2015 MAC Tests
Formative and Summative Tools for
Enhanced Learning
Written to the Common Core Standards
Formative Assessment Workshop
“Mathematics is not a
careful march down a
well-cleared highway,
but a journey into a
strange wilderness,
where the explorers
often get lost.”
Fermat’s Enigma, p. 71
What makes MAC/MARS tests unique?
• Teachers and students see results and types of
errors.
• Errors are examined and used to enhance
learning.
• Focus is always on student thinking and
learning not sorting and ranking
• Emphasis is on the classroom and what’s next!
Change is HappeningGrowing from 25 original districts to over 150, including a
large cohort in Southern California.
Standards are changing, state tests and reporting is
changing.
New grade levels are added, including our first set of
toolkits for Course 3, Algebra 2. We are also making
available a version of tests for high school integrated
programs.
Many districts are testing for the first time.
Mathematical Practices
• Perseverance
• Reason abstractly and Quantitatively
• Construct viable arguments and critique the
reasoning of others.
• Model with mathematics.
• Use tools strategically.
• Attend to precision.
• Look for and make use of structure.
• Look for and express regularity in repeated
reasoning.
Students develop their ability to construct viable
arguments and to critique the reasoning of others.
• What makes a good justification?
• What is involved in making it complete?
• What types of quantification can be used to
support claims or conjectures?
• What sentence structures help students
develop a logical sequence to ideas?
What does it mean to know
something?
• How do students construct knowledge?
• How does that sound differently than
parroting ideas from the teacher?
• Genuine connections versus another learned
fact???
• During the testing process, we make visible
those strategies students know well enough to
pull out of their toolbox in a problem-solving
situation.
• Some mathematics only happens in context
What stays the same?
• Emphasis on student thinking: What do we learn
about student misconceptions? How does this
help us make those important changes in
instruction to provide feedback and push thinking
forward to grade appropriate strategies?
• Tests are one of the best vehicles for helping
teachers develop this skill. Provides common
experience to foster conversation among peers.
Spending Time talking about a task
• As teachers debate ideas and discuss student
work, errors, successful strategies, layers of
understanding a big idea, they take away ideas
that help them in the day to day art of
teaching.
Emphasis on Student Thinking
• Helps teachers think about what it means to
understand a concept and anticipate what
students will do. This, in turn, allows teachers
to plan questions to better facilitate discussion
and think about sequencing of sharing student
ideas.
• Helps teachers learn to look and understand
alternative strategies and reward seeds of
good mathematical thinking.
Tests create Common Standards
• Tests define the standards and grade level
expectations in ways reading the standards
doesn’t. Google doesn’t know all! Just
because it says Common Core, doesn’t make it
so!
• It creates a commonality it what is acceptable,
giving feedback to teachers and students.
• It shows the difference between teaching and
learning, identifies the “gap” in a very
personal way.
Emphasis on Classroom Instruction
• What stays the same is the focus, not on
scores, but on insights to change practice and
improve learning for students.
• Scoring sessions provide professional
development by showing weaknesses and
allowing conversations about how to improve
instruction.
As we explore- better tools
• Over the course of our work together, we have
continued to build and develop better tools for
thinking about students, what they know, what
they get confused about.
• We have become less concerned about right or
wrong, but what issues need to be addressed in
the classroom to promote learning.
• Elementary Formative Assessment Reengagement Lessons
Analyzing Student Work
• What strategies did successful students use?
• What are the common errors?
• What mathematics needs to be better
articulated or understood?
Use end of scoring time to discuss what teachers
have learned and what comes next in the
classroom.
Allow time during scoring training to talk about
alternative strategies and why they make sense.
Effective Formative Assessment
Strategies
Clarifying learning intentions and sharing criteria for
success
Engineering effective classroom discussions.
Providing feedback that moves learners forward.
Activating students as the owners of their own learning.
Activating students as instructional resources for one
another.
Dylan Wiliam, University of London
Building Citizenship
“What makes the class good is
that everybody’s at different
levels so everybody’s constantly
teaching each other and helping
each other out.” (Zane, Railside
school)
Investigate student work:
• Can you figure out what the student was
thinking? What was the logic of their
strategy?
• What did you like about the strategy?
• Did the strategy work? Could the strategy
have led to a correct solution? How?
Exploring More Ways to use Student
Work
• Use work as a tool to solve a problem or gain
insight about a strategy
• In the middle of a lesson, look at someone
else’s work and see if you can explain what
they are doing
As a collaborative we are pushing
boundaries on how to think about
lessons and incorporate student thinking.
Organizing for Testing
• What do I need to think about?
• What materials to I prepare?
• How do I prepare teachers?
Hearing Teacher Comments
• Wording of Test – doesn’t matter if you don’t
know concept.
• Disagree with Rubrics – importance of
consistency/defining the gray areas
• What is the hidden meaning beneath their
words?
• Hold the vision of the bigger picture
Giving Everyone a Voice
• Teacher comments on blank tests
– Feel heard
– See how to improve task selection
– Give us ideas about future professional
development needs
– Send to me: provides ideas for next year’s
professional development and ideas that help me
look closer at student work.
Test Instructions
• Copies of test instructions are included for
teachers.
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Security of exams
“Interesting problems”
Use of manipulatives and calculators
Time
Marking AB for Absences, the classroom teacher is the
only one who really knows if the student was present
and didn’t work or did not take the test.
– Don’t record tests with AB’s in the spreadsheet! Only
want scores of complete tests.
How you present problems . . .
• Determines what you get . . .
• Personal story about interesting problems
• Talk to staff about the importance of how
tests are presented, classroom atmosphere,
materials available to students and
accommodations for special needs students.
