Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Subject Area: Science

Khan Academy

Khan Academy aims to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. It uses micro lectures on multiple topics in the form of YouTube videos and includes practice exercises and tools for educators. People can participate in Khan Academy as students or coaches (teachers). The major components of Khan Academy include: a personalized learning engine to help people […]

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Students

The 2016 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Standards for Students present seven characteristics and skills that students need to be active participants in society: empowered learner, digital citizen, knowledge constructor, innovative designer, computational thinker, creative communicator, and global collaborator. For each of these seven characteristics and skills, there are indicators of what students should know […]

Planning Instruction to Meet the Intent of the Next Generation Science Standards

In this paper, the authors examine how to design instruction to support students in meeting a cluster or bundle of Performance Expectations (PEs) and how to blend the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) to develop lesson-level PEs that can be used for guiding instruction. A detailed 10-step process is provided, along […]

Addressing Disciplinary Literacy Knowledge in the Common Core State Standards

This article from the Illinois Reading Council discusses the connections between Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and disciplinary literacy. Although related, disciplinary literacy and content area literacy differ in purpose and substance. Inquiry is at the heart of practices in disciplinary literacy. In order for students and teachers to use an inquiry-based approach, teachers need […]

Illinois Assessment Literacy Training Module

This website contains a 39-page guide, Guiding Principles for Classroom Assessment, that discusses assessment design, preparation, analysis, and quality (reliability, validity, cultural diversity, and fairness). A 4.5-minute webinar, Introduction to Balanced Assessment, gives an overview of a balanced assessment system and discusses the differences between summative and formative assessment. (Please scroll down the page to the […]

Institute for the Integration of Technology into Teaching and Learning: Instruments

The Institute for the Integration of Technology into Teaching and Learning conducts research and implements best practices in the area of teaching and learning with technology. The institute’s instruments and online data collection systems have been used to gather data from thousands of educators in recent years. They consist of nine student and teacher surveys […]