Pear Assessment (formerly Edulastic) is a web-based tool designed to assist teachers and school administrators in developing and monitoring online assessments. In creating assessments, educators can choose questions from a large assessment bank or create their own in more than 30 question types, many of which are comparable to technology-enhanced question types utilized in standardized testing.
What is Pear Assessment?Pear Assessment (formerly Edulastic) is a digital tool which allows educators to assess students’ standards of mastery. Built-in content permits teachers to choose questions from a large assessment bank or create their own questions in various formats such as multiple choice, drag and drop, essay, and more. Students who complete assessments can choose to do so via the web or by using smartphones.
Pear Assessment can be used for:
Differentiation Pear Assessment allows teachers to integrate multimedia into quizzes, tests, and worksheets, making it easier to create and assign flexible and differentiated assessments to various learners. The Text-to-Speech (TTS) feature allows teachers to provide “read-aloud” accommodations for students.
Content Management Pear Assessment integrates well with Google Classroom, Canvas, and other Learning Management Systems (LMS), making it easy to share assignments, sync class rosters, and update gradebooks.
Collaboration is encouraged, as teachers can share and use assessments across schools and districts. Students also have the opportunity to work on group assessments assigned by teachers.
Pear Assessment allows teachers to store created content which could be used in the future. There are folders teachers can use to organize and manage created content.
Progress Monitoring The anti-cheating features on Pear Assessment allow teachers to track students’ work and achievements live. The autograding feature makes it possible for students to receive immediate feedback on assessments. Teachers can use progress reports from formative assessments to identify learning gaps, plan, and decide on effective interventions that would help students achieve their goals.
Teacher accounts can be created by using licenses from educational institutions’ paid subscriptions (Custom plan), by subscribing to the “Individual Teacher Premium” plan, or by using the free account option available. The free account permits teachers to access Pear Assessment’s basic features. The paid accounts allow teachers to leverage additional features.
If using the Custom plan, students and teacher accounts will be populated by the school or district. If using the free account or Individual Teacher Premium, teacher and student accounts will be created individually. Information such as username, email addresses, grade levels taught, school districts teachers belong to, and subjects taught will be collected. Pear Assessment complies with the Privacy Shield Framework standards, so personal information collected from users is not sold to other parties.
Pear Assessment abides by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), allowing users to create content that is accessible to all, including people with disabilities. Only available through paid subscriptions, the Text-to-Speech (TTS) feature can be enabled by teachers to support all students, especially those with visual impairments. With the TTS feature, the option of reading aloud assessments is made available to students.