New Standards Reference Exams

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New Standards Reference Exams

• Joseph L. Seay
• Coordinator of Research Assessment
• Cherry Hill School District

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About New Standards/Introduction

• Represents a new and exciting way to measure
  student achievement
• Performance Standards that measure what students
  should be able
• to do at different points in their educational
  careers and how well
• They have learned the tasks, concepts, and skills
  described by those standards

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The Reference Examinations

• Part of a complete assessment system
• Designed to help achieve high performance
• Emphasize performance tasks
• Offer three levels - elementary, middle, and high
  school
• Are professionally scored

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Description of New Standards

• Standards-Referenced, which is an extension of
  the concept of criterion-referencing.

It is possible to prepare students directly for
the examinations.
Done by teaching to the standards, not to
specific test items.

• Performance Standards are derived from
• Performance descriptions
• Work samples and commentaries

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Format of the Language Arts Exams

• Part 1 55 minutes of testingan independent
  writing task that asks students to use details to
  respond to a constructed-response prompt

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Format of the Language Arts Exams

• Part 2 55 minutes of testingan integrated
  reading and writing task that asks students to
  read a passage, answer short constructed-response
  questions, and produce a piece of text-based
  writing to demonstrate comprehension of the
  passage
• Part 3 55 minutes of testinga multiple-choice
  examination that asks students to read a number
  of passages and respond to questions that deal
  with either reading comprehension, inference and
  analysis, or editing rules and guidelines.

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Assessing the English Language Arts Standards

• Reading has two main parts
• Comprehension
• Interpretation

• Reading has two categories
• Basic Understanding
• Analysis Interpretation

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Language Arts (Three Sections)

• An Independent Writing Task
• An Integrated Reading and Writing Task
• A few well-crafted multiple-choice questions

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What the Exam Does

• Emphasize skills that are fundamental to many
  areas of reading and writing
• Careful selection of details
• Ability to relate specific details to an overall
  scheme
• Reinforce the idea that reading and writing are
  highly integrated activities

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Format of The Mathematics Exams

• Part 1 55 minutes of testing20 multiple choice
  questions, plus a set of between 4 and 11
  constructed-response tasks requiring students to
  construct rather than select an answer and
  focusing primarily on mathematical skills and
  conceptual understanding.
• Part 2 55 minutes of testinga set of 3-6
  constructed-response tasks focusing primarily on
  conceptual understanding and problem-solving an

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Format of The Mathematics Exams

• Part 3 55 minutes of testinganother set of 3-6
  constructed-response tasks focusing primarily on
  conceptual understanding and problem-solving.

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Assessing the Mathematics Standards

• Students demonstrate understanding of mathematics
  standards by
• Using it to solve problems
• Representing it in multiple ways
• Explaining it to someone else

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Mathematics (Three Areas)

• Conceptual Understanding
• Mathematical Skills and Tools
• Problem Solving and Reasoning/Mathematical
  Communication

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What the Exam Does

• Many tasks are derived from real-life situations
• Students can see connections to world outside
  school
• Student-constructed responses are scored
  holistically and dimensionally

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Provide timely reports of

• student, classroom, school, and
• district in relation to the standards
• Respond to Title I requirements
• Take into account international standards

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Scoring and Reporting

• Student scores are reported by performance levels
• The examinations are professionally scored
• A variety of score reports are available about
• student, classroom, school, district
• performance on the Reference Exams

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How Are Results Reported?

• Reported as profiles that map directly
• to Performance Standards or to
• clusters of standards

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Information on Reports

• Are in keeping with the goal of improving
  education
• Will provide students, teachers, and parents
  with
• information regarding current performance to the
  standards
• Will assist educators in
• planning programs to help students meet high
  standards

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Scores for the Reference Exams

• Achieved the Standard with Honors
• Student performed at a higher level than the
  standard on a consistent basis
• Achieved the Standard
• Student performed at the level of the standard on
  a consistent basis

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Scores for the Reference Exams (cont.)

• Nearly Achieved the Standard
• Student showed some evidence of performing at the
  level of the standard
• but overall performances did not consistently
  meet the standard.
• Below the Standard
• Student showed some attempt to respond but the
  number of successful
• responses were minimal, and all too often, the
  responses were incomplete

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Scores for the Reference Exams (cont.)

• Little Evidence of Achievement
• Student showed almost no attempt to respond, as
  evidenced by
• numerous blank answers, entirely unsuccessful
  answers, and incomplete answers

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Communicate the meaning of high standards to

• district administrators
• school board members
• the public
• So they can work together to build
• learning environments that will challenge all
  students

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What Students Need Grade 5 Reading Basic
Understanding

• Understanding the central ideas of text
• Elaborating more fully on a texts central idea
• Providing a more comprehensive account of what is
  in the text
• Connecting responses more explicitly to ideas
  expressed by the text

• Addressing various topics presented in a text
• Using a variety of strategies to demonstrate
  comprehension
• Extracting information integral to understanding
  text

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What Students Need Grade 5 Reading Analysis
Interpretation

