Kelley Webb, Humanities Program Specialist
Stephanie Haga, STEM Program Specialist

• Write Score Sample Items (7th Grade)
• OAS Items (becoming GOFAR in SLDS)
• Engage NY: Just Released Test Items (Grades 3-8)
• Georgia DOE Assessment Guides (Grades 9-11)

Consolidation of English Language Arts
• English Language Arts and reading will be combined and a writing component added for every grade level and course within the ELA assessment
• One overall ELA score and proficiency designation
• Reporting categories below the overall content area will be reported similar to the domains on the CRCT
• Cannot make proficiency claims at the lower level reporting categories

Criterion Referenced and Norm Referenced
Items:
• students will receive 2 scores:
*criterion referenced score (55 total points)
*norm referenced score (20 total points)
• some norm-referenced items (10) will count as criterionreferenced items as well

ELA
Criterion-Referenced
Total Number of Items: 44 / Total Number of Points: 55
Breakdown by Item Type:
– 40 Selected Response (worth 1 point each; 10 of which are aligned NRT )
– 2 Constructed Response (2 points each)
– 1 Constructed or Extended Response (worth 4 points ): literary prose
– 1 Extended Response (worth 7 points): informative/explanatory or argument/opinion
Norm-Referenced
– Total Number of Items: 20 (10 of which contribute to CR score)
Embedded Field Test
– Total field test items: 6
Total number of items taken by each student: 60

Georgia Milestones
All students will encounter a constructedresponse item allowing for narrative prose, in response to text , within the 1 st or
2 nd test section.

Extended Response Writing Section:
• Writing prompts will be informative/explanatory or opinion/argumentative depending on the grade level. Students could encounter either genre.

Content
Area
ELA
Test Section Minimum
Time Per
Section
1 and 2
Maximum
Time Per
Section
60 minutes 70 minutes
ELA
(writing only)
3 70 minutes 90 minutes

Blank scratch paper, including notebook paper, should be provided to students taking Milestones regardless of the administration mode:
ELA: Section 3 only
Mathematics: All sections

• selected response (multiple choice)
• constructed response
• extended response

Sample Assessment
Grade 3 Informational Task

Sample Assessment
Grade 7 Informational Task

What will students struggle with on the upcoming Georgia Milestones? Why?
What?
• complex texts
• text-dependent questions
• written response
• citing evidence
• analyzing and synthesizing information from two or more texts
• writing/typing online
Why?
• lack of student exposure to complex texts using close reading strategies
• lower level comprehension questions (Who? What? Where?)
• lack of teacher experience and training with literary analysis
• lack of teacher knowledge of Common Core standards
• lack of student experience with written response to text-dependent questions

How do we prepare our teachers and students for these assessments?
• provide teachers with sample assessment items
• model lessons that integrate reading and writing and cover multiple standards
• provide examples of complex texts (variety of literary, informational, and digital texts) and assist teachers with selection of these texts
• model close reading strategies, text analysis strategies, and textdependent questioning
• assist teachers with planning units and lessons that integrate reading and writing

Performance Based Assessments found in Fulton Connect
• Grades: 2, 5, 8, 9-10
• Genre: Argument/Opinion
• Types of assessment: constructed and extended response
• Location: Fulton Connect
• Purposes: both instructional and assessment
Formative Item Bank found in Fulton Connect
• Grades: all
• Types of assessment: selected and constructed response
• Location: Fulton Connect
• Purpose: assessment
• coming soon!!!

• Write Score Sample Items (3rd Grade)
• OAS Items (becoming GOFAR in SLDS)
• Journeys Performance Assessments (Reading Complex Text)
• Engage NY: Just Released Test Items
• Georgia Milestones Blueprints
How do we prepare our teachers and students for these assessments?
• provide teachers with sample assessment items

• Reading and Writing Project Videos
Introduce a Text-Based Debate: Stray
Modeled Reading Lesson with Mary Ehrenworth: Pilgrims
• Sample lessons from Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study, Craft Lessons, Mentor
Texts
• Sample lessons from Write Score
• Elementary schools: CST professional development/Edmodo Group
How do we prepare our teachers and students for these assessments?
• model lessons that integrate reading and writing and cover multiple standards

• provide opportunities to “write” on computers in and out of class
• keyboarding skills
• student and parent awareness
• access to computers

• writing station during literacy stations at the computers (laptops, iPads, etc.)
• collaborative group responses typed on computers
• in-class assignments and responses posted on
Edmodo or kid blogs
• allow students to type homework assignments on computers at home as an option
• computer lab “special” time used to to practice typing, blog, etc.

Resources to help teach students keyboarding skills:
• Dance Mat Typing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3c6tfr
• Typing Instructor: http://www.typinginstructor.biz/arcade/wildwest/wild west.swf
• Typing Web: www.typingweb.com
• Type to Learn
$795 lifetime subscription, web-based http://ttl4.sunburst.com/

• Examples on upcoming slides
• OAS Items (becoming GOFAR in SLDS)
• Engage NY: Just Released Test Items

5 th Grade Constructed Response Ex

5 th Grade Constructed Response Ex

5 th Grade Constructed Response Ex

5 th Grade Constructed Response Ex

5 th Grade Constructed Response Ex

Student-Focused Classroom vs. Teacher-Focused
Classroom
“Too often, mathematics instruction gives students the erroneous notion that learning math is all about learning procedures, rather than making sense of ideas.”
Marilyn Burns
• Students need to be the ones doing the math, not just copying procedures.
• Students need to think and reason in mathematics

• build conceptual understanding starting with the concrete use of manipulatives
• scaffold students to higher levels of thinking
• incorporate the Standards for Mathematical Practice into every lesson through writing and student dialogue

• presenting concepts through the Concrete-
Representational-Abstract (C-R-A) model
• teaching vocabulary
• building context and background knowledge
• modeling the problem solving process with challenging problems using gradual release
• using graphic organizers

Standards for Mathematical Practice
1. make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
2. reason abstractly and quantitatively
3. construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
4. model with mathematics
5. use appropriate tools strategically
6. attend to precision
7. look for and make use of structure
8. look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

Incorporate these standards into every lesson through:
• student dialogue in partners, groups, and whole class
• number sense routines
• math talks
Videos of Math Talks
Professional Development Books:
Number Sense Routines (Grades K-3) by Jessica Shumway
Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math and
Computation Strategies (Grades K-5) by Sherry Parrish

Video Model Lessons: Standards of Mathematical Practice by
Grade Level
Teacher Resources: Standards of Mathematical Practice
Resources by Grade Level
“Our challenge as teachers is not to find better ways to explain to our students what we want them to learn, but rather to find better ways to ask our students to make sense of what they’re learning for themselves.” -Marilyn Burns