Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Grade Level: Middle School (6-8)

Rethinking How Students Succeed

Noncognitive skills initiatives hold promise for making students more successful. Noncognitive skills, the term used in this article, are related to social and emotional learning (SEL) and academic mindsets; they encompass academic attitudes and behaviors like self-awareness, self-control, persistence, social awareness, and relationship development. Recent work in noncognitve skills with students, teachers, and schools reveal that these sets […]

Relationships and convergences among the mathematics, science, and ELA practices

A product of the Stanford University Understanding Language initiative, this Venn diagram is a tool that effectively illustrates the overlap and grouping of student practices (and student capacities) from four sets of seminal documents: the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects; the CCSS […]

Science Teacher Inquiry Rubric (STIR)

The Science Teacher Inquiry Rubric (STIR) is a two-page observation and teacher-reflection tool, most appropriate for supervisors, principals, or other observers of classroom teachers, and possibly for use by classroom teachers themselves, to assess classroom instruction and practices with regard to inquiry-based science. Developed in 2003, the STIR was based on the National Science Education […]

Smarter Content Explorer

The Smarter Content Explorer is a web application that provides a user friendly interface to explore the range of English language arts/literacy and mathematics knowledge and skills important for college and career readiness on the Smarter Balanced Assessments. Users can find detailed information about how the content of mathematics and English language arts/literacy is organized […]

Mathematics Item Review Considerations

This presentation from Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium provides: an overview of the item review committee; a description of committee members’ roles and responsibilities; and an introduction to the key considerations involved in the review of Mathematics stimuli, items, and tasks. The presentation is available in the following formats: YouTube Video SchoolTube Video

Mathematics Selected Response, Constructed Response, and Technology-Enhanced Items

This presentation from Smarter Balanced provides information about the purpose, components, and essential requirements involved in creating selected response, constructed response, and technology-enhanced items. General guidelines for item writing are presented, along with exemplary and flawed items. The presentation is available in the following formats: YouTube Video SchoolTube Video