Smarter Balanced
Assessment
Consortium Parent
Information Session
Colchester Public Schools
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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.
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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
Schedule
 The 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 Arts
What Will Be Tested?
Reading
Writing
• Students can read closely and analytically to
comprehend a range of increasingly
complex literary and informational texts.
Place text
here
• Students can produce effective and wellgrounded writing for a range of purposes
and audiences.
Speaking &
Listening
• Students can employ effective speaking and
listening skills for a range of purposes and
audiences.
Research
• Students can engage in research/inquiry to
investigate topics, and to analyze, integrate,
and present information.
The Shifts in ELA/Literacy
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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Reading Standards
 Reading Foundational Skills
 Literature
 Informational
 Writing
 Language
 Speaking/Listening
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Example: Point of View
 Grade 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).
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Smarter Balanced Item Types
Technology Enabled
(Listening)
Technology Enhanced
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.
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
•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?
Concepts &
Procedures
• Students can explain and apply mathematical
concepts and interpret and carry out mathematical
procedures with precision and fluency.
Problem Solving
• Students can solve a range of complex well-posed
problems in pure and applied mathematics, making
productive use of knowledge and problem solving
strategies.
Communicating
Reasoning
Modeling and
Data Analysis
• Students can clearly and precisely construct viable
arguments to support their own reasoning and to
critique the reasoning of others.
• Students can analyze complex, real-world scenarios
and can construct and use mathematical models to
interpret and solve problems.
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Practice Standards vs. Content
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.
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Content Standards
•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.”
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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-commoncore-standards
National PTA Common Core Information:
http://pta.org/advocacy/content2.cfm?ItemNumber=3008
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