in a process similar to weeding the garden— “debating what to continue, what to change, and what to cast away” (Dunkle, 2010, p.2). Classroom teachers and district personnel may not have been sufficiently prepared for CCSS and VAM. According to Di Carlo’s (2012), “It is not surprising that many states and districts have neglected