Watch the Spring 2019 video now.
Our goal is to keep you informed about updates rolling out now and in the near future.
The following products received updates.
The AR Word Count Report now has a Do Not Group option so the report can be run for the whole school, showing schoolwide summary totals of number of words read. A new Total column has been added to show the total word count for all books, articles and textbook passages quizzed on, in addition to a breakdown of words read by type.
Students who take the Algebra or Geometry tests in grades 7-12 will now have Algebra or Geometry domain scores populate in the Mastery View, regardless of the student’s specific grade level, providing educators with the mastery data they need to gauge progress and guide instruction for Algebra or Geometry.
Star Math will now report Quantile Measures for students in grades 3-8, providing educators with additional insights into students’ math knowledge and progress in states, districts, and schools in which Quantile Measures are used or required.
AR Goals and Certifications are now available in the AR Record Book.
Users can now use OneRoster 1.1, in addition to OneRoster 1.0, for importing student and other information into Renaissance.
Selecting skills that students are ready to learn is now easier. Teachers now have a clearer view of where students are placed in the context of their Star scores and the learning progression as they are lesson planning. We’ve also made improvements to how teachers can find and search for skills. Teachers can use the tabs to easily find recommended skills based on Star assessments, browse skills by domain, or find assessments and content that they have previously created.
Lesson Plan management improvements, including the ability to delete lesson plans.
Instructional Resources (Renaissance & Open Educational Resources - OERs) are now assignable through Star Reading, Star Math, and Star Early Literacy for our customers upgraded to the Renaissance Growth Platform. This update provides a seamless connection between assessment results, practice, and instruction, and improves lesson plan management with the added ability to view and delete existing lesson plans.
The State Standards Mastery Class Report is updated to include Projected Mastery of state standards and printable PDFs, providing educators with insight into potential for growth in an easy-to-use format.
The Star Longitudinal Report is now available. The report displays the progress of the same group of students compared to district benchmark data over the past 3-5 years, providing administrators with the historical data they need to measure progress and performance of students over time.
Continued improvements to make pages load faster.
Record Book is now available showing a view of last quiz taken for each student in the class and a view of all quizzes taken by a single student in current and previous school year. Other actions such as deactivation, rescore, view TOPS report, and transfer a record can also be done from here.
District administrators can now track progress of grade-level standards mastery across the district with the new State Standards Report - District.
Users with only Star products (Star Reading, Star Math, Star Early Literacy, or Star Custom) can now use Renaissance Home Connect to have email notifications sent out when students complete an assessment.
Both the Lexile® Range Preference and the Star assessment report options will now drive Lexile® Range to appear on several Star Reading and Star Early Literacy reports.
When a PR (Percentile Rank) goal is set, you can now see the Expected Goal Growth Rate on the Star Student Progress Monitoring reports.
Teachers and administrators will now have the option to select multiple assignment types when using the Student Performance Record report. This will allow them to view multiple assignment types by student on one report.
TOPS reports now use new fonts, formatting, and layout to enhance the motivational aspects of the reports. For Reading Practice and Other Reading Quizzes, students now have the option to toggle to a Spanish version of the same report.
Students will be automatically prompted to complete quizzes that were started on or after 11/17/2018, including AR book quizzes, AR360 Article quizzes, and AR360 Skills Practice quizzes. The student will have the option to complete or delete the quiz. If the student chooses to complete the quiz, they will resume where they left off. These actions may require a monitor password if that preference is set.
The Lexile® Measures preference is now called the Lexile® Range preference. The description now explains that the preference controls if Lexile ranges are shown in both Star reports, and also used for setting Accelerated Reader Book Level Restrictions.
Star Test Activity Reports now show failed and attempted tests.
Expected Goal Growth Rates (SS/Week) have been added to the Star Student Progress Monitoring Reports when a Scaled Score Goal is set, allowing educators to better track student progress towards the goal and adjust the intervention if necessary.
Students now have advanced search options, such as clearing filters and retaining filter choices made for Lexile, Book Level, and Interest Level.
Student Performance Record Report now includes a student point total in the updated summary row. Educators also won’t need to scroll on the page to see the important information about the books a student has read.
Users now have the ability to delete Star Custom assignments and assign OER's (open educational resources) to their students.
Star Custom expanded the character limit to 10,000 characters for constructed response items and now provide the student with word and character counts. Teachers will also see word and character count when hand scoring the constructed response items.
On the Mastery Dashboard, "Other Subject Areas" is now at the bottom instead of the top of the list.
Simplified the Profile settings where you can change your password and add or update your email address for password recovery.
New preference added allowing a school to set a timeframe for when students can retake a quiz - after 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 school years. Or they can leave it set to the default of never allowing students to retake a quiz.
Students can see the "% of points goal earned" metric on their progress page.
On the My Completed Work tab (formerly the Bookshelf), students can search for completed quizzes by title, quiz number, or author.
Students can search for a books by book level, interest level, or points using new advanced filters.
On the score page, students will now see the green checkmarks and red X icons in the order of how the quiz questions were answered, giving students a better idea of which questions were correct or incorrect.
On the Mastery Dashboard, “Other Subject Areas” is now at the bottom instead of the top of the list.
All Accelerated Reader updates listed above are included.
All Star Assessment updates listed above are included.
Administrators can copy previous school year’s courses and class structure to start creating the new school year set-up.
Star District Dashboards can be filtered by grade level.
Screening report can be grouped by teacher.
Star Diagnostic Report can be sorted by class/group and teacher.
Mastery Dashboard includes Early Literacy Mastery for Subdomains.
Mastery is only calculated for activities from the current school year.
Teachers and administrators can't generate or see auto-created benchmark groups in the group picker. Teachers can create benchmark groups, which are useful for instruction and reports, using the Manage Groups tool. All the benchmark reports will continue to function the same as before.
Input dates in a numerical format when selecting a custom date range.
Practice Parent Report can be sorted by grade or student’s last name.
Summary Diagnostic Report can be grouped by a grade.
Students on the Star Growth report can be grouped by teacher or not grouped.
Star Parent Report can be sorted by grade or student’s last name.
All Accelerated Reader 360 updates listed above are included.
Help guides provide guidance during new or unfamiliar tasks.
Assignment types available on each report are limited to the appropriate assignment types for the report.
Students are alphabetically listed by student’s last name when selecting students on reports.
All report data clearly prints on the page when generating a pdf.
Star and AR can have two separate monitor passwords.
Historical student quiz record extracts are available.
Quizzes can be deleted (deactivated) from Track Student Work dashboard.
A parent/guardian email can be added to a student's Home Connect account. Emails are delivered after a student has completed a quiz or activity.
Page break options and the ability to hide groups without data on reports minimizes the use of paper.
Students will always see their point totals (even if a goal has not been set) for the selected marking period on their Progress page. This allows students to keep track of their own totals.
Goals can be tied to a marking period, making it easier to update students' goals if the marking period dates need to change.
Star and AR 360 can have two separate monitor passwords.
Historical student quiz record data extracts are available.
A parent/guardian email can be added to a student's Home Connect account. Emails are delivered after a student has completed a quiz or activity. Includes AR 360 article activities!
Page breaks options and the ability to hide groups without data on reports minimizes the use of paper.
Many Star reports have option to page break after a class, group or student.
Report option allows you to select the Enterprise or Unified scale. Enterprise scale is the default.
Historical extract and growth expectation extracts are available.
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