What Wisconsin Teachers Teach While Wisconsin Forward Exam Runs

Quick answer: The Wisconsin Forward Exam runs in grades three through eight, which means middle school computer science loses its room and its devices for several weeks each spring while high school sections carry on almost untouched. Plan the paper-based part of your year for that window, and keep the graded evidence tied to the Wisconsin Academic Standards your district reports against.

Who is actually sitting the Forward Exam, and what does that cost me?

Forward Exam testing covers grades three through eight, and high school students take ACT-related measures instead. For a computer science teacher that split matters more than the content of either test. Middle school sections lose the lab, the Chromebook cart and often the teacher, because you are the person with a free period who can proctor a make-up session on Thursday afternoon.

High school computer science usually keeps its room but loses individual students for whole mornings. Neither problem is solved in April. Both are solved in September, by deciding which units require reliable devices and which do not, then placing the device-hungry ones well away from the spring window your building has run the same way for years.

What runs in an elementary rotation during a testing week?

Elementary computer or library teachers in Wisconsin usually see a class once a week, and testing removes two or three of those slots outright. Anything sequential collapses. What survives is a self-contained activity a class can start and finish in one visit, with no login, no printing queue and no reliance on whether the cart came back charged.

A single-sitting creative task does that job honestly. Fall Art Project: My Favorite Autumn School Day – Grades K–4 is a printable art activity for grades K-4 built around a familiar autumn prompt, which gives a covered class real work rather than a video, and it gives you something sensible to hand a substitute on the mornings you are proctoring down the hall instead of teaching your own class.

Which Wisconsin Academic Standards is my course really serving?

Plenty of what a Wisconsin district owes students never appears on the Forward Exam. Act 31 obligations around treaty rights, tribal sovereignty and history apply across grades and subjects with no state test behind them, and the Department of Public Instruction publishes academic standards for subjects the Forward Exam does not touch. Computer science sits in that same territory.

So build the paperwork yourself and build it early. Data Protection and Cyber Safety – Computer Science Unit: Worksheets, Projects & Slides (Grades 6–9) gives grades six through nine a full unit on data protection and cyber safety with worksheets, projects and slides, which produces marked student work you can point to when a principal asks what the course covers. Further units for other grade bands are indexed on Wisconsin Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12).

How do I put together a year of digital citizenship?

One-off lessons on online safety do very little, partly because students have heard the assembly version since fourth grade. A sequence that returns to the same ideas with harder material each time works better, and it gives you three or four graded pieces across the year instead of the single worksheet everybody has forgotten by the middle of October.

That kind of sequence is a great deal of writing to produce on your own, in a course that rarely gets planning support. Digital Citizenship Activities | Cyberbullying, AI, Social Media & Media Literacy Lessons | Grades 7–10 covers cyberbullying, artificial intelligence, social media and media literacy as connected activities for grades seven through ten, so a semester of digital citizenship arrives already ordered. Teachers comparing approaches with colleagues in other states can also work from State Standards Navigator: Teaching Resources by State.

Frequently asked questions

Are these resources connected to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction?

No. These are independent classroom materials, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the Forward Exam or any other education agency or exam authority. Use them alongside the Wisconsin Academic Standards as your district interprets them, and decide where each unit belongs.

Do these units meet Act 31 requirements?

No. Act 31 instruction on Wisconsin Indian treaty rights, tribal sovereignty and history is a separate statutory obligation, and these materials are not written for it. Your district should be meeting that requirement through curriculum developed for the purpose, ideally in consultation with the nations whose history is being taught.

What is in the download?

Each order is a digital download available straight away, holding printable student pages, teacher notes, answer keys and, on some titles, slide decks. Print copies for the class or share the files through your district platform. Anything to do with access or refunds is covered by the store's refund policy.

Related reading

• Mapping Computer Science Units to the Academic Standards in Wisconsin
• Wisconsin: Teaching Computer Science on No Budget
• Wisconsin Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12)