A New V ision of Assessment Association of American Publishers Annual Meeting

1. A New Vision of Assessment Association of American Publishers Annual Meeting Laura Slover, PARCC June 4, 2013

2. PARCC States

3. PARCC Priorities Determine whether students are college and career ready or on track Connect to the Common Core State Standards Measure the full range of student performance, including that of high- and low-achieving students Provide educators data throughout the year to inform instruction Create innovative 21st century, technology-based assessments Be affordable and sustainable

4. In the Last Year…

5. Looking Ahead: 2013

6. Looking Ahead: 2014 and Beyond

7. AssessmentsELA/Literacy and Mathematics, Grades 3–11 Beginning of School Year End of School Year Flexible administration Performance-Based Assessment DiagnosticAssessment Mid-Year Assessment End-of-Year Assessment Speaking and Listening Assessment Key: Optional Required

8. Evidence-Centered Design (ECD) for the PARCC Assessments

9. What is Different About PARCC’s Development Process? • PARCC states first developed the Model Content Frameworks to provide guidance on key elements of excellent instruction aligned with the Standards. • Then, those Frameworks informed the assessment blueprint design. • Aligned evidence statements and task models followed. So… • PARCC is designing the assessments around exactly the same content shifts the standards expect of teachers and students. • PARCC is communicating in the same voice to teachers as it is to assessment developers 

10. Advances in the PARCC ELA/Literacy Assessment

11. What Are the Shifts at the Heart of PARCC Design (and the Standards) for ELA/Literacy? • Complexity: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language • Evidence: Reading and writing grounded in evidencefrom text, literary and informational • Knowledge: Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction

12. PARCC’s Four Core Commitments to ELA/Literacy Assessment Quality • Texts Worth Reading: The assessments will use authentic texts worthy of study instead of artificially produced or commissioned passages (commissioned passages used only if necessary to “round out” a research task).  • Questions Worth Answering: Sequences of questions that draw students into deeper encounters with texts will be the norm (as in an excellent classroom), rather than sets of random questions of varying quality. • Better Standards Demand Better Questions: Instead of reusing existing items, PARCC will develop custom items to the Standards. • Fidelity to the Standards (now in teachers’ hands): PARCC evidences are rooted in the language of the Standards so that expectations remain the same in both instructional and assessment settings.

13. Claims Driving Design: ELA/Literacy

14. What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous? What can you infer from King’s letter about the letter that he received? Why does Tom hesitate to allow Ben to paint the fence? How does Twain construct his sentences to reflect that hesitation? What effect do Tom’s hesitations have on Ben? Evidence-Based Questions Not Text-Dependent Text-Dependent In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something. In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair. From “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,”have students identify the different methods of removing warts that Tom and Huck talk about. Ask students to devise their own charm to remove warts. Are there cultural ideas or artifacts from the current time that could be used in the charm?

15. Which Prompt Exhibits Writing to Sources? In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King: • Gives several reasons to justify his presence in the city at that time. Write an essay in which you relate a similar situation in your own life. Tell about an experience in which you had to justify your reasons for being in a particular place at a particular time. • Describes a process that he and his followers have recently undertaken. Write an essay in which you describe this process and tell how the letter shows that this process is important to the civil rights movement. • Is specifically responding to criticism about the goals of the civil rights movement. Write an essay in which you relate these goals to aspects of the modern-day civil rights movement.

16. Which Questions Require Rigorous Analysis of Complex Texts? • When the author states that “Lee was acting like an angry bear,” is he using simile, metaphor, hyperbole, or onomatopoeia? • What is the setting of the story about Lee’s adventures? • What is the relationship between the setting of the story and the main event of the plot? • How did Lee’s decision to stay affect the outcome of the story? • Which of the following words describes Lee: brave, determined, careful, or hopeful? • Questions #1 and #2 • Questions #2 and #3 • Questions #3 and #4 • Questions #4 and #5

17. Sample Items Illustrating the Advances in ELA/Literacy

18. Understanding the Research Simulation Task (Grade 7 Example) • Students begin by reading an anchor text that introduces the topic. EBSR and TECR items ask students to gather key details about the passage to support their understanding. • Students read two additional sources (may include a multimedia text) and answer a few questions about each text to learn more about the topic so they are ready to write the final essay and to show their reading comprehension. • Finally, students mirror the research process by synthesizing their understandings into an analytic essay using textual evidence from several of the sources.

19. Texts Worth Reading? • Range: Example of assessing reading across the disciplines and helping to satisfy the 55%-45% split of informational text to literature at the 6-8 grade band. • Quality: The texts on Amelia Earhart represent content-rich nonfiction on a topic that is historically significant. • Complexity: Quantitatively and qualitatively, the passages have been validated and deemed suitable for use at grade 7.

