1. Shasta County Curriculum Leads November 14, 2014 Mary Tribbey Senior Assessment Fellow
Interim Assessments
Welcome and thank you for your interest

2. Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments
Outcomes
Purpose
Differences between:
Interim Comprehensive Assessments
Interim Assessment Blocks
Uses
Role in the local assessment system
The intended outcome of this presentation is to give you an understanding of the purpose of the Interim Assessments, the differences between the two types of tests, the ways in which the tests might be used, and to ask you to consider what role these tests will play in your local assessment system.

3. A Balanced Assessment System
Summative assessments
Benchmarked to college and career readiness
Teachers and schools have information and tools they need to improve teaching and learning
Common Core State Standards specify
K-12 expectations for college and career readiness
All students leave high school college and career ready
Educator resources for
formative assessment practices
to improve instruction
Interim assessments Flexible, open, used for actionable feedback

4. Interim Assessments
The Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments comprise interim comprehensive assessments (ICAs) and interim assessment blocks (IABs)
ICAs and IABs are alike in the following ways:
The quality criteria used for the ICA and IAB items are the same as those used for the summative assessment.
ICAs and IABs use the same universal tools, designated supports, and accommodations.
Available to all California teachers
ICA and IAB use is optional.
There are two types of Interim Assessments: The Interim Comprehensive Assessments, or ICAs, which are a mirror of the summative assessment, and the Interim Assessment Blocks, or IABs, which test smaller sets of skills.
The two tests have several things in common. The items for both were created using the same item quality criteria as is used for the summative assessment. They both offer students the same universal tools, designated supports, and accommodations. They are provided to all K-12 teachers through Smarter Balanced membership fees. They are both optional. Districts may use these tests, but they are not required to do so.

5. Interim Comprehensive Assessments (ICAs)
Mirror the summative assessment:
Use the same blueprints as the summative.
Assess the same range of standards.
Have the same item types and formats.
Include performance tasks.
Require the same amount of administration time.
Provide information regarding student readiness for the end-of-year summative assessment
Now let’s look at each of the tests in a little more detail. The Interim Comprehensive Assessment, the ICA, is designed to mirror the summative assessment. It uses the same blueprint, has the same item types and formats, includes similar performance tasks, and requires the same amount of time to administer to students. The reports that come from the ICA provide information designed to demonstrate individual student readiness for the summative assessment.

6. Example Use of ICAs Examples of the use of ICAs include:
Beginning of the year a student from another state is given the previous year’s ICA.
Mid-year a teacher gives an ICA to gauge how students might perform on the summative assessment.
This slide shows a couple of ways in which the ICA might be used; both of these examples take advantage of the test’s purpose of providing information similar to the summative test.
Note:
Taken from the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments Structure and Understandings

7. Interim Assessment Blocks (IABs)
Assess fewer sets of skills, and:
Use the same targets, by grade level, as the summative blueprints.
Consist of short, focused sets of items.
Provide information about a student’s strengths and needs in relation to the assessment targets.
Offer varied blocks by grade level and subject area.
The Interim Assessment Blocks, the IABs, are designed to allow teachers to test a subset of the skills included in the summative test. It uses the same assessment targets as the summative blueprints, and teachers can select which sets, or blocks, of skills that they want to test. These blocks vary by grade level and subject area, as we will see in the next few slides.

8. Blocks for ELA, Grades 3 to High School
The blocks for ELA are divided into three groups in this visual. The grouping does not mean that Grades 3-5 for example, will all receive the same test questions. Rather, it means that Grade 3 students will have test questions at the Grade 3 level for each of the blocks shown, and Grade 4 students will see test questions at the Grade 4 level for each of the blocks shown, and so on for Grade 5.
The caveat to what I just said is this: When the IABs are rolled out for the first time, the availability of items will be limited. We may only see one performance task, and we may not have all of these blocks available. As additional items are field tested and then added, all of these blocks will eventually become available.
Note: if the group cannot see these, quickly read them.

9. Blocks for Mathematics, Grades 3 to 5
Note that the blocks for mathematics are different at each of the grade levels, so this visual shows each grade separately.
Note: if the group cannot see these, quickly read them.

