Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Grade Level: Elementary School (K-5)

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Interactive Computer Tasks (ICTs)

In 2009, NAEP administered two types of innovative science assessments: Hands-on Tasks (HOTs) and Interactive Computer Tasks (ICTs). The released tasks include samples of innovative item types and innovative evidence types to demonstrate how hard-to-measure constructs, similar to what are called for in the NGSS, were addressed. Interactive computer tasks (ICTs) required students to solve scientific problems […]

Supporting the Implementation of NGSS through Research: Engineering

This resource is a brief that brings to light the challenges and opportunities that K-12 teachers, school leaders, policymakers, and teacher educators have in ensuring that the NGSS for the representation of engineering is considered by understanding the entire document. The authors emphasize that it is important to note that different aspects of engineering are […]

Supporting the Implementation of NGSS through Research: Professional Development

This resource is a position statement and paper from the National Association for Research on Science Teaching. The authors emphasize that much has been learned in the last several years about effective science instruction, including the importance of paying attention to student thinking throughout instruction, providing opportunities to delve deeply into substantive scientific ideas, and […]

Supporting the Implementation of NGSS through Research: Assessment

From the authors: “The NGSS [Next Generation Science Standards] identify three dimensions essential for providing students with a quality science education: science and engineering practices, crosscutting concepts across domains of science, and disciplinary core ideas. Integrating these dimensions provides a meaningful context for science content and practices – how science knowledge is acquired and understood through conceptual […]

Deeper Learning: Policies for a 21st Century Education

From the Introduction: “This report is aimed at supporting state boards of education that are working on providing significantly more students with deeper learning opportunities and facilitating board-level conversations on key related topics. The report provides foundational principles that underlie deeper learning, explores issues, provides state examples, and includes worksheets that boards can use to facilitate […]

Literacy Design Collaborative

LDC is a national community of educators providing a teacher-designed and research-proven framework, online tools, and resources for creating literacy-rich assignments and courses across content areas. Tools and resources include the Teacher Workspace, LDC Exemplary Module Library, Collaborative Module Design tool, and Mini-Task Library (a growing collection of assignments to improve students’ performance on specific […]