SPA-LC/ILC 2023 Virtual Symposium
Session 1. Theories of Action for Enacting Instructionally Relevant Assessment Systems
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This session will focus on how leaders at different levels within a state assessment system conceptualize and operationalize assessment systems that support learning. Leaders will share how they began this work, where they are now, and how they have negotiated between a variety of stakeholders with diverse priorities.
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Ann Cook, New York Performance Standards Consortium
Alexandria “AJ” Rathmann-Noonan, New York Performance Standards Consortium
Allison Armour-Garb, New York State Education Department
Dan French, Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment
Sarah Snipes, Kentucky Department of Education
Susan Dugle, University of Kentucky Center for Next Generation Leadership
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Session 2. Deep Dives on Instructionally Relevant Assessment Systems—MATH
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There is a movement toward new pathways in math instruction, which comes with many questions for how to design assessments that reflect the goals of these pathways, provide opportunities for students to surface their math thinking, and align to high-quality instructional practices. In this session, technical assistance providers and researchers who focus on new pathways in math will share how they are shifting assessment to reflect innovations in math instruction, math pathways in assessment, and the challenges they have encountered in designing these assessments and systems.
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Ryan Lemieux, New Hampshire Learning Initiative
Shelly LeDoux, University of Texas at Austin Dana Center
Tamyra Walker, ConnectED National
Ted Coe, NWEA
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Session 2. Deep Dives on Instructionally Relevant Assessment Systems—PBL
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Anchoring learning in hands-on, authentic projects can provide students with clear goals and purpose for their learning. In a project-based learning environment, learning activities clearly and coherently build toward a summative assessment that students see as purposeful and relevant to the learning that is happening in the classroom. This breakout will highlight project-based learning models, provide examples of what coherent project-based learning can look like, and share lessons learned from implementing these educational approaches.
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Ari Dolid, PBLWorks
Joe Kracjik, Michigan State University
Kathleen Schwille, PBLWorks
Natalya Tabony, Collegeboard
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Session 4. Building capacity to implement an equitable, coherent, and instructionally relevant assessment system
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This session will feature technical assistance providers and research-practice partners who have worked with states to develop the capacity of practitioners to implement and use–and in some cases, design–instructionally relevant assessment systems. They will share key considerations, points of tension, and areas for continued growth within this scope of work.
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Jill Wertheim, SCALE@WestEd
Linda Friedrich, Reading Apprenticeship project at WestEd
Michelle Odemwingie, ANet
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Session 5. Educative assessments: Katie Van Horne (Concolor Research)
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A key element of culturally relevant assessment tasks is their relevance to students, and particularly minoritized students. In this session, we will explore a framework for developing Culturally Relevant Assessments, we will discuss strategies to design for relevance, and dive into examples of tasks that highlight assessment task features.
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Session 5. Educative assessments: Kathleen White (NHLI BEST)
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The essential skills of collaboration, communication, creativity, and self-direction represent the deeper learning competencies that connect what students learn in school to the expectations for career, college, and community success. Teachers, students & researchers worked together to build the BEST (Building Essential Skills Today) Rubrics and Toolkits, a collaborative effort that prioritized teacher agency, amplified student voices, and adapted these innovative tools to make an impact in the classroom. This session will delve into how the essential skills can be seamlessly integrated into classroom activities, learning experiences and student led exhibitions.
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Session 5. Educative assessments: Jessica Arnold (WestEd) and Deborah Atwell (LACOE)
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Performance tasks represent an important tool to understand student learning, but they are most powerful when they can foster shifts in classroom practice that extend beyond an individual assessment experience. This session details the outcomes of educator engagement in the Building Educator Assessment Literacy (BEAL) and Performance Task Development Projects. Collaborative efforts between Wested and the Los Angeles County Office of Education demonstrate that when educators are engaged in the design, development, and facilitation of performance assessment, they report deepened content knowledge, growth in their understanding of assessment, and change to their instructional pedagogy
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Session 5. Technical assistance and capacity building: Shelly LeDoux (UT Dana Center)
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Establishing the classroom conditions that support student-centered learning and opportunities for effective formative assessment often requires teachers to make shifts in practice. In this session, we will share tools and resources to support meaningful change in instruction and student outcomes by assessing current classroom conditions and engaging all educators in the system in collaborative continuous improvement.
