Laurie Udesky/EdSource Today

Students taking Smarter Balanced practice tests at Bayshore Elementary Schoolhouse in Daly Metropolis.

Laurie Udesky/EdSource Today

Students taking Smarter Counterbalanced practice tests at Bayshore Elementary School in Daly City.

With California officials warning that scores on Smarter Balanced tests will probable be lower than those on previous standardized assessments, many teachers want to know how they can better ready students.

To aid demystify the Common Cadre-aligned tests, the Educational Testing Service, or ETS, is providing several scoring training workshops for teachers this month.

The first Summer Scoring Training for Educators in Sacramento attracted more than than 100 teachers and district administrators interested in learning how portions of the tests that are not multiple-choice are hand­-scored.

"A lot of people want this information to have dorsum to their schools," said Jeff Grove, ETS mathematics assessment manager. "A lot of people don't realize how much is involved."

The training focused on "operation tasks" students were asked to consummate in mathematics and English language arts. These tasks involve classroom instruction and generally crave longer responses than questions that are scored past calculator.

For example, a math task could involve a scenario that requires students to make change, figure out the volume of an object, interpret a graph or table, or brand calculations based on a word problem. An English language arts task could crave students to read 3 passages about a sure topic, then write a curt essay or story based partially on the sources provided.

"STAR tests didn't have that," Grove said, referring to the country's previous standardized tests. "This is very new for teachers and students, so it's of import."

The grooming included PowerPoint presentations, scoring rubrics and samples of real student answers annotated with explanations near why they received specific scores.

Although districts are gearing upward for the release of Smarter Balanced scores from the beginning tests given statewide last bound, ETS representatives said they hoped the training would prompt more districts to use interim assessments that can exist administered during the year. These optional, shorter tests are scored by commune teachers and can help educators and their students to practice test­-taking strategies and gain a amend understanding of what differentiates high and low scores.

Some teachers and administrators who attended the grooming said in later phone interviews that they planned to share what they learned with others in their districts to give educators a amend sense of elements that are heavily weighted.

"I really wanted to find out beyond California samples of some of the answers students gave and so I'll know how to improve my teaching of writing," said Alanna Butterworth, a 3rd­-grade instructor at Camellia Basic Elementary School in the Sacramento City district. "What I took away is that the kids really need to know keyboarding and writing."

The Sacramento district administered interim tests during the past school twelvemonth and trained teachers including Butterworth to score them according to Smarter Counterbalanced rubrics, she said. The ETS grooming workshop, Butterworth said, confirmed that she was scoring correctly by adhering strictly to the rubrics.

Co-ordinate to the rubrics, "effective" elaboration and development merits a 4, "adequate" elaboration and development rates a 3, "uneven, brief elaboration and development" should become a two, while "minimal elaboration and few or no details" should receive a 1. Those who don't understand the content, don't answer or reply in gibberish receive a 0, Grove said.

Butterworth said some high school teachers in her group felt the rubrics were a bit rigid.

"There was a peachy deal of disagreement when we tried to come to a consensus about whether this (sample answer) was a 3 or a 4" she said. "High school teachers were questioning, 'What is the difference between adequate and effective?'"

Notwithstanding, Michelle Campbell, who teaches 8th ­class English at Katherine L. Albiani Middle School in Elk Grove, said her group – which included both elementary and secondary teachers – ­thought the rubrics were very clear.

"Once we got through our first couple (of samples) and talked about them, we were pretty well calibrated," she said. "We went back to the annotations to see what made a four a four or a 3 a 3. Nosotros idea it was consistent and we really liked that."

The Elk Grove Unified School Commune sent seven teachers to the training, along with ii principals and a vice principal. The nearby San Juan Unified Schoolhouse District sent inquiry specialist Lisa Campbell, a former center school math teacher, since teachers were unavailable due to other professional development.

San Juan used interim assessments last year with selected teachers who were willing to try them, Lisa Campbell said. This twelvemonth, she said the commune plans to train one teacher from each schoolhouse to score the tests, with the expectation that they volition train colleagues at their sites according to the "training of trainers" model.

"We're scheduling trainings where teachers come and nosotros're going to give them one of the functioning tasks and they will all come up together and grade information technology," she said. "We want teachers to feel free to apply (the interim assessments) so they can utilize the information."

ETS did not allow EdSource or teachers who attended the preparation to reveal the performance tasks or questions for security reasons.

The math performance tasks included six questions based on a mutual scenario or word problem. In some cases, students were asked to use answers from 1 question to figure out answers to subsequent questions.

If a educatee makes a mathematical error in answer to ane question, then uses that wrong answer to reply to another question that is reasoned correctly, the student volition get full credit for the subsequent question, Grove said.

English language performance tasks included "full write" items worth 10 points and "research short text" items worth 2 points. Full write answers involved narrative, opinion/belligerent, and informative/explanatory writing. Research short text items required brusque responses to questions that asked students to justify their answers and cite their sources.

After seeing how tests were scored, Lisa Campbell said teachers might tweak their instruction past insisting on source citations in English linguistic communication arts lessons and on articulate explanations of calculations in math.

Last year, Butterworth said her viii-­yr-­one-time students really needed to practice finding the apostrophe key and holding down the shift fundamental to make capital letter messages and question marks. For math problems, they had trouble finding symbol keys and clicking and dragging items from one place to another on their computer screens, she said.

Butterworth said the Smarter Balanced description of "elaboration" would assist her to explain it to students. Information technology includes "relevant details, dialogue, and/or description," also known equally the "three Ds in narrative writing."

Michelle Campbell said the training would inform her do.

"I think I'm a better teacher when I know how students are assessed," she said. "For me, it validates the things I'one thousand already doing. I'm on the right track."

It was helpful, she said, to empathise the private elements that made up the x­-point scores. For example, she appreciated knowing that Smarter Balanced weighs organization and content more heavily than grammer and punctuation. And she said information technology was valuable to know that errors in punctuation and grammar should be compared to the total corporeality of writing to determine how pervasive they are.

"A lot of this (preparation) was designed for professional development," Grove said. "We want them to learn about the tests…and to piece of work on preparing their kids for operation tasks and creating their own."

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