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WIDA Assessment Specialist

Salary:

Minimum $65,000 ANNUAL (12 months)
Depending on Qualifications

Job Summary:

The Assessment Specialist position is located within the Assessment department and will report to the Assessment Director of Operations. This position will be responsible for the annual quality-control processes to ensure on-time and accurate delivery of one or more assessment programs. This includes ensuring the new features are in place, and that supporting documentation and training reflects the changes. It also includes collaboration with marketing and communications to ensure customers understand changes and new features. It also requires coordination with an external assessment vendor and a sales vendor to ensure year-over-year goals are aligned. In addition, this role offers the opportunity to work on research projects related to understanding and improving WIDA's assessments. The Assessment Specialist would be part of a research team and offer both customer insight and operational support to that team.

Working fully remote is an option for this position within the United States (working remotely internationally is not an option). Requests to work remotely would need to be reviewed based on the UW and School of Education (SoE) remote work policies and go through the SoE implementation process. To learn more about these policies, visit https://businessoffice.education.wisc.edu/human-resources/remote-work/.

WIDA is committed to challenging linguistic discrimination, cultural biases, and racism in education. WIDA values linguistic and cultural diversity both as an end and a means for success in the field of education. As such, we strongly encourage applications from a diverse pool of candidates who champion social justice as a core value.

Responsibilities: Provides subject matter expertise in the development of assessment content and participates in the creation of assessment administration and scoring materials for one or more assessment programs.
  • 25% Assists with the design and development of assessment content, both with internal colleagues and with vendors, including reviewing testing materials, making necessary revisions to items, and recommending items to be replaced or rearranged on pilot or operational forms
  • 25% Assists with the creation and refinement of assessment scoring and assessment administration materials
  • 20% Participates in annual quality-control processes to ensure on-time and accurate delivery of one or more assessment programs
  • 10% Supports other internal stakeholder groups in providing training on one or more assessment programs
  • 5% Serves as a subject matter expert to internal and external stakeholders. Ensures that details of the assessment product are accurately communicated across stakeholders
  • 5% Recommends strategies and actions including tracking and assessing product enhancements as input into the assessment product roadmaps
  • 10% Organizes and conducts research projects while identifying ways to improve research design and data validity
Institutional Statement on Diversity:

Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW-Madison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their identity, culture, background, experience, status, abilities, and opinion enrich the university community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research, outreach, and diversity as inextricably linked goals.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background - people who as students, faculty, and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.

For more information on diversity and inclusion on campus, please visit: Diversity and Inclusion

Education:

Required
Bachelor's Degree

Qualifications:

- Minimum of two years of experience with taking insights from qualitative research findings and converting them into both evidence-informed recommendations and a proposed implementation plan.
- Experience working on the development of K-12 assessments for multilingual learners, in particular listening to stakeholder groups to ensure high quality training.
- Experience building and validating rubrics and related training for hand-scored (also known as locally scored) assessments, particularly for speaking and writing.
- An understanding of how a US-based assessment would link to international proficiency measurements like CEFR, and how WIDA would demonstrate that linkage.
- A strong understanding of item development usability processes including building out the details of usability studies and the operational work needed to maintain a refreshment cycle for content.
- An understanding of how item development for WIDA's student populations presents challenges to known best practices for assessments. The student populations include but are not limited to earlier grade levels (K-3), students with low vision who may or may not read Braille, and students who require accommodations.
- Ability to manage the implementation projects, from kick-off to launch, with minimal supervision.
- Ability to develop, implement, and monitor quality control processes to ensure on-time and accurate delivery of one or more assessment programs.
- Proven success on a cross-department research team, preferably in a topic related to K-12 learners or multilingual learners.
- Strong written and oral communication skills, including the ability to explain complex information to multiple audiences both internally and externally.
- Experience with the administration of both ACCESS for ELLs online and MODEL online, including test management, test administration, local scoring and interpretation of score reports preferred.
- A value of promoting and fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- A willingness to engage in and deepen knowledge of WIDA's Social Justice value.

Work Type:

Full Time: 100%

It is anticipated this position will be remote and requires work be performed at an offsite, non-campus work location.

Appointment Type, Duration:

Ongoing/Renewable

Additional Information:

What is WIDA? For nearly 20 years, WIDA has provided a trusted, comprehensive approach to supporting, teaching, and assessing multilingual learners. We are an educational services organization that advances language development and academic achievement for multilingual children in early childhood and grades K-12. In short, we provide educators around the world with high-quality language standards, assessments, professional learning, and research. We are proud to be a part of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) within UW-Madison's nationally ranked School of Education. Visit https://wida.wisc.edu/about/careers and watch our Introduction to WIDA video to see why WIDA is an incredible place to work!

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), established in 1964, is one of the first, most productive, and largest university-based education research and development centers in the world. WCER's researchers and staff work to make teaching and learning as effective as possible for all ages and all people.

WCER's mission is to improve educational outcomes for diverse student populations, impact education practice positively and foster collaborations among academic disciplines and practitioners. To this end, our center helps scholars and practitioners develop, submit, conduct, and share grant-funded education research.

WCER's Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:
Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for UW-Madison and The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). Individual differences and group diversity inspire creative and equitable outcomes. WCER actively affirms values and seeks to increase diversity in our everyday interactions, practices, and policies.

For more information and news about our center, please go to https://wcer.wisc.edu/ .

How to Apply:

Our center is conscious of inequities in the field of education and how these disproportionately harm the most marginalized members of our society- including BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) individuals, people from poor and working-class backgrounds, people with disabilities, women, and LGBTQ people. We firmly believe that these communities must be centered in the work we do. Hence, we strongly encourage applications from people with these identities or members of other marginalized groups.

Please click on the "" button to start the application process. As part of the application process, you will be required to submit:
- A cover letter describing how your experience and qualifications meet the requirements of this position.
- A current resume or CV.
- A list of at least three professional references, including contact information.

A successful applicant will be responsible for ensuring eligibility for employment in the United States on or before the effective date of the appointment.

Contact:

Kelly Krahenbuhl
humanresources@wida.us
Relay Access (WTRS): 7-1-1. See RELAY_SERVICE for further information.

Official Title:

Academic Assessment Specialist(TL036)

Department(s):

A17-SCHOOL OF EDUCATION/WCER

Employment Class:

Academic Staff-Renewable

Job Number:

279406-AS

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, including but not limited to, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, pregnancy, disability, or status as a protected veteran and other bases as defined by federal regulations and UW System policies. We promote excellence through diversity and encourage all qualified individuals to apply.

If you need to request an accommodation because of a disability, you can find information about how to make a request at the following website: https://employeedisabilities.wisc.edu/disability-accommodation-information-for-applicants/

Employment will require a criminal background check. It will also require you and your references to answer questions regarding sexual violence and sexual harassment.

The University of Wisconsin System will not reveal the identities of applicants who request confidentiality in writing, except that the identity of the successful candidate will be released. See Wis. Stat. sec. 19.36(7).

The Annual Security and Fire Safety Report contains current campus safety and disciplinary policies, crime statistics for the previous 3 calendar years, and on-campus student housing fire safety policies and fire statistics for the previous 3 calendar years. UW-Madison will provide a paper copy upon request; please contact the University of Wisconsin Police Department .

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