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Smarter Balanced Assessment

Consortium Parent Information Session

Colchester Public Schools

Field Test:A Practice Run of Our New Assessments

Why? Colchester chose the Smarter Balanced test instead of CMT because it is more closely aligned to our instruction

Who? Students in grades 3-8 and 11

Test is not timed, and each of the 4 tests (ELA/literacy and math) is expected to take 60-90 minutes to complete.

This field test will help develop the grade level proficiency levels based on those taking the test. 2

We are preparing students to: Answer questions that have more than one correct

answer, using evidence from the text

Participate in small group discussions

Take notes while watching a video

Take notes when reading an article, short

story, etc.Analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and integrate

information in order to write a complete essay

Write within a specific time frame

Answer real world math questions

ScheduleThe day will feel like a regular day for most of the

school.

Students will have specials, lunch, recess as usual

The schedule is less invasive than the CMT’s

Students can take breaks

The test is not timed

Make-ups will be provided throughout the testing months

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Language ArtsWhat Will Be Tested?

Place text here

• Students can read closely and analytically to comprehend a range of increasingly complex literary and informational texts.

Claim 1Reading

• Students can produce effective and well-grounded writing for a range of purposes and audiences.

Claim 2 Writing

• Students can employ effective speaking and listening skills for a range of purposes and audiences.

Claim 3Speaking & Listening

• Students can engage in research/inquiry to investigate topics, and to analyze, integrate, and present information.

Claim 4Research

Shift 1 Building knowledge through content rich nonfiction

Shift 2 Reading, Writing and Speaking grounded in evidence from text, both informational and literary.

Shift 3 Regular practice with complex text and its academic language

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The Shifts in ELA/Literacy

Reading Standards

Reading Foundational Skills

Literature

Informational

Writing

Language

Speaking/Listening

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Example: Point of ViewGrade 1 Identify who is telling the story at

various points in a text.

Grade 3 Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters.

Grade 8 Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.

Grade 11-12 Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement). 8

Smarter Balanced Item Types

Selected Response

Constructed Response

Technology Enhanced

Performance Tasks

Technology Enabled (Listening)

Read the sentences below. Select a sentence from the passage that best supports each inference. Drag and drop the sentence into the box below the characteristic it best supports.

How Janie Changes in the Story

Janie is jealous in the beginning of the story.

Janie is helpful by the end of the story.

Technology Enhanced

Performance Tasks

•Demonstrate real world writing and analytical skills in math and language arts

•30 minute classroom instruction to give a context prior to the test

MATH PERFORMANCE TASK– CLASSROOM ACTIVITY: “The performance task you will complete is about a lemonade stand. How many of you have ever come across someone selling lemonade? Or have you ever had your very own lemonade stand?” [Allow students to tell stories about seeing people selling lemonade or about holding their own lemonade stands.]

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Math

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Shifts in Math with the CCSS

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• Learn more about fewer, key topics

• Build skills within and across grades

• Really know it, really do it

• Use it in the real world

• Think fast AND solve problems

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Math - What Will Be Tested?

• Students can explain and apply mathematical concepts and interpret and carry out mathematical procedures with precision and fluency.

Concepts & Procedures

• Students can solve a range of complex well-posed problems in pure and applied mathematics, making productive use of knowledge and problem solving strategies.

Problem Solving

•Students can clearly and precisely construct viable arguments to support their own reasoning and to critique the reasoning of others.

Communicating Reasoning

•Students can analyze complex, real-world scenarios and can construct and use mathematical models to interpret and solve problems.

Modeling and Data Analysis

Practice Standards vs. Content

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8 Practice standards• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

• Reason abstractly and quantitatively.• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

• Model with mathematics.• Use appropriate tools strategically.• Attend to precision.• Look for and make use of structure.• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Content Standards

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•Operations and Algebraic Thinking

•Number and Operations in Base Ten

•Number and Operations – Fractions

•Measurement and Data

•Geometry

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For this item, a full-credit response (1 point) includes: - stating that Susan is incorrect and an explanation as to why she is incorrect

For example, - “No, because parallelograms have two pairs of parallel sides.”

OR - “She is incorrect, because some of the figures do not have two pairs of parallel sides.”

For further information. . .

Connecticut Core Standards website with a link to Smarter Balanced:

http://ctcorestandards.org/

A Parent's Guide to the Common Core:

http://www.engageny.org/parent-guides-to-the-common-core-standards

National PTA Common Core Information:

http://pta.org/advocacy/content2.cfm?ItemNumber=3008

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