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Session 5. Technical assistance and capacity building: Bill Penuel, Sara Cooper (CU Boulder) and Abe Lo (BSCS Science Learning)
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Capacity-building is key to implementing an equitable, coherent assessment system. To meet the needs of all system actors from classroom teachers to state leaders and to work within the constraints of a wide variety of systems, capacity-building efforts must be flexible and adaptable. Join us to learn more about how our team prioritizes co-design partnerships to ‘right-size’ professional learning opportunities to support capacity-building focused on meaningful assessment aligned to a vision of assessment that focuses on eliciting students’ understanding of the three dimensions of science in a way that connects to their interests and identities.
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Session 2. Deep Dives on Instructionally Relevant Assessment Systems—SCIENCE
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In developing instructionally relevant assessment systems, states face myriad decisions that each come with a set of trade-offs. One of the biggest tensions can be navigating high-level instructional goals, local adaptation, and systems quality. In this session, several state leaders who had different starting places and theories of action will share how they developed statewide, instructionally relevant science assessments and reflect on their successes, trade-offs, and continued areas for refinement. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of the presenters and connect these lessons to their needs.
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Johanna Brown, Washington Department of Education; Tyler Belanga and Paul Dumas, Hawaii Department of Education
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Session 2. Deep Dives on Instructionally Relevant Assessment Systems—ELA
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A tension when considering curriculum-anchored assessment systems are the trade-offs inherent to tying common assessments to curriculum decisions. On the one hand, these assessments can be more clearly useful for improving instruction; on the other hand, the implied need for common implementation can limit teacher autonomy and personalization to student needs. This session asks presenters to consider and discuss the affordances and limitations of these approaches, and pose considerations for theories of action for different approaches to instructionally relevant assessments
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David Steiner, Johns Hopkins Institute for Educational Policy
Ellen Hume-Howard, New Hampshire Learning Institute
Kimberly Conant, Derry School District
Miah Daughtery, NWEA -
Recording
Session 3. Impacts of Instructionally Relevant Assessment Systems: A conversation with teachers and students
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The theories of action and states and local efforts we have raised during the day today have a common goal: to improve teaching and learning by supporting teachers and students. During this session, we will invite teachers and students within systems seeking to be more instructionally relevant to share their own experiences and perspectives on how different approaches support or challenge their teaching and learning.
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Beth Blankenship,
Eliot Waxman,
students and alumni of Fairfax County Public Schools -
Session 5. Educative assessments: Ari Dolid and Chris Walsh (PBLWorks)
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In this session, participants will examine an educator’s journey through PBLNow’s embedded project-based assessments. We will discuss how our design frames assessment for the educator, enables educators to understand the relationship between the project and important disciplinary performances, and how we engage students and teachers in a dialogue about the assessment experience.
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Session 5. Educative assessments: Natalya Tabony (College Board)
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Advanced Placement (AP) exams are intended to be educative in their overall design. Exams preparation materials, provided by the College Board reflect the level of instruction that they hope students receive in preparing for an AP exam. Recently, AP exams have also included performance-based assessments, including tasks that require students to submit artifacts created during instructional time. In this session, attendees will learn about how these performance-based assessment tasks help deepen educators’ content knowledge and provide opportunities to reflect on practice, and act as educative assessments for both teachers and students.
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Session 5. Educative assessments: Aída Walqui and Haiwen Chu (WestEd)
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In this session, participants will learn about design principles that guide two iterative curriculum development and evaluation projects from the National Research and Development Center to Improve Secondary Education for English Learners in ELA and math. These projects reflect high-quality learning opportunities–including intentional, ongoing peer- and self-evaluation–facilitated through educative materials that help develop educator expertise in supporting English Learners.
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Session 5. Technical assistance and capacity building: Jill Wertheim (SCALE/Wested)
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High-quality assessments have the potential to enhance learning, but realizing this potential requires a significant shift in how assessments are typically used. In this session, participants will explore tools and structures SCALE Science uses at the state and district scale to engage teachers and leaders in sustained, practice-based professional learning focused on using assessments to recognize, work with, and work on students’ ideas.
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Session 5. Technical assistance and capacity building: Linda Friedrich and Heather Howlett (WestEd)
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Reading Apprenticeship takes a grassroots approach to capacity building starting with teachers and their classroom. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework which focuses on using metacognition to build adolescent students’ capacity to tackle increasingly complex text in each discipline. Formative assessment is embedded in our work. In this session, we will share a case study of and the tools (protocols for analyzing student work) used by three middle school science teachers to explore how to effectively engage students in disciplinary metacognitive work.
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