Supporting Teaching and Learning in the Common Core Era February - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Supporting Teaching and Learning in the Common Core Era February 2014

A New Starting Point for Illinois Illinois adopted rigorous standards for students that serve as the bedrock of the public education system. The state’s comprehensive plan to improve public schools and raise student performance builds upon these high-quality standards. 1

Standards and Assessments for the Common Core Era With new standards in place, Illinois needs an assessment system that measures whether students have the knowledge, skills and understanding to succeed in an ever-changing world. Such assessments should reflect student progress at all performance levels with results reported in weeks, not months. 2

Making Assessments Work Advance Illinois partnered with our Educator Advisory Council to examine current challenges with assessments and opportunities to improve. For more than a year, we interviewed educators, observed classroom instruction, consulted assessment experts and identified school districts with an aligned system of instruction and assessment. 3

Challenges with Current Assessments • Much of the unease surrounding current assessments stems from the disconnect between what’s taught and what’s tested. • If instruction and assessments are not rooted in the same academic standards, then test prep can interfere with authentic teaching and learning. • Across the nation, most state assessments focus on skills that are easily measured, but not most meaningful for student success. 4

Illinois Educators Are Rethinking How to Instruct and Assess Students • Research shows students learn deeply when challenged to think in new, complex ways. • Such rigorous, authentic instruction prepares students to perform well on any assessment. • We see evidence of how this works when instruction and assessment stem from the same academic standards that make clear what is expected, and what knowledge is foundational for student progress. • The Common Core provides this starting point. SOURCE: Consortium on Chicago School Research, “Authentic Intellectual Work and Standardized Tests: Conflict or Coexistence?” 2001. 5

Learning From Two Illinois School Districts Schaumburg Elementary D54 and Township High School D214 created an aligned system of instruction & assessment during the past decade. • Districts created three ambitious goals for student performance that targeted raising Set clear student performance and narrowing the achievement gap. expectations for • Districts did not change these expectations for more than five years. student performance and stay the course. • Districts dedicate time during the school day for teachers to collaboratively develop Provide teachers the instruction and assessments aligned to the district goals for student performance. time needed to do • District 214 calls this “sacred” time. this work well. • Districts create an assessment system that includes a mix of standardized Create a balanced assessments and teacher-created formative assessments. system of • The combination provides a window into teaching and learning. assessments to • The results drive decisions at the classroom, school and district level. measure progress. • Educators in both districts describe how a shared vision for student performance lays the groundwork for educators to pull in a common direction. Our schools, • Educators can support all students to improve when there is an understanding of our students. what good instruction looks like, an expectation that all students experience rigorous curriculum and an awareness of how learning will be measured. 6

New Assessments Must Support Teaching and Learning Initial analysis suggests most questions on the new Common Core assessments will measure higher-order thinking through performance tasks and open-ended prompts that delve deeper than fill-in-the-bubble tests. Source: RAND Corporation, “Estimating the Percentage of Students Who Were Tested On Cognitively Demanding Items Through the State Achievement Tests,” 2012. National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing, “On The Road to As sessing Deeper Learning: The Status of Smarter Balanced and PARCC Assessment Consortia,” 2013. NOTE: Researchers defined a state assessment as measuring students’ deeper learning if at least 5 percent of questions required conceptual understanding or ana lysis. 7

Investing In New Assessments • ISBE recently requested $54.5 million for the state’s assessment budget next year. 99% increase • This represents less than one percent of the state’s overall education budget. $54.5 million • This marks an important investment for our state if the new assessments capture students’ deeper $27.4 learning and provide richer information about million teaching and learning for students, educators and families. FY14 FY15 Approp. Request 8

This is the Right Move for Illinois Students, But A Transition Plan Is Needed The shift to new standards and assessments represents a fundamental change in how teachers teach and students learn. This is the right move for Illinois students. There inevitably will be bumps along the road of implementation, and the state would be wise to develop and publish a three-to-five year transition plan to get from here to there. Objective Transition Plan • • Create an aligned assessment Create a process to ensure the continuous improvement system that measures higher-order of new assessments and thoughtful implementation. • thinking across grades 3 through 12. Make clear how the state plans to support school districts during this transition. • Determine whether Illinois will make available PARCC diagnostic assessments to inform instruction. • Create a transition timeline that conveys how the state intends to handle the ACT and Work Keys and, more broadly, a universal college entrance exam and workforce readiness credential moving forward. • Identify the resources needed to help all students – specifically, English Language Learners and students with special needs – access the Common Core. 9

Key Principles To Guide Assessment Decisions For now, we offer several principles to frame the conversation about the next generation of assessments: • Support educators to implement the Common Core well. This is the best approach to perform well on any assessment. • Provide a balanced assessment system that more fully measures students’ higher -order thinking. • Upgrade technology to support a 21 st century education and the computer-based assessments that come with it. • Place educators in a leading role with the development of new Common Core assessments. • Create a process to ensure the continuous improvement of new assessments and their thoughtful implementation. • Administer the ACT and Work Keys while determining how best to implement aligned assessments across K-12. 10

Educator Input Needed • The Illinois P-20 Council, in partnership with ISBE, plans to convene 18 focus groups with educators statewide during the coming months to help inform decisions. • Creating a process to gather educator input from Alton to Zion bodes well for the caliber and care of the decisions. • This work is being led by the Consortium for Educational Change and the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University. 11

Stay the Course • Four years ago, Illinois adopted the new, rigorous Illinois Learning Standards based upon the Common Core. New assessments soon will come with them. • To undertake this work in a single district would be a challenge, let alone in all of Illinois’ 862 districts. • The scale of the change requires support. The Illinois legislature should address how the state provides resources to improve teaching and learning in all school districts. 12