10. Blocks for Mathematics, Grades 6 to 8
Note: if the group cannot see these, quickly read them.

11. Blocks for Mathematics for High School
Note: if the group cannot see these, quickly read them.

12. Example Use of IABs Examples of use of the IABs include:
A teacher uses a block focused on argumentative writing to determine the degree of a student’s understanding before or after instruction.
A team of teachers uses a block to become informed about how a group of students are performing in geometry.
This slide shows a couple of ways in which the IABs might be used. In the first case, the teacher is using the IAB for a specific student. In the next, a team of teachers is using the IABs to learn about and reflect on the performance of a group of students.
Note:
From the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments Structure and Understandings

13. Rollout of ICAs and IABs
Initial item pool will be limited in depth.
Initial ICAs and IABs will be in a fixed format
As the item pool grows, ICAs and IABs will become available as computer adaptive tests (CATs).
When the ICAs and IABs are first released, they will be provided in a fixed format, due to the limited item pool, and all students will see the same questions. As the item pool grows, the tests will be provided to students in the Computer Adaptive Test, or CAT, format.

14. Administration ICAs and IABs only administered online.
The same teacher registration process as the summative assessment will be used.
ICA and IAB administration will use the same test delivery interface as the summative assessment.
Testing intervals are determined locally.
There are no restrictions on the number of times ICAs orIABs may be administered.
The items are not secure.
Both of the tests are administered on line. Teachers will register one time and use the same login for the summative assessment and the Interim Assessments. Test administrators and students will experience the same interface as they will during the summative assessment. Unlike the summative assessment, although access to the test is limited to California teachers and students, the items themselves are not secure. When the tests are administered is up to the LEA, but during this initial rollout phase, it’s important to remember that the item pool from which the IABs and ICAs draw is limited. That means if a district uses both the IABs and the ICAs, it is likely that students will see the same items in both tests and their results might be influenced by having seen the same item multiple times. Districts need to think this through when making agreements with teachers about the purpose and use of the tests locally.

15. Grades Supported by Interim Assessments
Interim assessments are available for grades 3,4,5,6,7, and 8 and for high school; however, administration is not constrained by grade level:
The grade 5 ICAs/IABs, for example, can be administered to grades above or below grade 5
High school IABs, because they test content appropriate across grade levels, could be given in grades 9, 10, 11,
and/or 12.
The system provides ICAs and IABs for Grades 3-8 and for high school in ELA and mathematics. However, the tests may be given to students in other grade levels. This will be possible because students at all grades levels at the school will be registered in the Interim Assessment system. This gives teachers the flexibility to administer tests to students a grade above or below the grade level of the test.

16. Scoring and Results of the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments
Most items are scored by the Smarter Balanced test delivery engine.
Scoring of constructed-response items and performance tasks is a local responsibility.
Score reports are generated once the constructed-response item scores and performance task scores are input into the system.
The reports that come from the ICAs and IABs will be generated after the constructed response and performance tasks scores are entered into the system. Instructions on how to enter those scores will be provided to LEAs. Both the ICAs and the IABs will provide individual student results that teachers can use for the purpose of adjusting instruction. The ICAs will provide this information at the claim level; the IABs will provide the scores at the block level.

17. Scoring and Results of the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments
The ICAs and the IABs provide individual student results that teachers can examine in order to adjust instruction.
ICA: Overall scale score and
Score of “Below” “At/Near” or
“Above” Standard for each Claim
IAB: Score of “Below” “At/Near” or
“Above” Standard for each Block

18. Use of Interim Assessment Scores
Interim assessment results are reported locally, not to the state.
Interim assessment results are not intended to be used for accountability.
Results may be exported from the test management system and imported into the local student data management system.
Student results are not intended to be used for state or federal accountability purposes. Interim assessment results are reported only at the local district level, and are not accessed by the state.
The test results for the Interim Assessments are reported separately from the test results from the summative assessment. Although the students and test administrators will experience the same interface, the summative assessment system will report demographic data and summative assessment scores for the Grade 3 through 8 and Grade 11 students only. The Interim Assessment system will report demographic data for all students at the school, and those students’ interim assessment scores.

19. Availability
Fixed form of both ICAs and IABs are estimated to be released in January of 2015.
At the present time, we expect that both the initial versions of the ICAs and the IABs will be released sometime around mid-January of 2015.

20. What resources would be helpful to your work in this area?
How do you see the Smarter Balanced interim assessments being integrated into your local system of assessment and accountability?
Who should be responsible to determine if and when the interim comprehensive assessments will be administered to students? District-wide decision? Site-level decision? Teacher-level decision? Other?
Who should be responsible to determine if and when the interim assessment blocks will be administered to students? District-wide decision? Site-level decision? Teacher-level decision? Other?
What resources would be helpful to your work in this area?
That’s what we know as of today. Now let’s take a few minutes and think through the role you see these Interim Assessments playing in your local assessment system: What purpose can they serve at the local level? Who needs to be involved in making agreements about the use of the ICAs?
Who needs to be involved in making agreements about the use of the IABs? What resources would be useful as you implement the use of these tests?

21. For Further Information
California Department of Education
CAASPP Office
Smarter Balanced Web Page
CAASPP.org