State Science Assessment WERA Conference, December 2015

Agenda  State testing for the next few years  Development of the next generation of science assessments

Science Assessment Staff Dawn Cope—Science Assessment Lead Kara Todd—Science Assessment Specialist Cinda Parton—Director of Assessment Development Jessica Cole—Administrative Assistant

General Science account: 

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State testing for the next few years…

Assessment requirements:  Federal and state law require that our state’s science standards must be assessed:  Once in elementary school (we give Measurements of Student Progress in 5 th grade)  Once in middle school (we give MSP in 8 th grade)  Once in high school (we give Biology End-of-Course exam)  We will continue to give these assessments through spring 2017 at least  Items are written to the 2009 science standards  Scored and equated the same way as we have since 2011 (MSP) and 2012 (Bio EOC)

Scores—percent passing 5 th MSP8 th MSP Bio EOC-10 th —

Measurements of Student Progress  Online testing encouraged  Same engine as the Smarter Balanced ELA and Math assessments  Paper/pencil testing still available  Resources available:  Teacher Resource page:  Updates documents—practice questions  Scoring Training videos—how some short-answer questions are scored  Online Training test:  Interactive  Practice using features of the test engine 

Biology EOC Graduation Requirement  Legislative intent regarding high school science assessment  2013 Engrossed House Bill 1450  2015 Senate Bill 6145  Classes of 2017 and beyond must pass the state science exam to graduate  Biology EOC until a comprehensive NGSS-based test is administered (Spring 2018)  Transition period where either the Biology EOC or the high school NGSS assessment could be used for graduation purposes, much like math’s transition to Smarter Balanced assessments

Biology EOC  Paper/pencil  Resources available:  Teacher Resource page:  Updates documents—practice questions  Scoring Training videos—how some short-answer questions are scored

Who Takes the Biology EOC?  Winter (January/February) 2016  Students (class of 2017+) who took EOC previously and did not meet standard  Students (class of 2017+) completing a biology course mid-year  Spring 2016  Any student (class of 2017+) enrolled in a high school level biology course  All 10th graders who have not yet met standard  Meets the high school science testing requirement of NCLB

Next Generation of Science Assessment Development and Implementation

New Learning Standards = New Assessment  Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) adopted as our state science learning standards in October of 2013  Official name: Washington State 2013 K-12 Science Learning Standards

Current assessment timeline—At the earliest…  Fall 2015: begin development of assessment  Spring 2016: limited pilot test  Spring 2017: full pilot test  Spring 2018: operational test for entire state

Major assessment shifts…  All the tested grade levels (5, 8, and high school) will be tested online  More item types available online  Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) embedded throughout  Comprehensive for high school:  all of the domains—PS, LS, ESS, ETS—will be tested  Grade 5 test to assess 3 rd, 4 th, and 5 th grade standards

Steps to building a new assessment:  Develop item specifications from standards (began winter 2015)  Determine the test map/blueprint (begin summer 2016)  Develop test items (began fall 2015)  Develop Achievement Level Descriptors (ALDs) from standards (begin summer 2016)  Administer an operational test (spring 2018)  Set achievement levels (Standard Setting) (summer 2018)

Test Item Development  Cluster Development*—October 2015, March 2016  Content Review*—December 2015, July 2016  Bias/Sensitivity Review—December 2015, July 2016  Pilot Testing—Spring 2016, Spring 2017  Pilot Range Finding*—Summer 2016, Summer 2017  Content Review with Data*—Fall 2016, Fall 2017 *Educator Committees

Item Specifications  Provide guidance for writing items that match the standards.  Provide information about allowable item types, vocabulary, etc.  Contributing documents:  A Framework for K-12 Science Education  NRC Report: Developing Assessments for the NGSS  Washington State 2013 K-12 Science Learning Standards (NGSS)  Evidence Statements (from Achieve)  Assessment Framework (from SAIC)  Item Specifications Guidelines (from SAIC)  Washington Item Specifications  Will be revised through stages of the assessment development cycle  First published by fall 2017, updated annually

Science Assessment Item Collaborative SAIC—January 2015  Led by CCSSO, Achieve, and WestEd  Membership includes 14 states and the Virgin Islands  Arkansas  California  Connecticut  Delaware  Hawaii  Illinois  Kentucky  Maryland  Massachusetts  Michigan  Nevada  Oregon  Washington  West Virginia  Virgin Islands

SAIC Products  Assessment Framework  Provides a range of options and accompanying rationales for the development of the NGSS-aligned items for summative assessments  Item Specification Guidelines  Companion document to the Assessment Framework  Focuses on how the content of the NGSS will be assessed, by articulating the NGSS-to-Item cluster correlations  Prototype Items  Initial example for measuring three-dimensional science learning  Can support states in guiding their test vendors with the design and development of NGSS-aligned assessments’  Can promote dialogue about a large-scale assessment for measuring the NGSS

SAIC Products available from CCSSO  CCSSO Website Science Assessment Item Collaborative Assessment Framework Science Assessment Item Collaborative Assessment Framework Science Assessment Item Collaborative Item Specifications Guidelines Science Assessment Item Collaborative Item Specifications Guidelines Science Assessment Item Collaborative Grade 5 Item Cluster Prototype Science Assessment Item Collaborative Grade 5 Item Cluster Prototype  Center on Standards and Assessment Implementation item-collaborative item-collaborative

Grade 5 Item Cluster Prototype

NGSS Science Standard

Bundled Performance Expectations

Item Cluster Overview

Evidence Statements Development led by Achieve Inc. Completed for all grade levels and grade bands Expand the initial PE structure to include specific, observable components of student performance Intended to be used by educators and assessors to determine a student’s level of mastery for a given PE

Evidence Statement

Questions?