GACIS notes

December 2016

Teacher Advisory Committee: committee of teachers who were asked to give feedback on the Education Reform Commission’s recommendations; key here is to give feedback not change, reword, or prioritize.

Here is the link to their proposal to the Governor, dated October 26, 2016

Melissa Fincher

Shifting the Focus of Assessment: From Driving to Informing Instruction

While Milestones is a summative assessment, the data should inform instruction for the next year.

  • Find trends
  • Strengths and weaknesses
  • Analyze in-house programs/resources/schedules for impact on achievement

Formative Instructional Practices (FIP)

  • Updated modules:
  • Create accounts and use for PLCs in areas needed for improvement
  • Contact Kelli Wright at DOE Email:

NAEP: Select GA 4th and 8th students

  • With CRCT, Georgia was lowest in the nation
  • Review NAEP released items

PARCC released items 3 – High School:

  • The catalog includes scoring rubrics and guides to the scoring, as well as released item sets, answer keys, standards alignment, and sample student responses – scored and annotated.

Smarter Balanced Released Items:

Georgia is building item released questions: approval to post has to come from SBOE.

Refer to Assessment Guides and Achievement Level Descriptors for guidance.

CCRPI:

  • Public release Thursday, December 8th
  • Dips in elementary due to decrease in the number of challenge points awarded
  • ELA: move away from basic recall to inferencing/drawing conclusions

Milestones Trends:

  • Students not answering the question being asked
  • Not answering all parts
  • More adept at recalling details than making inferences
  • 3rd grade ELA: students are not expected to cite evidence; however, they should be able to use details in their writing.

Math/ELA Constructed Response Data:

  • I had previously sent Math data; will resend when ppt posted.
  • NOTE: conditional codes for MATH/ELA are the same; previously this was not addressed.
  • A = Blank, B = Copied, C = Too Limited to Score, D = Non-English/Foreign Language, E = Off Topic, F = Offensive, G = Illegible/Incomprehensible.
  • 8th grade Math data was changed to eliminate those students who took an EOC in lieu of the EOG (their scores were originally in the conditional codes data because their responses were blank).

Extended Writing Reading/Vocabulary Section:

  • Spring 2017 formerly Section III will now be Section I
  • Make sure teachers understand the 3 selected response and the 1 constructed response questions count in the Reading/Vocab score. One selected response for each of the two pieces of literature plus an additional selected response tying the two pieces together.

The constructed response question following the selected response questions is not the extended writing piece. Read and answer, do not turn this question into an essay!

  • Refer to rubrics in the Assessment Guides and Study Guides for constructed response and extended writing examples and exemplars.

MOWR: EOCs exempt except where required by Federal Law.

  • These scores will not hurt CCRPI; full credit disclosure not released as of now.

Domain Signals: What is the likelihood the student would achieve proficiency on the test given his/her performance in the domain?

  • Remediate: < 40 % probability the student would be a proficient learner
  • Monitor: 40% - 90% probability the student would be a proficient learner
  • Accelerate: > 90% probability the student would be a proficient learner

Regardless of the content, items are not created equally but count equally!

Technologically Enhanced Items:

  • One operational item for ELA & Math
  • Field test in SS & Sc
  • ELA example: make an inference then validate the response.
  • Can’t get credit Part I if responses for Part II incorrect.

On the Horizon:

Validate College Readiness signal at the high school level:

  • State Board decision (no decision at this time)
  • Accuplacer score
  • If students demonstrate on the EOC, they do not necessarily have to have an Accuplacer score to demonstrate College Readiness

GAA: more structured portfolio which will eliminate the total amount of documentation needed.

  • Next school year developing and piloting

Revise GKIDS to include GKIDS Readiness Checklist

  • Each district had one elementary school to pilot this year
  • Stream line with progressions; more naturalistic in that it prioritizes standards and does not assess each standard.
  • Used to identify strengths and weakness
  • Not evaluation instrument for teachers
  • Modules and webinars for training will be released this summer
  • Housed in slds

Grades 1 and 2 Literacy and Numeracy Readiness:

  • Idea of building a gaming system for students to independently access
  • Lots of information will be gleaned from their interaction with the gaming system without actually taking a standardized assessment.

Streamline and stabilize CCRPI through ESSA rewrite

Questions:

Listening and Speaking Standards: should be assesses in the classroom, not through Milestones

SS & Sc in grades 5, 8, and EOC:

  • Other grade level assessments can be accessed through GoFAR
  • These are copyrighted questions so do not put on the internet or load onto the network
  • Formula changes for CCRPI because only one measure for each; one in elementary and one in middle

Will constructed response items be added to the tested SS & Sc assessments?

  • Not at this time
  • Technology Enhanced items will be field tested this year and will be updated and added as needed

CCRPI: how will the changes effect strategic and charter waivers for baseline data?

  • Decision will be made by Policy and GOSA, not assessment or accountability decision