Unwrapping New York State’s New “Common Core” Tests–Its Contents and Costs. Five years ago, I found myself drafted onto a New York State Department of Education committee charged with revamping the English Language Arts standards.
As a journalism professor at Baruch College/CUNY, I had the non-fiction expertise that were seen as so important to developing the new standards. Although I had no experience in public schools, I was on the receiving end of the abilities and deficits of kids graduating from the city’s high schools. As a journalist who had spent much of my career writing about business and management issues, I also had become intrigued with the corporate education-reform movement; I couldn’t resist a chance to participate, even in a small way, in the sausage making of public education policy. The work of our committee would take close to two years to complete, with multiple trips to Albany, at a cost that must have run to several hundred-thousand dollars—if not a few million.
Others have commented on the grueling length of the tests. Sample Assessments that are Commom Core Aligned. TeacherCast App Spotlight (@BreezinThruT) Breezin’ Thru Theory | TeacherCast App Spotlight (@BreezinThruT) Jeff sits down with Jean McKen to discuss how Breezin’ Thru Theory is helping Music Theory students compose amazing music in an engaging and dynamic environment.
Validity, part 1 (revised) [ Note: I have made a number of line edits for clarity since this was first posted.
Please refer to this version rather than the original version. Part 2 and Part 3 in this series on assessing can be found by clicking on the links.] I have found from doing assessment work with educators over the decades that surprisingly few people understand what validity means in assessment and how validity is determined. This confusion leads to various unhappy and important consequences: people bash test questions without understanding how they work, supervisors give grossly inaccurate advice about how to prepare kids for external tests, and teachers end up designing invalid tests without realizing it. Scoring Guides. Formative assessment. Formative-assessment_single. News from Achieve. A_Primer_on_Common_Core-Aligned_Assessments_Education_First. AchieveOEREvaluationToolHandbookFINAL_0. Assessment on the Web: Part 3. What we’d like to suggest is an approach that great instructors already know to be true: when a student gives feedback or support to another student, that process deepens their own understanding.
In the case of learning to program, students with expertise actually learn more when they work with students who have less expertise. In writing courses, the research suggests that the act of critiquing another’s work measurably improves the quality of your own. We can associate peer feedback with dozens of other skills, including communication, conflict resolution, negotiation, and empathy. It’s a bit edu-speak, but bear with us: what we mean to suggest is that you can learn through assessing someone else. That statement has massive implications, good ones, for learning communities on the web.
Let that resonate for a second. Iahperd 2013 connecting core. How My Students And I Make Meaning Together: An Actual Unit Outline. How My Students And I Make Meaning Together: An Actual Unit Outline by Jane Healey, Ph.D.
In A Student-Led, Flipped, Inquiry-Based Learning Classroom Doing Authentic Work, I listed my favorite, simple approach to classroom material: ObserveWonderInvestigateConclude The response was heartening, and I was asked about an example. Text types.
Five Characteristics of Quality Educational Assessments – Part One. Assessment literacy involves understanding how assessments are made, what type of assessments answer what questions, and how the data from assessments can be used to help teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders make decisions about teaching and learning.
Assessment designers strive to create assessments that show a high degree of fidelity to the following five traits: 1. Content Validity2. Reliability3. Fairness4. In this blog post, we’ll cover the first characteristic of quality educational assessments: content validity. Creating-systems-assessment-deeper-learning_0. Scribd. Common Core Checklists. Our common core standards checklists are just what you need to help you keep track of the standards taught in your classroom.
Use these to make sure you are addressing all that you need to teach throughout the course of the school year. Keep track of when you have introduced, retaught and assessed each indicator. The most important parts of the common core are the anchor standards that carry through from kindergarten to high school. 5 Minute Marking Plan by @TeacherToolkit and @LeadingLearner. Marking is an occupational hazard for all teachers.
Whilst the “5 Minute Marking Plan” can’t do your marking for you (sadly) it will help you focus on the job in hand and help ensure you maximise your students’ learning and your own. This planner adds to a growing number of 5 Minute Plans produced by @TeacherToolkit including the “5 Minute Lesson Plan” and the “5 Minute Assembly Plan” which are available on @TeacherToolkit’s website. The thinking that underpins the plan seeks to highlight those elements of marking that have greatest impact on learning, namely: Sharing the key marking points (you may refer to these as success criteria).