20. ELA/Literacy: Grade 7 Sample Item Part A: Highlight the claim that is supported by the most relevant and sufficient facts within “Earhart’s Final Resting Place Believed Found.” Part B: Click on two facts within the article that best provide evidence to support the claim selected in Part A.

21. Questions Worth Answering? Grade 7 Analytical Prose Constructed-Response Item #1 Based on the information in the text “Biography of Amelia Earhart,” write an essay that summarizes and explains the challenges Earhart faced throughout her life. Remember to use textual evidence to support your ideas.

22. Questions Worth Answering? Final Grade 7 Prose Constructed-Response Item #2 You have read three texts describing Amelia Earhart. All three include the claim that Earhart was a brave, courageous person. The three texts are: • “Biography of Amelia Earhart” • “Earhart's Final Resting Place Believed Found” • “Amelia Earhart’s Life and Disappearance” Consider the argument each author uses to demonstrate Earhart’s bravery. Write an essay that analyzes the strength of the arguments about Earhart’s bravery in at least two of the texts. Remember to use textual evidence to support your ideas.

23. Advances in the PARCC Mathematics Assessment

24. What Are the Shifts in the Math Standards at the Heart of PARCC Design? • Focus strongly where the Standards focus • Coherence: Think across grades and link to major topics within grades • Rigor: In major topics, pursue conceptual understanding, procedural skill and fluency, and application.

25. PARCC’s Core Commitments to Mathematics Assessment Quality • Focus: Instead of randomly sampling a mile-wide array of topics, PARCC assessments will focus strongly. Teachers will be rewarded for teaching crucial material in depth, not penalized for failing to “cover topics.” • Problems worth doing: Multi-step problems, conceptual questions, applications, and substantial procedures will be common, as in an excellent classroom. • Better Standards Demand Better Questions: Instead of reusing existing items, PARCC will develop custom items to the Standards. • Fidelity to the Standards (now in Teacher’s hands): PARCC evidences are rooted in the language of the Standards so that expectations remain the same in both instructional and assessment settings.

26. Claims Driving Design: Mathematics Students are on-track or ready for college and careers

27. The Special Role of Technology in Advancing Assessment and the Shifts • Technology enhancements supporting accessibility (e.g., the ability to hover over a word to see and/or hear its definition, etc.) • Transformative formats making possible what couldn’t be done at all with paper (e.g., running a simulation to improve a model, game-like environments, drawing/constructing diagrams or visual models, etc.) • Getting beyond the bubble and avoiding drawbacks of traditional selected response such as guessing or choice elimination • Capturing complex student responses through a device interface (e.g., using drawing tools, symbol palettes, etc.). • Machine scorable multi-step tasks are more efficient to administer and score.

28. Sample Items Illustrating the Advances in Mathematics

29. Overview of PARCC Mathematics Task Types For more information see PARCC Task Development ITN Appendix D.

30. Math Grade 3 Illustrative Sample Item: Type II Task This a fairly traditional fraction task in a computer-based setting. Unlike traditional multiple choice, it is difficult to guess the correct answer or use a choice elimination strategy and there is more than one correct solution. Unlike paper and pencil tests, students can create a visual representation even though the task is scored automatically.

31. Math Grade 3 Illustrative Sample Item: Type II Task Second part of multi-step problem, and, unlike traditional multiple choice, it is difficult to guess the correct answer or use a choice elimination strategy.

32. Math Grade 7 Illustrative Sample Item: Type I Task

33. Aligns to the Standards and Reflects Good Practice Grade 7 Sample Illustrative Item Key Features and Assessment Advances • The PARCC assessment will seek to preserve the focus of the Standards by thoroughly exploring the major work of the grade. • In this case, a multi-point problem is devoted to a single standard about proportional relationships, which are a major focus in grades 6 and 7. • Unlike traditional multiple choice, it is difficult to guess the correct answer or use a choice elimination strategy. • Variants of the task could probe understanding of unit rates and representations of proportional relationships by showing different scales on the two graphs, and/or by presenting the data in tables C and D with the ordered pairs not equally spaced in time.

