ACE (Adolescent Comprehension Evaluation): A Solution Provided by LiteracyACE & Surpass
Join Dr. Mary Jean Tecce DeCarlo and Dr. Lori Severino from the School of Education at Drexel University, as they provide an update on their decision to utilise Surpass for the creation and delivery of the ACE (Adolescent Comprehension Evaluation) assessment.
ACE has been developed by Drexel University to provide a much-needed tool for assessing reading comprehension ability of students in grades 6-8. Research carried out by the School of Education revealed that students, particularly those with special educational needs, were being impacted by inadequate reading instruction due to a lack of appropriate assessment tools. By utilising Surpass for ACE, teachers gain access to extensive reporting data to better inform teaching instruction.
This promises to be a fascinating update on an innovative solution to improving the assessment experience for everyone. Join Dr. DeCarlo and Dr. Severino as they give an insight into the challenges they faced, why this problem needed solving, and why Surpass was chosen as the platform to best facilitate the ACE programme.
This podcast episode is a recording of the presentation given at the Surpass Conference in October 2020.
Lori Severino, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education and co-owner of LiteracyACE, an educational technology company. Her research interests include dyslexia, creativity, reading comprehension and teacher training. Currently, she is working with faculty from the school of education and biomedical engineering to create a reading comprehension we-based assessment for adolescents (ACE) that uses fNIR technology to ensure the questions to the reading passages are text-based, an important factor to reduce test bias. She is co-author of a new book entitled Using Creativity to Address Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia: Assessments and Techniques (2021). Dr. Severino is the 2019 recipient of the Floyd G. Hudson Service Award from the International Council of Learning Disabilities for her work with the Read by 4th campaign and the School District of Philadelphia. She recently led a project to develop 6 weeks of summer content for Prekindergarten through 2nd grade delivered entirely online and free worldwide: www.readingpromise.org/summerlearning
Mary Jean Tecce DeCarlo, Ed.D. is an Associate Clinical Professor of Literacy Studies at Drexel University and co-founder of LiteracyAce, an education technology company. During her nearly 30 years in education, Dr. DeCarlo has been a classroom teacher, a curriculum leader, and a college professor. At Drexel she has focused her research on reading comprehension and meaning making, the development of information and digital literacy skills for learners K- 12, and innovative teacher education pedagogies. Dr. DeCarlo is working with colleagues in education and biomedical engineering to create ACE (Adolescent Comprehension Evaluation), a digital reading comprehension tool. ACE uses brain-imaging techniques to validate that its test questions are text-based and has created a novel approach to measuring student progress. Her recent publications include a new book from Springer Science, Learning in Information Rich Environments: I-LEARN and the Construction of Knowledge from Information and “Critical Literacy as a Lens for Students’ Evaluation of Sources in an AP World History Class” in the journal The Social Studies.
If you’d prefer to watch this presentation, along with others from the event, you can do so on the conference website.
Join the Surpass Community and sign up to our mailing list so you’re the first to hear about future news and events.
