2018-2019 Release Notes

Star Assessments

• The Star Early Literacy Diagnostic Report now includes the option for educators to view either Star Early Literacy Subdomains and Skill Sets or State Standards Domains. This update provides educators a way to easily and quickly view and print performance for all early learning subdomains and skill sets for all students in their class on a single page report. Additional enhancements for the report include:
  • the option to show/hide the Benchmark Bar
  • the option to show/hide Student ID
• The Star Student Progress Monitoring Report, for Star Reading and Star Math, now allows both Enterprise Assessments and Progress Monitoring Assessments to be generated on the same report so educators will have a complete picture of a student’s progress.
• We now provide data to determine if students are on track to meet ACT/SAT college readiness benchmark expectations in reading and math. This allows educators to address student needs and help prepare them for success.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• District and school administrator users can now create custom reports. The User Created Reports will contain the same metrics as the Customizable Status Report with the addition of options such as benchmarks and SGP.
  • When administrators generate new custom reports, some may take a while to complete. A notification will appear telling them they can come back later to retrieve the completed report. Reports are saved and can be viewed for up to 14 months.
  • Administrators have the option to export data to CSV or to PDF.

Star Assessments

• Lexile® Measure and Lexile® Range are now available on Star Reading Spanish Reports.

Accelerated Reader

• The Point Club Summary Report now gives you:
  • Customization functionality to change the point club values from the default values
  • More choice in what Point Clubs show, such as show only the Highest Point Club, All Point Clubs, or another point club.
  • Improved design with the addition of custom columns and dynamic headers based on the Point Club group selected
  • More data with the addition of Date Joined and Quiz Type information displayed
  • Group by Point Club in the Assignment Selector for other reporting options
• Points Management
  • The Track Awarded/Used Points link has been added to the Record Book & Goals screen and allows you to manage points from either the Class View or the Individual Student Details View.
  • Class view allows you to:
    • View a high-level snapshot of points for each student in the class
    • Add or use points for the entire class with only a few clicks
    • Add or use points for various students from the Award/Use Points column
    • Print a PDF
  • Individual student details view allows you to:
    • View a high-level Point Summary that includes points earned and points available
    • View historical information on each time the student was awarded and used points
    • Take action by editing or deleting the student’s point record
    • Print a PDF

Accelerated Reader

• The Quiz Takers Report now includes data for teacher-made quizzes.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Single-School imports now include course ID and class ID.

Accelerated Reader

• The redesigned Quiz Takers Report makes it easier to quickly review students’ scores on specific titles. The report can now be run for the entire school and no longer has restrictions about how many titles can be selected.

Star Assessments

• The Star Growth report will now provide educators with the SGP scores they need to track student growth in the early grades for students who are transitioning from being non-readers taking Star Early Literacy to becoming readers taking Star Reading.

Accelerated Reader/Accelerated Reader 360

• Students can now access nonfiction articles and quizzes.
• Teachers can now preview articles and quizzes
• The Goal History Report (Reading) now includes a new assignment selector, menu options based on where you came from, updates to report outputs, and removal of horizontal scrolling
• The Summary Diagnostic Report now includes a new assignment selector that will allow you to run the report with totals across all types of Accelerated Reader comprehension activities. Other minor updates to report outputs and improvements to formatting, making it easier to read the report.
• The Student Performance Record Report can now be run for all types of Accelerated Reader activities, including the nonfiction articles. You can now see their complete quizzing history on one report.

Star Assessments

• Educators can now categorize achievement of students taking Star Reading Spanish (Grades 1-8), Star Math Spanish (Grades 1-8), and Star Early Literacy (Grades K-3) to identify level of risk and the need for additional resources or support with benchmarks based on Spanish norms. Star Spanish benchmarks are available as a reporting option on the Screening (new for Star Spanish!), Annual Progress, and Diagnostic Reports.
• The following updates are based on educator feedback and will provide improved ease of use and insight as growth data is reviewed.
  • The Growth Report now includes a score definitions legend providing educators with quick reference to the scores provided on the report. Each score is hyperlinked to the help file for additional information.
  • The Goal History Report (Reading) now includes a new assignment selector, menu options based on where you came from, updates to report outputs, and removal of horizontal scrolling
  • After customization options have been made on the Growth Report, the “Update Report” button will now scroll to the beginning of the report rather than require the user to scroll down manually from the customization options.
  • For clear distinction, the Summary portion of the Growth Report is now indented and for context the selected Growth Expectation is displayed in the SGP columns.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• In Home Connect parents and guardians can now add up to 6 email addresses and select which student activities to be notified about
• The Student Performance Record Report now includes a new assignment selector, assignment menu options are based on which page you came from. Other minor updates to report outputs and improvements to formatting, making it easier to read the report.

myON

• The book info modal now includes an AR link with ATOS & points
• Educators and students can now organize their “myList” books into Book Bundles
• Educators can use Bundles to add multiple books to a new or existing project all at once
• Educators are now able to create book set recommendations from the myList book Bundles they have created
• General improvements and issue fixes

Accelerated Math Instructional Practice

• The Summary Diagnostic now automatically selects the math practice assignments for you when you access this report from the Math Practice reports tab. Other minor updates to report outputs and improvements to formatting, making it easier to read the report.

Accelerated Reader/Accelerated Reader 360

• Educators can now edit quiz dates in the AR Record Book. Changing a quiz date may alter the student’s progress towards goals.
• The new Goals Met Report will help you quickly get a list of the students who have met their goals for a marking period.
• The new Passing Percentage Preference allows administrators to change what percent correct will count as passing for AR quizzes. Changing this preference will impact any quizzes taken after you have updated the preference and will not change student’s previous quiz records.
• The AR Record Book is now the place to go to manage and view student quiz records. Given increased functionality and ease of use in the Record Book, we have removed AR Quizzes from the Track Student Work and Review Student Work Dashboards.
• 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.

Star Assessments

• 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.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Removed the Goal History report from the Math Reports tab.

Accelerated Reader

• AR Goals and Certifications are now available in the AR Record Book.

Accelerated Reader 360

• Lesson Plan management improvements, including the ability to delete lesson plans.

Star Assessments

• 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.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• The Reports navigator pages have a new look and more options: the Dashboard Navigator was renamed Reports, there is a new tab layout, there is a new background color, and you can pin frequently used reports on each tab
• 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.

Accelerated Reader/Accelerated Reader 360

• 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.

Star Assessments

• 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.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Continued resolution of bugs.
• Continued improvements to make pages load faster.

Star Assessments

• 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.
• The Test Activity Report now has separate columns showing incomplete practice Star tests and failed practice Star tests.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Continued resolution of bugs.
• Continued improvements to make pages load faster.