Security of Exams
2015 Tests
• Please put District # on the front cover (this is
easier if done before you run off the tests)
• Run tests front to back and use book staples if
possible
• Some districts prefer to add a page in the
middle to clarify the end of day 1 (make sure
that 2-page tasks will still be facing each
other).
• Back Page has been provided in your testing
package.
Front Cover
Labeling
Labeling
Middle of Test
Back Cover
Middle of Test
Test Printing
• All printers read files differently.
• For example, spacing may come out
differently or computers have different
versions of Microsoft.
• Equations, in particular, seem to come out
differently.
• Do a sample run to look for issues, before
doing the large run.
Test Printing
• Grid Lines:
– 3rd- Patio Tiles
– 8th - M.C. Escher
– 8th - Candi’s Tablet
– 10th/Int. 1 – Isosceles Triangles
• Graphics:
- 7th – Thatched Roof
- 9th/Int. 1 – Babysitting Blocks
Tests On-line
• The 2015 tests and Spanish versions are
available on line under member resources/
MARS tests 2015 at
– www.svmimac.org
– But the password is changed to prevent teachers
from downloading them before testing
– User: svmimember2
– Password: lucky13
– Administrator File Password:MACMARS
Integrated Tests
• There are sets of tests for an Integrated High
School mathematics program. The tasks have
been reformatted to have correct page
numbers. These are only available on-line.
• Scoring training will be adjusted to allow for
teacher leaders to train for just the integrated
tests – but I need all the high school districts
to sign up today or by Friday with training
preference.
MAC Policies
• Middle School Exams- Time should not be a
factor.
• Second Grade Administration
• Same day for a grade level
• Special Needs/ Accommodations
• Inclusion
Kinder and First Grade Tasks
• Kinder and First Grade Tasks – For formative
use only
– Use one task at a time as appropriate during the
year
– Data will not be collected and is for use by
classroom teacher only or for professional
development
– Work best as interview or small group
– We don’t collect student work as a collaborative.
Preparing for Scoring
• Number of Scorers
– Approximately 1 scorer for every 75 papers for 2-5
– Approximately 1 scorer for every 60 papers for 6-8
– Approximately 1 scorer for every 50 papers for
Geo. And Algebra 2
Materials
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Administrative Checklist
Questionnaire 2015
Red pens
Green Sheets
T&S papers unscored
Blank copies of tasks
Rubrics in pink
Notes to Scorers
Introduction Powerpoint optional
Scoring is Professional Development
• Place to look at expectations and
mathematical demands. Develop a shared
vision for what students should know and be
able to do.
• Work collaboratively to develop plans for
helping students meet standards.
• 2015 Questionnaire is in your resource folder
and other Data Analysis Tools are available online to help with site discussions of test
results.
Organizing the Day
• Large districts or collaborations – 1 room per
task
• Smaller districts band together for scoring to
minimize costs of sending leaders to scoring
training
• Smaller districts score 1 task as a whole group,
then divide scorers in half and do 2 more tasks
each
Common Issues
• Finding time for scoring
– Minimum days
– Coach scores 1 task
– Substitutes
– Saturdays
– Professional Development Day scheduled on
calendar
• Teacher unions
• Doing an entire grade level versus volunteers
Data Collection
Testing Dates
• Test Window: March 2nd – March 13th
• Data Collection Designee to me by Friday Feb.
6th- See Yellow sheet in Packet
• Data Entry Template to District Designee by
March 13th- make sure they are expecting it
and know what its for
Scoring Locations
• Breakfast snacks and coffee will not be provided.
Teachers need to know this!! Some people are
quite cranky without morning beverages.
• Lunch will be provided.
• Districts need to send their teachers to correct
locations by district, not by where teachers live.
Each participant receives almost 200 pages of
materials, so it isn’t just a quick trip to the copier
when participants go to different locations.
Data Entry on Tests
• Include test level, not grade in school, when
entering data
• Many districts got data that didn’t make
sense, don’t let this happen to you.
• I will have Cindy send out an email with the
codes for the Integrated tests.
Planning for Data Entry
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Score sheets
Test Levels for Data
MAC/CSIS numbers
Demographics for Individual Student Reports
Optimize Data Entry
• Using Score Sheets
• Removing front covers
• System to make it faster to return tests to
students and teachers for classroom use
Initial Data Deadlines
• Wednesday, April 22nd for MAC spreadsheet
and mailing pulled tests to me
• Individual Student Report Files to you by May
15th
• Other dates, see chart, obviously some
uncertainty about time for results from
Smarter Balance
Pulled Papers
• Each year we ask districts to pull 1 paper from
every folder, this year we want the first paper
from the folder.
• These papers are sent to me to for use
developing the tools for teachers or toolkits,
designing Individual Student Reports, and are
used for the scoring audit, to check on
reliability.
Algebra 2 Tests
• We did develop an Algebra 2 toolkit this year!
• To continue this process, we need to make
sure that enough sample student work is
submitted.
• If your district is testing only a small number
of students at this level, try to send in two or
three papers per class. Choose one near front,
middle, and last from each folder.
Mailing Address
• Teacher Comments
• Questionnaires
• Pulled Tests: last test from every folder or group
of 20
Linda Fisher
237 Navigator Dr.
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
Send early if possible. This helps inform the
individual student reports and allows a better
analysis for the cut scores.
New Scorer Leader Training
• Tomorrow in Hayward
• Designed to help facilitators lead scoring
sessions: How to deal with disagreement, how to
represent your district well, how to use the
scoring as an opportunity for professional
development and as formative assessment to use
in the classroom
Room is still available. This year many
administrators will also be attending as less
coaching time is available. This helps new
administrators become more familiar with the
process and how to organize for scoring.