A new assessment system on the horizon:

What can we expect? How can we plan for success?

We began the school-year with the gift of the blue books – the new MA 2011 Curriculum Frameworks – and we have not looked back. Teachers throughout the commonwealth, and nationally, have been engaged in unpacking the standards. Educators are enmeshed in conversations about curriculum alignment, identifying gaps in programs that are currently in place.

While districts are busily working, the Partnership for Assessment and Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is also hard at work designing a new assessment system. http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc .

PARCC is a 24-state consortium working together to develop next-generation K-12 assessments in English and math. The chair of the board of PARCC is our commissioner of education, Mitchell Chester. Once PARCC releases their proposed assessment system, each state will determine whether or not this will replace the existing testing system – in our case MCAS. With Massachusetts’s heavy involvement in PARCC, it seems likely that this will occur.

What can we expect from PARCC and what are the implications for instruction?

• We can expect the assessment to be administered more than once during a school-year, with the use of technology to administer the assessment. From PARCC, “The overall assessment system design will include a mix of constructed response items, performance-based tasks, and computer-enhanced, computer-scored items. The PARCC assessments will be administered via computer, and a combination of automated scoring and human scoring will be employed. The distributed PARCC design includes through-course and end-of-year components so that assessments are given closer in time to when instruction happens.”

• In addition, PARCC is developing a K-2 set of assessments described as follows, “To help states measure student knowledge and skills at the lower grades, the Partnership will develop a bank of assessment resources for teachers of grades K–2 that are aligned to the Common Core State Standards, and vertically aligned to the PARCC assessment system. The tasks will consist of developmentally-appropriate assessment types, such as observations, checklists, classroom activities and protocols, which reflect foundational aspects of the Common Core State Standards. The K-2 formative assessments aim to help set a foundation for students and put them on the track to college and career readiness in the early years.”

We have been given transitional advice and documents, which reflect full implementation of new standards in time for a new assessment system in the year 2013. (Found at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/transition/?section=math ).

What should we be doing now?

• In order to prepare students, we must teach according to the standards for mathematical practice. Instruction should include problem solving, reasoning, explanation and proof, and an emphasis on finding mathematical patterns and generalizations. This has always been the driving philosophy of mathematics educators who are passionate about instilling a true love of mathematics in their students. These habits of mind will be echoed in the types of state level test questions that our students will be given. The following link interprets and illustrates each of the eight Mathematical Practices as they might be exemplified in grades K–5. http://thinkmath.edc.org/index.php/CCSS_Mathematical_Practices

• We must shift our thoughts of assessment from something that we do to students to something that we do for students. In other words, districts must adopt an assessment plan that is formative. A good assessment provides teachers with the necessary information to understand where a student currently is in his / her understanding, and allows the teacher to readily determine the best next step. In order to do this, districts must be clear on critical areas of focus for each grade level, and design common assessments that link to these areas.

• First, we need to identify students that have gaps in their foundational understanding that cause them to be behind before the school-year even begins. Districts can design a base-line assessment to be given to in-coming students to identify those students. We can then use the results of the assessment to form response to intervention groups that focus instruction around critical areas. We should be prepared to stay with a topic for intervention until students demonstrate better understanding. Ideally, these groups will provide an additional 40 minutes of support for students each week, spaced out over two or three sessions. In addition to gathering base-line information, districts should design and administer assessments that focus on key concepts each term, and again, employ their plan for intervention support.

We can be sure that publishers and software companies are scrambling to create tools that accomplish these goals, but we should be careful consumers. The tools that we choose to assess will determine the impact that the assessment will have on our students. If an assessment simply generates summative graphs and data, but does not allow a teacher to readily know what to do next, it lacks power and impact. When programs promise that they are providing intervention suggestions and activities, we need to examine those critically – are the activities powerful? Do they provide visual models and lines of questioning to encourage students to construct understanding? Are they focused around critical ideas or are their goals too broad?

Over the next year or so as PARCC crafts the new assessment system and releases sample items, it will be interesting to see what becomes available. In the end, however, it will come down to this: asking the right questions and providing the right support for the right students at the right time.

Best regards,

Sue Looney, Ed.D. 

Other helpful links:

http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/acre/standards/common-core-tools/#unmath . The documents provided here are well- articulated explanations and instructional expectations for each standard.

Two resources below link activities to specific standards.

For K – 5 lessons http://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/ , http://illustrativemathematics.org/standards/k8. (note: this link is still being developed).