A student is much more likely to be successful if s/he knows where they are going. 22 Easy Formative Assessment Techniques for Measuring Student Learning. I came across Terry Heick’s blog – 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds – at TeachThought from earlier this year and really enjoyed the formative assessment strategies that he outlined.
Using formative assessment techniques in class – or “simple assessments” as Terry calls them – are easy to administer and provide the instant feedback teachers need to identify which students need more help, and then adjust their instruction and lesson plans to help them. Visit Terry’s blog above to get more detail on the following ten formative assessment techniques: 1. NECTFL%20Workshop%20Excerpts%20-%20CCSS%20%26%20WLs%20Developing%20Literacy%20-%20Mar%202013. 6 epic fails. Data, in the wrong hands, whether malicious, manipulative or naïve can be downright dangerous.
Indeed, when big data goes bad it can be lethal. Unfortunately the learning game is no stranger to both the abuse of data. Here’s six examples showing seven species of ‘bad data’. 1. Data subtraction: Ken Robinson Don’t let the selective graphical representation of data, destroy the integrity of the data. Internet Catalogue. Arts - Iowa Department of Education. Art Ed & Common Core. Designing Integrated Curriculum. 6 Sets Of Academic Standards For The "Other Content Areas"
Not The Common Core: 6 Sets Of Academic Standards For The “Other Content Areas” by Maryalene LaPonsie There has been plenty of discussion lately regarding the Common Core, a state-led initiative to create learning standards in Math and English-Language Arts for K-12 students. While the Common Core may be getting the most press, it is not the only standard system available today. Teachers and parents alike should be aware learning standards exist for everything from physical education to arts to technology.
While their use is not mandated in every state, standards can help guide curriculum decisions and ensure students graduate with a comprehensive set of skills and knowledge. 1. Currently going through a revision process, the National Standards for Arts Education have been developed by the Consortium of National Arts Education Association with funding from the National Association for Music Education. DanceMusicTheaterVisual arts 2. 3. 4. ANetRubrics. Cardboard Challenge Group Event. Chocolate Chip Cookies. The 6 Types Of Assessments (And How They're Changing) Testing, especially any sort of standardized testing tends to get a bad rap.
Teachers complain that they spend too much time teaching to a test. But assessments do have value, and an important place in our learning structure. By measuring what students are learning, we as teachers can look at how we are approaching different subjects, materials, and even different students. The handy infographic below takes a look at different types of assessments and their attributes and questions. Keep reading to learn more. There are many types of assessments: diagnostic, formative, summative, norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, and interim/benchmarked are the types overviewed here. Authentic Student Learning. Assessment Continuum Linda DarlingHammond. Assessment Continuum Graphic Linda DarlingHammond. Using Student Growth Percentiles. Rubrics for Assessment. Learn more about our Online Courses, Online Certificate Programs, and Graduate Degree A collection of rubrics for assessing portfolios, group work/cooperative learning, concept map, research process/ report, PowerPoint, oral presentation, web page, blog, wiki, and other social media projects.
Quick Links to Rubrics Social Media Project Rubrics Wiki RubricCriteria for assessing individual and group Wiki contributions. Blog RubricAssess individual blog entries, including comments on peers' blogs. Twitter RubricAssess learning during social networking instructional assignments. Discussion, Teamwork, and Group Work Rubrics Online Discussion Board RubricAssessing ability to share perspectives, refine thoughts through the writing process, and participate in meaningful discussionPrimary Grade Self-Evaluation Teamwork Rubric (PDF)Features of a sandwich to graphically show the criteria.
Project-Based Learning 10 tips. Facebook Edutopia on Facebook Twitter Edutopia on Twitter. Planner PARCC aligned. Educators, this is your chance to decide on the texts you will teach as you prepare your students to be thinkers and doers. Note to Readers 11.05.13. Lit prompt: Garage sale by character. Chart.png 875×688 pixels. The Fundamentals of Formative Assessment. Combined%20Evidence%20Tables%204%2004%202013_0. Combined Evidence Tables 4 04 2013_0. CombinedPBAandEOYFormSpecifications. Assessment. PARCCPLDs-ELAandMath-All%20Grades.
Tiered Exit Cards Formative Assassment. MA: Tri State Rubric Application PARCC in MA. Districts are moving at different speeds with adoption of the standards, but many are now seriously considering how to look through their lessons and align, revise or redesign them either for the first time or for the second or third time to the Common Core State Standards. One of the many great tools that are available to teachers is the tri-state rubric jointly developed by Rhode Island, New York, and Massachusetts. This tool is a real asset for teachers, coaches, administrators, and those that evaluate/purchase resources for the following reasons: 1.