34. Additional Sample Items in ELA/Literacy

35. Item Types That Showcase Students’ Command of Evidence with Complex Texts • Evidence-Based Selected Response (EBSR)—Combines a traditional selected-response question with a second selected-response question that asks students to show evidence from the text that supports the answer they provided to the first question. Underscores the importance of Reading Anchor Standard 1 for implementation of the CCSS. • Technology-Enhanced Constructed Response (TECR)—Uses technology to capture student comprehension of texts in authentic ways that have been difficult to score by machine for large scale assessments (e.g., drag and drop, cut and paste, shade text, move items to show relationships). • Range of Prose Constructed Responses (PCR)—Elicits evidence that students have understood a text or texts they have read and can communicate that understanding well both in terms of written expression and knowledge of language and conventions. There are four of these items of varying types on each annual performance-based assessment.

36. Evidence-Based Selected Response Example Part A: In paragraph 4 of the text Who Was Marco Polo?, the author states that an exaggeration became known as a “marco polo.” What is the meaning of the word exaggeration? A. a mistake or misunderstanding B. a long journey C. an exciting individual D. an untruth or overstatement* Part B: Which words from paragraph 3 and 4 best help the reader determine the meaning of exaggeration? • didn’t know much E. another phrase • strange lands F. wild stories* • too incredible* G. make the crowds laugh • the nickname

37. Technology-Enhanced Item Example: Highlighting Evidence From the The Great Fire: The passage provides several reasons that Chicago was a city “ready to burn.” The passage also gives reasons that Chicago burned down when it did, rather than at an earlier or later time. • In the passage, highlight two sentences that provide reasons that the city burned in October 1871 rather than earlier or later.

38. Technology-Enhanced Item Example: Drag and Drop The passage gives reasons that explain why Marco Polo may have been truthful in his book and also gives reasons that explain why he may have made up his stories about China. The headings in the chart below list these two different ideas from the text. Complete each row of the chart by dragging and dropping facts anddetails from the text to support each idea. The first row has been done for you.

39. Understanding the Narrative Writing Task (Grade 6 Example) Students read one or two brief texts and answer a few questions to help clarify their understanding of the text(s). Students then write either a narrative story or a narrative description (e.g., writing a historical account of important figures; detailing a scientific process; describing an account of events, scenes, or objects).

40. Texts Worth Reading? • Range: Example of assessing literature and helping to satisfy the 55%-45% split of informational text to literatureat the 6-8 grade-band. • Quality: Julie of the Wolves was a winner of the Newbery Medal in 1973. This text about a young Eskimo girl surviving on her own in the tundra by communicating with wolvesoffers a story rich with characterization and imagery that will appeal to a diverse student population. • Complexity: Quantitatively and qualitatively, the passages have been validated and deemed suitable for use at grade 6.

41. ELA/Literacy: Grade 6 Sample Item

42. ELA/Literacy: Grade 6 Sample Item

43. Questions Worth Answering? Grade 6 Prose Constructed Response from Narrative Writing Task In the passage, the author developed a strong character named Miyax. Think about Miyax and the details the author used to create that character. The passage ends with Miyax waiting for the black wolf to look at her. Write an original story to continue where the passage ended. In your story, be sure to use what you have learned about the character Miyax as you tell what happens to her next.

44. Additional Sample Items in mathematics

45. Math High School Illustrative Sample Item: Type I Task Item has two possible solutions Students have to recognize the nature of the equation to know how to solve Technology prevents guessing and working backward

46. Aligns to the Standards and Reflects Good Practice High School Illustrative Item Key Features and Assessment Advances The given equation is quadratic equation with two solutions. The task does not clue the student that the equation is quadratic or that it has two solutions; students must recognize the nature of the equation from its structure. Notice that the terms 6x – 4 and 3x – 2 differ only by an overall factor of two. So the given equation has the structure where Q is 3x – 2. The equation Q2 - 2Q is easily solved by factoring as Q(Q-2) = 0, hence Q = 0 or Q = 2. Remembering that Q is 3x – 2, we have . These two equations yield the solutions and .  Unlike traditional multiple-choice tests, the technology in this task prevents guessing and working backwards. The format somewhat resembles the Japanese University Entrance Examinations format (see innovations in ITN Appendix F). A further enhancement is that the item format does not immediately indicate the number of solutions.

47. Math High School Illustrative Sample Item: Type III Task • http://www.ccsstoolbox.com/parcc/PARCCPrototype_main.html MP 1, 2, 3; F-BF.1; F-LE.2,3

48. Math High School Illustrative Sample Item: Type III Task • http://www.ccsstoolbox.com/parcc/PARCCPrototype_main.html MP 1, 2, 3; F-BF.1; F-LE.2,3

49. Math High School Illustrative Sample Item: Type III Task • http://www.ccsstoolbox.com/parcc/PARCCPrototype_main.html MP 1, 2, 3; F-BF.1; F-LE.2,3

50. www.PARCConline.org