Michigan Collaborative Scoring System (MI-CSS), powered by OSCAR Classroom
Administer MAEIA performance assessments, then use our new online platform to collaboratively score student responses. MI-CSS enables teachers to view, score, and comment on their own student work and that of colleagues in their discipline elsewhere in Michigan.
Collaborative scoring is powerful professional learning for teachers
Performance assessment is one of the most useful forms of student assessment, and teacher collaborative scoring of student work is among the most powerful forms of professional learning for teachers. With our collaborative scoring process, teachers from across Michigan become your team members as you use MAEIA performance assessments, score each other’s student work with MI-CSS software, and talk about what you see. You’ll check your standards for scoring with those of your scoring colleagues and determine how accurately you’re assessing your students; you’ll develop higher standards for quality student work; and, gain instructional ideas from your scoring colleagues to help refine your teaching.
Build reliability in your assessment scoring and reporting
Collaborative scoring with MI-CSS software enables teachers to view, score, and comment on their own student work and that of colleagues in their discipline elsewhere in Michigan. Within a team of like-minded colleagues, teachers identify what constitutes good student work; in this way, reliability of scoring is achieved through peer review.
Join MI-CSS alone or with colleagues.
You can register for collaborative scoring within MI-CSS as an individual, or as part of a team of school/district/ISD colleagues. To learn more and get started, contact Ed Roeber, MAEIA Assessment Director.
Have a question? Browse our most frequently asked questions.
Each teacher who wants to join should provide the information required in the MI-CSS registration form (located at the top right-hand side of our Collaborative Scoring page). Once you have shared your information, MI-CSS site administrators will review your application and either accept your application or send you any questions they have about your application. This step is necessary to assure that only certified educators who are employed in a Michigan school are given access to the site, since it contains student-identifiable information and graphics. This also assures that your student assessments are second scored by credentialed educators.
No, you don’t. The only requirement is that you are a certified Michigan educator, and that you have responded accurately about the discipline and grade range(s) you wish to score.
Registration is quick and easy. Once you have been accepted, you will receive the credentials needed to log in, establish one or more classes , upload students, and select the assessments to be used by each class. Once you have assessed students, their work can be uploaded to MI-CSS by you or your students. You can score each student in just a few minutes or less, and complete scoring in one or more scoring sessions. Thus, the time needed for scoring can be spread out over two or more sessions of a length you determine. Tutorial information for most MI-CSS functionality can be found at the top of each page, by clicking “Need help?” under your user account drop-down (top right-hand corner).
Participants can conduct the assessments and scoring in one or more classes. One class is the minimum and there is no maximum number that you are limited to.
MI-CSS is completely flexible. Upload as many students as you wish to score. If you are teaching a very large class (e.g., a large band or orchestra) and only desire an overall group estimate of performance, you may wish to sample a subset of your students. For example, in a group of 100 students, a sample of 1 out of 4 students (equaling a total sub-group of 25) may be adequate. To select a sample, select a random number between 1 and X, where X is the denominator in the fraction that describes the sample to be chosen (in this case, ¼ so 4 is used). Then select every fourth student. This should be result in a sample of about 25 students.
The work of your students will be scored anonymously by one or more teachers who have identified the same discipline and grade level as you identified for your students. Using the Inter-scorer Comment & Student Feedback functions built into MI-CSS, you and the other teacher(s) scoring the work of your students can exchange notes about the performance, or any special scoring considerations, of any student.
Yes, teachers are requested to score at least as many students from other teachers as they have scored of their own students. If you uploaded and scored the work of 25 students, please score at least this number of students from other teachers. This will assure that the scoring is truly “collaborative.”
MI-CSS can assist educators to demonstrate their effectiveness for educator evaluation in two ways. First, many of the MAEIA assessments can be administered in a pre-post instructional mode, so MI-CSS can show gains in student performance, along with samples of student work pre- and post-test. This will permit you to describe gains in student achievement numerically, as well as to show examples of student gains. There might be students who did not initially respond, or did so poorly, but who later demonstrated much higher performance. Teachers might show how students who did well at the outset of the school year later showed even higher performance.
MI-CSS could also be used as place for teachers to store video of their instruction – for the entire class, sub-groups of students, or individual students. This might assist the teacher to show the instructional practices that facilitated the achievement gains that students demonstrated. These videos and other instructional documentation will not be collaboratively scored, but remain available for educator use in demonstrating their effectiveness for educator evaluation.
Watch an overview of MI-CSS, powered by Oscar Classroom, to see how the online scoring platform works.
"MI-CSS changed the way I looked at assessments. By connecting and sharing scoring techniques, I was able to see my own grading bias and refine my teaching. The system is adaptable to meet your students' needs wherever they are at, and the platform is improving all the time. I can't wait to see how this program improves in the future! "
Zach VanderGraaff, K-5 Music Teacher
