TRANSITIONING TO A NEW
ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
ICE BREAKER
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Today’s Focus:
• Background information about the Partnership
for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers (PARCC)
• Design of the PARCC assessments
• Text complexity
• PARCC updates and releases
Rumor Has It…
• Write ONE thing you’ve heard about the
PARCC assessments on a Post It.
• Discuss all statements at your table.
• Select one statement and choose a
spokesperson to read it to the entire group.
• Place your statements on the “Rumor Has It…”
poster.
What Is PARCC?
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for
College and Careers:
 Made up of 22 states
 Developing common, high-quality
math and English language arts
(ELA) tests for grades 3–11
 Computer-based and linked to what students need to know
for college and careers
 For use starting in the 2014–15 school year
Why PARCC and not Smarter
Balanced?
• Type of assessment
• State involvement
• Demographics
Why New Assessments Now?
7
Why do we need change?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY
2mRM4i6tY
PARCC ASSESSMENT PRIORITIES:
PARCC Assessment Design:
ELA/Literacy and Mathematics 3-11
2 Optional Assessments/Flexible Administration
Diagnostic Assessment
• Early indicator of
student knowledge
and skills to inform
instruction, supports,
and PD
• Non-summative
Mid-Year Assessment
• Performance-based
• Emphasis on hardto-measure
standards
• Potentially
summative
Performance-Based
Assessment (PBA)
• Extended tasks
• Applications of
concepts and skills
• Required
Speaking And Listening Assessment
• Locally scored
• Non-summative, required
End-of-Year
Assessment
• Innovative,
computer-based
items
• Required
Capturing What Students
Can Do
Grade- and Subject-Specific
Performance Level Descriptors
(PLDS)
• capture how all students perform
• show understandings and skill
development across the spectrum
of standards and complexity levels
assessed
PLDs 5 Performance Levels
CCR
Level
Level 4
Level 3
Moderate
Level 2
Partial
Level 1
Minimal
Strong
5
Distinguished
Level 5: Students
performing at this
level demonstrate a
distinguished
command of the
knowledge, skills, and
practices embodied
by the Common Core
State Standards
assessed at their
grade level.
Arizona Involvement in PARCC
Evidence Based Assessment
The PARCC assessment system is
designed to assess students’ readiness for
success in careers and college.
Complexity vs. Difficulty
KAREN HESS VIDEO:
http://vimeo.com/20998609
Complexity vs. Difficulty, Cont.
Webb’s DOK Levels
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
• RECALL OF INFORMATION
• BASIC REASONING
• COMPLEX REASONING
• EXTENDED REASONING
Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix
Webb’s DOK
DOK LEVEL 1
Recall & Reproduction
DOK LEVEL 2
Basic Skills & Concepts
DOK LEVEL 3
Strategic Thinking &
Reasoning
DOK Level 4
Extended Thinking
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Remember
-recall, locate basic facts,
definitions, details, events
Understand
-Select appropriate
words for use when
intended meaning is
clearly evident.
-Specify, explain
relationships
-Summarize
-Identify central ideas
-Explain, generalize, or
connect ideas using
supporting evidence
-Explain how concepts or
ideas specifically relate
to other content domains
or content
Apply
-Use language structure
or word relationships to
determine meaning
-Use context to identify
word meanings
-Obtain/interpret
information using text
features
-Use concepts to solve
non-routine problems
-Devise an approach
among many alternatives
to research a novel
problem
Analyze
-Identify the kind of
information contained in a
graphic, table, visual, etc.
-Compare literary
elements, facts, terms,
events
-Analyze organization &
text structures
-Analyze or interpret
author’s craft to critique a
text
-Analyze multiple sources
or texts
-Analyze
complex/abstract themes
-Cite evidence and
develop a logical
argument for conjectures
based on one text or
problem
-Evaluate relevancy,
accuracy & completeness
of information across
texts/sources
-Develop a complex
model for a situation
-Develop an alternative
solution
-Synthesize information
across multiple sources or
texts; articulate new voice
or perspective
Evaluate
Create
-Brainstorm ideas,
concepts, etc. related to a
topic or concept
-Generate hypotheses
based on observations or
prior knowledge
Questions?
ELA/Literacy Shifts at the
Heart of PARCC Design:
Complexity
Evidence
Knowledge
CCSS AND PASSAGES
• Complex, Rich Texts
• Passage Selection
Guidelines
• Appendix B
Overview of Text Complexity
Reading Standards include exemplar texts (stories and literature,
poetry, and informational texts) that illustrate appropriate level of
complexity by grade.
Text complexity is defined by:
1. Qualitative measures – levels of
meaning, structure, language
conventionality and clarity, and
knowledge demands
2. Quantitative measures – readability
and other scores of text complexity
3. Reader and Task – background
knowledge of reader, motivation,
interests, and complexity generated by
tasks assigned
Reader and Task
Text Complexity Worksheets
• With others at your table, discuss the similarities
and differences between the literary
complexity analysis worksheet (blue) and the
informational complexity analysis worksheet
(yellow).
Let’s Practice
Harlem [Dream Deferred]
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
--Langston Hughes
The results?
