Beacon

Support a New Generation of Standards-Based Teaching and Learning

mCLASS Beacon is an enterprise-level formative assessment system with an interactive learning map that supports standards-based education for grades K12.

Power Your Formative Assessment

mCLASS Beacon empowers teachers across all grades to measure student mastery of standards and use formative assessment results to adjust instruction based on student needs.

Map paths to mastery

With a groundbreaking new way to see learning trajectories, track student progress, and inform instructional next steps in the context of your standards, the interactive learning map enables teachers to map paths to mastery at the individual and class level.

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Each hexagon represents a standard; this example is for math. White standards have yet to be assessed and colors indicate levels of mastery. Standards are mapped from bottom left to top right based on the optimal learning trajectory.

What is a learning trajectory?

An empirically supported developmental progression of how students move through successive refinements from informal to complex ideas, taking into consideration needed instructional practices, tasks, and tools The K12 learning trajectory for the Common Core State Standards in mathematics was created by mathematics expert Dr. Jere Confrey and served as a prototype for the design of the mCLASS Beacon learning map.

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Spot strengths others cant see

Teachers can zoom in to see how standards for an entire course of study relate to each other. Understanding performance on each standard in the sequence makes it easy for teachers to spot strengths that help students progress toward mastery.

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Icons indicate what each standard measures. Order and clustering shows connections between related standards; this example is geometry.

What does the learning map do?

Illustrates natural learning trajectories of how students acquire the standards included in the map in a developmentally appropriate sequence Indicates how well your students have mastered standards directly in the context of how those standards connect developmentally

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Connect Your Formative Assessment to Daily Classroom Practice

mCLASS Beacon helps teachers tightly connect instruction, assessment, analysis, and action with an easyto-use interface that streamlines the steps necessary for students to progress in line with standards.

See through walls

Teachers have easy access to item-level assessment detail for each standard to make the data more instructionally relevant. Viewing students work makes it easy to see where they are hitting walls by identifying misconceptions and learning barriers, and helping them overcome those obstacles.

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Details indicate what students know and what they are ready to learn next. Integrated rubrics for constructed responses facilitate reliable scoring. Knowing how students answered questions enables teachers to address misconceptions head-on.

What are the benefits?

Data Visualization: configure the interactive learning map for Math, English Language Arts, Science, and other subjects to view an entire course of study and students progress through the learning trajectory at a glance Flexible Access: aggregate and access data from all assessments in multiple ways via interactive learning map, item-level, or matrix view

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Beacon

Change the future

Teachers can group students with similar needs and create targeted instructional plans for each group. They also can access professional development resources that promote the use of formative assessment data to adapt and target instruction. These tools help teachers make sense of complex data and respond in-time to change the future.

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Groups can be generated by the system or customized or by the teacher. Students with similar skills or needs are grouped together based on item-level data. Resources can be customized based on district or state requirements and goals.

Easy Analysis: make quick connections between standards and item-level analysis within the same interface, compare student, class, or school performance on each standard, and track progress over time

Instructional Planning: group students with similar needs and create targeted instructional plans or link to just-in-time professional development and instructional resources, such as online lesson plans

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Take Action With Your Formative Assessment Data

mCLASS Beacon provides a suite of reports and services that support fidelity of implementation across classrooms, evaluate program effectiveness, and promote taking action with formative assessment data.

Be everywhere at once
Aggregate-level reports can detect performance patterns, identify successful teachers, and determine professional development needs to help you allocate limited resources for maximum impact on student achievement.

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Determine whether instructional programs are effective at moving students from one risk level to another. Each column represents students risk level last period. Each bar shows how the same students performed during the current period. Track progress across schools to highlight effective practices and instructional programs.

What are the Basic Features?

Content Flexibility: support a wide range of content for interim and benchmark assessments or build custom solutions through our partnerships with third party standardsaligned assessments Item Management: import existing assessment items, search items from a variety of item banks, or create new items

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Lift an entire school with one finger

Our services introduce teachers to new ways of analyzing formative assessment results and determining instructional next steps using mCLASS Beacon. These services are provided by former educators and range from basic implementation and training to professional development customized to meet the dynamic needs of your school(s). Our Taking Action with Data methodology is rooted in established, research-based practices and informs our approach across schools nationwide.

Taking Action with Data

DATA INFERENCE

DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION

CYCLES OF INQUIRY

DATA CONVERSATIONS

Standards Alignment: align items with state standards, college-readiness standards, or the Common Core State Standards

Assessment Management: create and edit items and rubrics for multiple choice, true or false, short answer, or constructed response and administer online with real-time scoring or offline with batch scoring of scanned assessments

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To get started with mCLASS Beacon, visit us at www.wirelessgeneration.com/get-started or contact an educational partner in your area call 800-823-1969; option 1.

2012 Wireless Generation, Inc. Wireless Generation and mCLASS BeaconTM are registered trademarks of Wireless Generation, Inc.