7 Ways to Use TestHound to Navigate Stress in Stride
Being in the business of education can be stressful. With all the demands that are on our shoulders it can be hard to take time to breathe. It seems when one task is completed another one arises to take its place.
Technology has afforded us many ways to stay connected and makes some tasks a little easier, but sometimes the drive to check our technology can be consuming, demanding more of a commodity we all have so little of, time. Technology is so easily accessible we often find ourselves checking email late at night, doing “one more thing” at the end of the day. It is hard to turn it off, step away, and stay away.
It is important to remember to take time to do the things that relax you. Take a walk, read a chapter in a book, watch a movie, have family game night, do arts and crafts with your kids. Find something that will allow you to step away for a while, undistracted. Perhaps the biggest piece of advice, which can be truly hard, is not to feel guilty for stepping away.
One of the things I love about Education Advanced is we exist to give time back to educators. Whether you are a test coordinator who wants to save time scheduling student assessments, a counselor who needs to track student performance history, or a principal building a list of students for a field trip, you can do it quickly with TestHound. Many of our users utilize the system to organize students for a variety of reasons other than test scheduling!
The next time someone comes to you needing a list of students, log in to TestHound to help. Here are a few ideas for the unique ways you can use TestHound to save time:
- Organize students for a field trip or for graduation. Create a local test entitled Field Trip or Graduation. Add students based on grade or course. Organize rows for graduation or bus numbers for a field trip by creating rooms on the Room tab in TestHound, (i.e., Row 1, Row 2, Bus 1, Bus 2). Move students in the rows or buses based on capacity.
- Use TestHound to create an inventory list for technology such as Chromebooks, iPads, laptops, etc. Create a local test administration, (i.e., Chromebooks). Add students by grade or course. Create rooms based on how you want to organize the Chromebooks. Students could also be arranged in rooms by class period if needed. Once all the students are added to the administration, download the information in a spreadsheet and add a column entitled barcode. Use your TestHound scanner to scan each barcode into the spreadsheet column beside each student’s name. You can even go to Reports and print labels with the student’s name and room number to stick on the device.
- Organize local campus and district benchmarks. Are you responsible for organizing students when local benchmarks are given? Use TestHound to create a local administration, add students to the test, filter by accommodations and print reports and a master schedule for the campus. If you want to use your test setup for multiple administrations, use the Copy feature to copy your test to other administrations.
- Use Performance Tracker’s EOC Tracker to filter for a list of students in special populations, to filter for performance history, or to filter for students who did or did not meet standard. Download your report to a spreadsheet and print it out.
- Use Auto Pilot to filter for students who have accommodations and print out a master accommodations report or room accommodations report if students have been placed in rooms within an administration.
- Look up a student’s schedule. Go to the Students tab, click on the student’s name to view their school day schedule.
- Consider downloading the new Student Test Accommodations report if you attend a meeting for a student where accommodations updates are needed. To access this report, add students to the test by grade or course. Then click on Reports and choose Student Test ACC and print the page for the student needed.
As you look for ways to help you navigate a work-life balance, remember TestHound is here to help you quickly organize and summarize student information at any given time, for any event needed. This will give you back time to do the things you really need to focus on and hopefully some time to stop and do some things you enjoy, too!