• Grade Level:
11th
• Fits evidence statements:
11.RL.1, 11.RL.2, 11.RL.4, 11.RL.5, 11.RL.6
• Complexity Level:
higher end of moderately complex
• Reasons:
Multiple levels of meaning relatively easy to
identify; some unpredictable structural elements;
complex and abstract themes; abstract, ironic and
figurative language
More Practice
• Science: “How Underground Rodent Wards Off
Cancer: Second Mole Rat Species Has Different
Mechanism for Resisting Cancer” (Lexile: 1430;
Source Rater:11.1)
• Social Studies: Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo
11 (Lexile: 1050; Source Rater: 3.2)
Claims Driving Design:
ELA/literacy
Students are on-track or ready for college and careers
Students read and comprehend
a range of sufficiently
complex texts independently
Reading
Literature
Reading
Informational
Text
Vocabulary
Interpretation
and use
Students write
effectively when
using and/or
analyzing sources.
Written
Expression
Convention
and
Knowledge of
Language
Students build
and present
knowledge
through
research and
the
integration,
comparison,
and synthesis
of ideas.
Sample Model Content
Framework Chart
PARCC Summative Assessment:
Item Types
• Evidence Based Selected Response (EBSR)
• Technology Enhanced Constructed Response
(TECR)
• Range of Prose Constructed Response (PCR)
Evidence Based Selected
Response: Grade 10 Example
Part A
Which of the following sentences best states an important theme about human behavior as described in
Ovid’s “Daedalus and Icarus”?
a. Striving to achieve one’s dreams is a worthwhile endeavor.
b. The thoughtlessness of youth can have tragic results.
c. Imagination and creativity bring their own rewards.
d. Everyone should learn from his or her mistakes.
Part B
Select three pieces of evidence from Ovid’s “Daedalus and Icarus” that support the answer to Part A.
a. “and by his playfulness retard the work/his anxious father planned” b. “But when at
last/the father finished it, he poised himself”
c. “he fitted on his son the plumed wings/with trembling hands, while down his withered
cheeks/the tears were falling”
d. “Proud of his success/the foolish Icarus forsook his guide”
e. “and, bold in vanity, began to soar/rising upon his wings to touch the skies”
f. “and as the years went by the gifted youth/began to rival his instructor’s art”
g. “Wherefore Daedalus/enraged and envious, sought to slay the youth”
h. “The Partridge hides/in shaded places by the leafy trees…for it is mindful of its former
fall”
Technology Enhanced Constructed
Response: Grade 3 Example
Drag the words from the word box into the
correct locations on the graphic to show the life
cycle of a butterfly as described in “How Animals
Live.”
PARCC Summative Assessment
ELA/Literacy Performance Tasks
Prose Constructed Response:
Narrative Task
Prose Constructed Response:
Research Simulation Task
Prose Constructed Response:
Literary Analysis Task
ELA/Literacy PLDs
• The ELA/Literacy PLDs are organized in two areas:
reading and writing
— For reading, the levels are differentiated by three factors:
— text complexity (standard 10) (accessible, moderately complex, very complex)
— accuracy in student responses
— evidence cited (explicit, implied) from sources read (standard 1)
— At each, performance level, the degree to which students are able to
demonstrate command of standards 2-9 (e.g. main idea, point of view, setting,
plot, character, structure …) is described in terms of the three factors
— For writing, the levels are differentiated by:
— idea development, including when drawing evidence from sources
— organization
— use of conventions (grammar, capitalization, etc.)
— language usage
Three factors determine the
performance levels
1.
Text complexity
2.
Range of accuracy
3.
Quality of evidence
Grade 11
Level
Level of Text Complexity1
Range of Accuracy2
Quality of Evidence3
5
Very Complex
Moderately Complex
Readily Accessible
Accurate
Accurate
Accurate
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
4
Very Complex
Moderately Complex
Readily Accessible
Mostly accurate
Accurate
Accurate
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
3
Very Complex
Moderately Complex
Readily Accessible
Generally accurate
Mostly accurate
Accurate
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
2
Very Complex
Moderately Complex
Readily Accessible
Inaccurate
Minimally accurate
Mostly accurate
Explicit
Explicit and inferential
Explicit and inferential
Excerpt: ELA/Literacy
Grade 11, Level 5
This column provides
the level being
described
Evidence
statements
derived from
standards 2-9
This area provides information about
the performances displayed by
students in reading at this level in terms
of complexity, accuracy, and evidence
This area provides information about
the performances displayed by
students in writing at this level
Questions?
PARCC Updates and Releases
• Released for public review:
• Grade- and subject-specific performance level
descriptors (until May 8)
• PARCC Accommodations Manual (until May 13)
• Available on the PARCC website:
•
•
•
•
Assessment Administration guidance
Model content frameworks
Item and task prototypes
Assessment blueprints and test specifications
Preparing for PARCC
ELA/Literacy
Mathematics
• Incorporate rich, engaging text
at a variety of complexity
levels
• Incorporate informational as
well as literary text
• Require students to find and
use evidence to back up their
answers
• Use multi-media on a regular
basis
• Allow students time to grapple
with the text
• Use the rubrics as an
instructional tool
• Allow students time to grapple
with mathematics problems
• Require students to explain
their reasoning and show their
work
• Have students evaluate the
mathematical reasoning of
other students
• Utilize real world scenarios
• Incorporate technology
• Encourage students to take
math problems one step further
Questions?
Support and Resources
Web sites
10 Clicks to Understanding PARCC
PARCC in the Classroom
PARCC Items and Prototypes
PARCC Performance Level Descriptors
ADE contacts
Sarah.Gardner@azed.gov
Wendi.Anderson@azed.gov