Classroom Diagnostic Tools Program Overview

What are the Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT)?

The Pennsylvania Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT) is a set of online assessments, divided by content area, designed to provide diagnostic information in order to guide instruction and remediation. The CDT reporting system is fully integrated in the Standards Aligned System (SAS). It assists educators in identifying student academic strengths, and areas in need of improvement, by providing links to classroom resources. The diagnostic reports feature easy‐to‐follow links to targeted curricular resources and materials, including units and lesson plans found within the SAS system. The CDT is available to districts at no cost.

What is the Purpse of the CDT? 

The purpose of the CDT is to provide information that will help guide instruction by providing support to students and teachers. The CDT reports are designed to provide a picture or snapshot of how students are performing in relation to the Pennsylvania Assessment Anchors & Eligible Content and Keystone Assessment Anchors & Eligible Content. The CDT goes beyond focusing only on what students should know and be able to do at a particular grade and/or course. It also provides a snapshot of how and why students may still be struggling or extending beyond the grade and/or course Eligible Content. This valuable information is typically not identified through other types of assessments. Teachers, through the use of CDT reports, may access additional information through the Learning Progression Map. The Learning Progression Map allows teachers to pinpoint where students are currently on the learning continuum. The CDT helps identify and provide suggestions for “next steps” in student academic development.

What Types of Questions are Included in the CDT? 

The CDT consists of multiple‐choice questions, evidence-based selected-response questions, and technology enhanced items. Questions were developed to specifically align to the Pennsylvania Core Standards and/or Pennsylvania Asessment Anchors and Eligible Content. Content assessed on the CDT is similar to the content assessed by the Pennsylvania System of School Assessments (PSSA) and the Keystone Exams.

Who Should be Administered the CDT? 

The CDT is currently being offered to students in grade 3 through high school. It is available for use in schools and classrooms throughout the school year on a voluntary basis. Several options for student accommodations are available.

Why is the CDT Administered Online in a Computer Adaptive Format? 

To be truly diagnostic, the assessments need to provide a measure of a number of significant, high‐priority skills, concepts, or bodies of knowledge, such as the Eligible Content. The assessment also needs to include enough questions for each assessed Eligible Content in order to give teachers a reasonably accurate snapshot to determine student mastery of each skill or concept. To shorten the administration time while achieving these goals, the CDT questions are delivered in an adaptive, computer‐based format that provides for the delivery and administration of questions dynamically adapted to each student’s performance. This adaptive format ensures valid and reliable measures of each student’s skills that would have originally taken days or weeks to measure in a paper‐based format.

How Much Time is Needed to Administer the CDT? 

The CDT is untimed. In the computer adaptive format for the full CDT, each student may receive up to 50-60 items. Teachers may want to plan for 50 to 90 minutes to administer the full CDT.

For the Diagnostic Category CDTs, each student may receive 15-18 items for each writing, science, and math diagnostic category test. Teachers may want to plan for 20-30 minutes to administer each of the Diagnostic Category CDTs in these subject areas. The reading will be about half of the length of the full CDT. Teachers may want to plan for 35-45 for the reading Diagnostic Category CDTs.

If a break is needed, a pause feature is available for a student to take a short break. If the student needs to complete the assessment at another time, the exit feature allows the student to complete the assessment another day. Specific procedures and conditions for using the pause and exit features can be found in the CDT Administration Guide.

When Should the CDT be Administered to Students? 

When administered to students at the beginning of the school year, the CDT can provide teachers with a snapshot of students' stages of learning. This allows teachers to plan targeted instruction. Information from the CDT can also be used to provide teachers with an assessment of total student learning at a given point in, or over, time.

Each assessment can be administered a maximum of five times per school year. The recommended number of times for a student to take the full CDT is (3) three times a year. It is also recommended that the use of the Diagnostic Category CDT or a mix of the full CDT and DC CDT not exceed the equivalent of the completing 3 full CDTs. There should be enough time between CDT administrations to allow for instructional impact to be reflected in the student’s results.

What are the Potential Benefits of the CDT for Students? 

Benefits for STUDENTS include the following:

• Moves students along path toward career and college readiness
• Promotes teachers partnering with students to set learning goals
• Provides descriptive and timely feedback to students while in the process of learning and creating
• Builds efficacy bringing students into the process of their own learning
• Encourages goal‐setting
• Supports ownership

What are the Potential Benefits of the CDT for Teachers? 

Benefits for TEACHERS include the following:

• Access to immediate, detailed diagnostic reports
• Understand the strengths and needs of each student
• Provides tools needed to group students for different mini‐lessons throughout the school year depending on their needs and goals set for learning
• Gain insight into students’ strengths and needs during the school year, as well as focus their teaching for classes and grade level
• Provides immediate access to available SAS resources at students’ instructional level

Does the CDT Support Differentiated Instruction? 

The CDT provides information about student strengths and identifies areas for student improvement. Multiple sources of data and information, including the CDT, may be aligned to multiple instructional solutions to provide differentiated instruction.

How were Pennsylvania Educators Involved in the CDT Development Process? 

Similar to the development of the PSSA, Pennsylvania educators were involved in the development process of the CDT. Committees of Pennsylvania educators reviewed all questions for alignment to the Pennsylvania Assessment Anchors & Eligible Content, Keystone Assessment Anchors & Eligible Content, and Learning Progressions. Pennsylvania educators also reviewed all items for quality. They made final decisions regarding which questions would be included in the CDT. In addition, Pennsylvania educators approved all materials and resources used on the CDT and reports.

What are the Responsibilities of the District Coordinators?

DISTRICT TECHNOLOGY COORDINATORS are responsible for the following:

• Viewing Technology Coordinator training video
• Ensuring all computers used for CDT testing meet the minimum system requirements and are configured to support online computer testing
• Coordinating installation of the PA Online Assessment Software
• Working with the District Assessment Coordinator (DACs) to prepare and setup for CDT testing

DISTRICT ASSESSMENT COORDINATORS (DACs) are responsible for the following:

• Establishing communication with all School Assessment Coordinators (SACs) prior to the testing window
• Working with the District Technology Coordinators to ensure the online test system is accessible and software installed for all participating schools
• Setting up user accounts in the PA eDIRECT online system and provide training for the SACs
• Working with SACs to ensure online test setup of student, teacher, and class data is correct and complete prior to testing

What are the System Requirements? 

Test setup and software for the CDT is available through the DRC INSIGHT Portal, https://pa.drcedirect.com. The DRC INSIGHT System Requirements are posted quarterly on the portal. Below are the steps to navigate to the document:

• Click on My Applications
• Click on General Information
• Click on Documents
• Select All under Administration
• Select Technology for Document Type

DRC INSIGHT Portal requires the Web browser to support JavaScript and to accept session‐based cookies. By default, the major Web browsers are configured to handle these requirements.

If you have additional questions regarding the CDT program or setup, please contact:

PA Customer Support Team

Email: PAcustomerservice@datarecognitioncorp.com | Phone: (800)‐451‐7849