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NoRedInk Benchmarks allow administrators to track student progress towards mastery of standards-aligned writing skills. Benchmarks also give teachers the data they need to meaningfully drive instruction throughout the academic year.
If your team has decided to leverage NoRedInk Benchmarks, follow the instructions on this page to get started and learn more about using NoRedInk to help your students become better writers.
Administrator Setup
Once you've decided that Benchmarks are aligned with your school or district's goals for the year, complete the following steps to activate your account:
- Create your NoRedInk account.
- Email the NoRedInk team so we can activate Admin Tools on your account. Once you have access to Admin Tools, you'll be able to access Benchmark assignments.
- Decide whether teachers will administer a pre-made standards-aligned Benchmark or a custom Benchmark.
Click on the gear icon to view which standards are prioritized on each pre-made Benchmark.
- Create your Benchmarks!
- Schedule the Open Date for 1-2 weeks after the school year starts to allow for schedule changes.
- Schedule the Benchmark administration window for at least 2 weeks.
After you hit Send to teachers, the Benchmarks will begin showing as a recommendation in the Assignment Library 3 weeks before the administration window opens.
Benchmark Administration
Before teachers administer the Benchmark, it's important that you clarify directions and expectations. Send an email to teachers ahead of time with information that includes:
- What you're hoping to gain from this process
- The initial timeframe for administration
- Any expectations they should set with students
We also recommend encouraging teachers to have students log in to NoRedInk prior to completing the Benchmark to ease students' performance anxiety.
Once the administration window has begun, you can click the "Administration Status" button on the Growth tab of your Admin Tools to determine which teachers have administered the Benchmark and which haven't after the first week in your two-week window.
- Follow up with teachers who have not yet administered the assignment.
Once the administration window has closed, you'll also be able to view progress using the Results tab of your Admin tools!
Reviewing Data
As an administrator, you can drill down the Benchmark data by school, teacher, class and student. You will also be able to see the breakdown by topics and how they align with your standards at each level. In order to ensure you and your teachers can use this data meaningfully to inform instruction, we recommend taking the following steps:
- Review high-level trends.
- Schedule professional development for teachers on how to use Benchmark results to drive instruction.
Plan for professional development to occur between mid-September and mid-October, after teachers have administered their Benchmarks.
Supporting Teachers
Some of the most common mistakes we see administrators making during this phase of Benchmark implementation are in terms of expectation setting and follow-through.
Tracking Student Growth
Ideally, teachers will create at least 4 unit cycles between their first and second Benchmarks as a way of supporting students' growth with grammar, conventions, and writing skills.
We recommend teachers assign a Unit Cycle for each instructional unit.
- Teachers begin with a Unit Diagnostic to track students' strengths and weaknesses on a wider range of topics relating to skills from the Benchmark.
- From there, they follow up with Practice to help students develop high-priority skills.
- The unit concludes with a Growth Quiz to track progress over time.
- Teachers can optionally assign a Quick Write at the end of the unit to have students apply the skills in their own writing.
| What is it? | Who is it assigned to? | How long does it take? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment 1 | Unit Diagnostic | Whole Class | 10-15 minutes |
| Assignment 2 | Practice | Differentiated | 20-40 minutes |
| Assignment 3 | Growth Quiz | Whole Class | 10-15 minutes |
| Assignment 4 | Quick Write | Whole Class | 10-20 minutes |
If a full unit cycle isn't feasible for each unit, we recommend a lower-lift option.
A lightweight recommendation is to start by providing targeted practice on high-needs skills, then asking students to apply those skills in their own writing.
As teachers identify high-need gaps from Benchmark data, they can:
- Pre-teach the skill.
- Then, assign Practice topics to help students improve.
- From there, students can transfer their skills into their own writing in a skill-building Quick Write.
| What is it? | Who is it assigned to? | How long does it take? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assignment 1 | Pre-teach | Whole Class or Differentiated | 10-20 minutes |
| Assignment 2 | Practice | Whole Class or Differentiated | 30-60 minutes |
| Assignment 3 | Skill-building Quick Write | Whole Class or Differentiated | 15-20 minutes |
To ensure that teachers are leveraging the data from their Benchmark regularly, you should review your team's Premium report data monthly.
If there are schools that are not meeting the outlined expectations, we recommend scheduling targeted training sessions for those schools.
Measuring Progress
The final step in this process is to schedule and administer a follow-up Benchmark. This process will be similar to the steps outlined above:
- Create and schedule a follow-up Benchmark that directly aligns with the Benchmark administered earlier in the year.
- Share Benchmark directions and expectations with teachers (again, we recommend a 2-week administration window).
- Review high-level trends.
- Lastly, you may want to capture additional feedback from teachers regarding the process. What went well? What could help this process run smoothly in the future?
One piece of feedback we've received is having NoRedInk embedded into pacing guides helped teachers prioritize what content to teach during each semester.