Familiarizing Elementary Students with MIST

Susan B. Dold, Ed. D.doldsb@scsk12.org

Facts about MIST

• MIST is a practice site and a testing site.• The practice materials are there so students can

practice using the site; responses will not be scored, and the student papers cannot be easily printed.

• The practice prompts will be removed by January 31 so the February testing information can be uploaded.

• Using this site will be stressful for some children; it is crucial that they practice before February.

Suggestions for Using the Student Practice Tests

• Log in as a student (the fake one) and model it for them using your projector or SMART Board. – Show them how to log in.– Go over all the directions and demonstrate using the

text editing tools.– Model highlighting key words in the reading passages

using the highlighting tool.– Demonstrate how to “dissect” the writing prompts.– Show students how to go from prompt to passage, and

so forth.

Important Information

More About Practice

• Go through both passages and both writing tasks to show students how the system works.

• Take it all the way to the “Finish” screen, or you won’t be able to exit the test.

• Remember that you can assign the test to your practice student multiple times, so you can repeat this process, as necessary.

Final Thoughts• Give students enough practice with the system that they

don’t “freak out” during the actual test.• Continue to work on improving the quality of their writing

using either word processing or handwritten papers.• Refer to the TNCORE website for scored sample papers

and rubrics http://tncore.org/english_language_arts/writing_test.aspx

• Contact me if I can be of any additional assistance. Dr. Susan Dold @ doldsb@scsk12.org