A common rubric that norms discussions around the same language and criteria.2. Carefully constructed criteria that develop and isolate the key instructional shifts that are embodied in the Common Core.3. This tool and the criteria within it can be used in a variety of ways and I see it playing it out in at least a couple of the following: 1. The Rubrics Themselves: 122463-CCSS_Assessment_Fisher_Handout_4_English_Essay_Errors. 122463-CCSS_AssessmentShifts_handout_final. PARCCGlossary_5-30-13. Using Intellectual Standards to Assess Student Rea. To assess student reasoning requires that we focus our attention as teachers on two inter-related dimensions of reasoning. The first dimension consists of the elements of reasoning; the second dimension consists of the universal intellectual standards by which we measure student ability to use, in a skillful way, each of those elements of reasoning. Create a new Common Core rubric. Common Core Rubric Creation Tool.
GR5 Advanced Text Types Assessment Kit. Automated Essay Scoring. NY State CC Sample Q's ela-grade-3. Performance Assessments. ** These performance assessments were created by the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project for NYC Department of Education and some are owned by NYC Department of Education. The NYC Department of Education has agreed to allow Teachers College Reading and Writing Project to post the performance assessment online to support your students' academic progress. You must obtain permission from the NYC Department of Education for any other use of the assessments.
Authentic Student Learning. 8 Questions abt CC Assessments. 10 Free Tools for Everyday Research - Getting Smart by Susan Oxnevad - @soxnevad. Why do so many students choose Wikipedia when asked to find information on the Internet? I believe the answer is that Wikipedia is like the McDonalds of the Internet, you can always find it and you know what you’re going to get. Quite frankly, I like Wikipedia because it provides students with a starting point for research and I am particularly fond of the way I’ve seen so many students develop their own method of research by using the links at the bottom to find more information.
10 Free Tools for Everyday Research - Getting Smart by Susan Oxnevad - @soxnevad. Bloom’s Taxonomy Multiple Graphic Organizers. I’ve long been a fan of Bloom’s Taxonomy…not necessarily for all the ways it has been pushed into different fads throughout the years, but instead for the way that it helps me (and my students) think about the learning process. It helps me approach the learning process in a more holistic way, ensuring that I don’t camp out in one way of thinking and evidencing learning for too long. I think it is human nature to get excited about one way of thinking and suddenly everything we do falls into that. It can be a little bit like the new car that you purchased, you begin to see that car everywhere because you have a new awareness of it. I’ve noticed myself doing the same in teaching. Smarter Balance Webinar Test items.
Sample Items and Performance Tasks. Sample Items and Performance Tasks. Wiggins on transfer and how it relates to testing. There is some understandable confusion about the goal of transfer. When we say we want students to be able to “transfer” their learning, there are two possible meanings to our aim. DWECK: Growth Mindset to Overcome Failure. Ten Takeaway Tips for Teaching Critical Thinking. Core assessments. One Page Graphic of PARCC assessment parcc_system. 105 Writing Tips from Professional Writers.
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Smarter Balanced Assessments. MCAS writing 2013 in 4, 7 and 10. In accordance with the 2011 ELA Framework, students in grades 4 will be assessed in one of the following modes: narrative, expository, or opinion. Students in grade 7 will be assessed in one of the following modes: narrative, expository, or argument.
10 things to consider about Performance Task Assessment, Coming Soon. What Was the Question To Which PARCC Is the Answer? PARCC SB assessments concerns about performance assessments. PARCC Protoypes - T21 CCSS Workshop 8-20-12. Response: Ways To Include Students In The Formative Assessment Process - Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo. Preview of Common Assessments from PARCC and SB. PARCC assessment summary. Kid-Friendly Standards. Rubrics for Assessment. Rubrics for Assessment. PARCC Assessment System, part I « PARCC in Massachusetts. PARCC Assessment System and ELA, Part 2 « PARCC in Massachusetts. Reliability and Validity. Presentation Validity & Reliability. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. PARCC Sm.Balance overview and resources. The Massachusetts Exception anti CC by Pioneer Institute. 122463-CCSS_Formative_Assessment_webinar_slides_handout_Fisher.
122463-CCSS_TheCoreSix_Dewing_webinar_slides. Zhao on Entrepreneurship, the Common Core, and Bacon - BookMarks. Texas Studies Suggest Test Design Flaw in TAKS.