Even if Texas weather says otherwise, it is officially Fall! Congratulations on making your way through another Beginning of Year. You've hit the ground running, and you are knee-deep in planning and administering formative and summative assessments.

Don't forget that we are here to support you and your team. Our tools are designed to positively impact progress in your classrooms. We love to work with teachers and administrators to implement best practices in assessment and data analysis. Reach out any time!

In this edition, you'll find information about the latest features of our products, upcoming events, and helpful resources.

Come visit our booth & join the conversation as we present at the following events:

HOUSTON | Texas Social Studies Supervisors Association, OCTOBER 26

Round Rock | Texas Assessment Conference (TAC), November 6-8

Region 10 | 5th Annual R10 & R11 Assessment Conference, January 17

Austin | TASA Midwinter Conference, January 28-31



Speaking of TAC...

TEKSbank makes assessing with Tech Enhanced Items simple. Interested in how TEKSbank is growing? Check out our live dashboard (just click the image above) with the breakdown of item types per content area. We think you'll be impressed by TEKSbank's 17,000+ TEIs!

That's right, we are at 17,000 TEIs, and we are still publishing approximately 1,000 new TEIs a month. We won't stop until we reach our goal of offering you 20,000 TEIs for your formative and summative assessments. Keep checking our current item bank numbers by visiting our dashboard!

A complete audit of the DOK for every item has been underway and is almost complete. Our goal is to provide teachers and administrators the highest level of confidence in their ability to use our DOK tag to build effective assessments for students.

We begin our yearly audit of the standards that were the lowest scoring on the 2023 STAAR and EOC assessments. We know these standards are hard to teach and hard to learn, so we want to provide as much support as possible and ensure that teachers have plenty of questions to use in their classroom as they work through this school year. 

In December 2021, the revised Science TEKS were approved by the SBOE. These revised standards will be implemented in the 2024-2025 school year. The TEKSbank team will begin realigning all science items with the goal to have them completed in time for summer 2024 curriculum writing. Be sure to check out future newsletters to stay up-to-date on our realignment process and timelines. Check out this link to view TEA's TEKS and Instructional Materials Review and Adoption Schedule.

Additionally, TEA recently announced that they would add inline choice and match-table-grid items to future science STAAR assessments. Our subject matter experts are already on the case, and you will start to see these items in the bank over the next school year!

Did you know TEKSbank now has Kindergarten and First Grade items?

Earlier this year, the TEKSbank team began developing items for Kindergarten and First Grade students. There are a few hundred items currently available, and we have a team of experienced teachers creating more right now! You can expect to see about 800 items that address Reading and Math Readiness Standards by January. In the spring, we will begin writing and developing Science and Social Studies items.

You'll notice that the K/1 items have a different "look and feel" than the rest of TEKSbank. It is our goal to provide Kindergarten and First Grade teachers with a formative assessment tool that is developmentally appropriate and unbiased, simple to use, and provides actionable data. We look forward to hearing your feedback so that we can make TEKSbank the best tool for YOUR K/1 assessment practice.

Have you joined the class yet? No? Hey, come on in and learn more about how TbC provides seamless assessment integration into your classroom curriculum through Google Classroom, Canvas, and Schoology!

✋ Want to join the class? We can't wait to do a group project together (really!). Get started here!

💻 Already a part of the class and just want training? Let us know here!

EDITING

TEKSbank Classroom's most recent updates include activity editing and sharing! This means that teachers can access a previously assigned activity that has been deactivated, make changes to it, and assign it again.

SHARING

We love when teachers collaborate and share. Why not save some time and energy when you can? TbC now allows teachers to create an activity and share with others. For example, a fourth grade teacher can create an exit ticket for a math lesson and share the activity with teammates in just a few clicks.

SUBMITTING FEEDBACK

Your feedback is important to us, and with 100K items in the bank, we need your help! If you come across an item that is less than stellar, please let us know. Just click the 👎 the right side of the item. Then specify what is wrong with the content. When you click Send Feedback, our team gets the message directly and begins working on a resolution.

Join us for the next installment of TEKSbank Classroom's monthly webinar on November 28 at 4pm.

And if you really like to plan ahead, you can register for February as well!

Thank you to all who attended our September 26 TEKSbank Classroom webinar! Were you absent? That's okay; you can view - share - subscribe - like the recording ➡️ here!

And, because we like to give the gift of time and mean it 😉... we went ahead and embedded the video into the presentation here or use bit.ly/TBC-September23

TRAINING for TEKSbank and TEKSbank Classroom

Let's talk training: Put us in, coach!

We are part of the team now, and we would love to come to your school (in-person/ online/ teleportation) to help with training for TEKSbank Classroom. Anyone in your organization can book training via this link: training.TEKSbankClassroom.com

Thank you for letting our team be part of your team this year. As committed educators, ourselves, we are passionate about providing content and professional learning to the changemakers in Texas impacting students every day.

Please reach out to (y)our team at any time!