• Supporting interpretation with elaborated reasons
  and convincing textual evidence
• Making reasonable and responsible interpretations
• Evaluating a strategies used by an author to
  achieve a particular effect

• Making perceptive and well-developed connections
  with other texts, ideas, and concepts
• Making clearer and more sophisticated claims and
  assertions about a text
• Showing results of a functional relationship

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What Students Need Grade 5 Writing Effectiveness

• Creating cohesion between sentences and
  paragraphs
• Organizing the essay appropriate to purpose,
  audience, and context
• Writing a to a particular audience
• Including relevant information
• Using specific details
• Using appropriate vocabulary and sentence
  structure

• Using sophisticated claims and assertions about a
  text
• Presenting ideas thoughtfully
• Balancing the parts of an essay in terms of a
  beginning, middle, and end
• Developing a controlling idea
• Conveying a clear stance or purpose

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What Students Need Grade 5 Mathematical Skills

• Computing time in hours and minutes
• Computing money in dollars and cents
• Adding numbers with several digits
• Reading data on charts and graphs
• Subtracting numbers with several digits

• Multiplying with one and two digits
• Measuring length in the customary system
• Measuring length in the metric system

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What Students Need Grade 5 Mathematical Concepts

• Finding area and perimeter of shapes
• Finding all combinations and arrangements
• Deciding what operation to use
• Visualizing 2-D views of 3-D shapes
• Finding simple parts of wholes
• Showing results of a functional relationship
• Extending simple non-linear patterns

• Relating addition and subtraction
• Showing relationships between figures
• Identifying figures by their properties
• Making and interpreting graphs
• Extending numeric and geometric patterns
• Showing understanding of place value

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What Students Need Grade 5 Problem Solving

• Determining resources and strategies for solving
  problems
• Explaining solutions to problems clearly and
  logically
• Making connections among concepts to solve
  problems
• Showing mathematical ideas in a variety of ways

• Using manipulative/drawing sketches to model
  problems Using known strategies, skills,
  knowledge, and concepts
• Considering purpose and audience when
  communicating

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What Students Need Grade 9 Reading Basic
Understanding

• Reading closer to better grasp what is happening
  in the text
• Elaborating more fully on a texts central idea
• Providing a more comprehensive account of what is
  in the text
• Connecting responses more explicitly to ideas
  expressed by the text

• Accounting for the complexities, subtleties,
  ironies, and the ambiguities in a text
• Using a variety of strategies to demonstrate
  comprehension
• Extracting information integral to understanding
  text
• Synthesizing an understanding of the text into a
  clear interpretation

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What Students Need Grade 9 Reading Analysis and
Interpretation

• Supporting interpretation with elaborated
  reasons and convincing textual evidence
• Making reasonable and responsible interpretations
• Evaluating strategies used by an author to
  achieve a particular effect
• Establishing connections between text and prior
  knowledge
• Making perceptive and well-developed connections
  with other texts, ideas, and concepts

• Offering additional and alternative
  interpretations
• Examining a text critically
• Interpreting the effect of literary features of a
  text
• Making and supporting inferences about content,
  events, characters, setting, theme, and style

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What Students Need Grade 9 Writing Effectiveness

• Creating cohesion between sentences and
  paragraphs
• Organizing the essay appropriate to purpose,
  audience, and context
• Writing to a particular audience
• Including relevant information
• Using specific details

• Using a range of strategies, such as story and
  dialogue
• Using effective sentence patterns and diction
• Presenting ideas thoughtfully
• Connecting the main subject with other knowledge
  and experience
• Using appropriate vocabulary and sentence
  structure

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What Students Need Grade 9 Writing Conventions

• Showing a mastery of usage, grammar, and spelling
  through more complex writing
• Punctuating sentences correctly

• Editing to communicate more clearly and accurately

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What Students Need Grade 9 Mathematical Skills

• Identifying median
• Calculating accurately with decimals
• Calculating accurately with percents
• Measuring, calculating perimeter
• Reading data

• Using basic conventions coordinate plane
• Identifying greatest common factor
• Measuring, calculating area
• Comparing simple fractions

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What Students Need Grade 9 Mathematical Concepts

• Estimating angle measure
• Reasoning proportionally
• Modeling situations geometrically
• Representing functions (table, graph, formula)
• Applying A pir2 with fluency
• Using rate to estimate and calculate
• Analyzing data in a scatter plot

• Using inverse relationships
• Determining areas of 2-dimensional shapes
• Extending numerical spatial patterns
• Solving linear equations
• Identifying translations
• Ordering rational numbers, exponents

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What Students Need Grade 9 Problem Solving

• Integrating concepts and techniques
• Invoking problem-solving strategies
• Extracting pertinent information
• Formulating problems involving linear/area
  measurement
• Formulating problems involving proportions
• Determining how to break a problem into simpler
  parts

• Solving for unknown or undecided quantities
• Formulating problems involving use of data
• Formulating problems involving functional
  relationships
• Formulating problems involving rate
• Generalizing solutions

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Questions and Answers

• Please make sure you get a copy of all the
  handouts.
• Any additional questions you may have, please see
  me in my office.
• Thanks for your attendance.
• Have a great day!