CAASPP Update #159
A Weekly E-Mail from the California Department of Education
CAASPP Update
Focusing on the CAASPP System, including the Smarter Balanced assessments—a major component of CAASPP—and the California Alternate Assessments and science assessments.
Summer Hand Scoring Workshops Online Registration Coming Soon!
Educational Testing Service (ETS) will conduct one-day CAASPP Summer Hand Scoring Workshops in July and August. These workshops will train educators to score constructed-response items and performance tasks for English language arts/literacy and mathematics and to prepare students for the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments.
The workshops, which will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., are scheduled as follows:
A Weekly E-Mail from the California Department of Education
CAASPP Update
Focusing on the CAASPP System, including the Smarter Balanced assessments—a major component of CAASPP—and the California Alternate Assessments and science assessments.
Summer Hand Scoring Workshops Online Registration Coming Soon!
Educational Testing Service (ETS) will conduct one-day CAASPP Summer Hand Scoring Workshops in July and August. These workshops will train educators to score constructed-response items and performance tasks for English language arts/literacy and mathematics and to prepare students for the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments.
The workshops, which will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., are scheduled as follows:
- July 18—Double Tree by Hilton, Sacramento
- July 20—California State University East Bay, Hayward
- July 25—Hilton Garden Inn Del Mar, San Diego
- July 27—Courtyard Oxnard, Ventura
- July 29—County Office of Education, Los Angeles
- August 2—University of California, Riverside
- August 4—Double Tree by Hilton, Fresno
- August 16—County Office of Education, Shasta
Participants will be provided with breakfast, lunch, and snacks and will be reimbursed for local travel (mileage to and from the venue). In addition, all teachers who attend the entire session—and whose schools are not in session—will receive a cash gift card. For teachers whose schools are in session, their schools or local educational agencies will be reimbursed for the cost of a substitute teacher.
Priority registration will be given to educators who have not attended
any of the previous workshops on hand scoring and educators who are not
ETS-paid raters for the summative tests. If you have any questions about
the Summer Hand Scoring Workshops, please contact the California Technical
Assistance Center by phone at 800-955-2954 or by e-mail at
Stanford University Open Online Courses on Assessment Practices
Starting this fall, the Stanford Graduate School of Education will offer a set of free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on innovative assessment practices. These courses will focus on instructional improvement and student learning related to both the academic standards and the English language development standards.
- Strand
A—Formative Assessment: Focus on Student Language
- Constructive
Classroom Conversation (beginning early October 2016)
Participants will develop a practical understanding of classroom conversations, listening closely to student-to-student discourse and using a conversation analysis tool to inform future instruction.
- Learning
as Evidence: Improving Argumentation through Formative Assessment
Practice (beginning winter 2017)
Participants will use a range of practical tools for gathering analyzing language samples that show how students currently construct claims supported by evidence and/or reasoning.
- Strand B—Building and Using Performance Assessments
- Designing for Deeper Learning: How to
Develop Performance Tasks (beginning early October 2016)
Build educators’ capacities to understand and develop performance tasks that consider language and fit local contexts. - Designing for Deeper Learning: How to
Implement and Improve Performance Tasks (beginning winter 2017)
Build educators’ capacities to select, adapt, implement, and improve performance tasks that consider language and fit local contexts.
In preparation for these courses, three Webinars will be held to help school, district, and state facilitators to provide local support to educators. Individual teachers also are welcome to attend and are encouraged to share the information with their colleagues. These Webinars, each beginning at 11 a.m., are scheduled as follows:
• June 28—Setting up a Successful Hybrid MOOC Model
• August 9—Digging Deeper into Fall Course Content
• September 20—Navigating the MOOC Platform, NovoEd
More information and updates on the MOOCs can be found on the Stanford University Understanding Language Web page.
New Video in Formative Assessment in Action Series!
The fourth video in the Formative Assessment in Action series, “Developing Defining Sentences,” is now available! It features State Network of Educators (SNE) member Toni David, an elementary school teacher in the Stanislaus Unified School District, demonstrating the formative assessment process as students in her grade five class work in collaborative groups to create defining sentences to enhance a written explanation of why it rains. This 12-minute video is available along with other videos in the series on the California Department of Education (CDE) Formative Assessment in Action Web page.
California Educators Participate in SNE Collaboration Workshop
Thirty-three California SNE members gathered in Folsom, in Northern California, for a CDE-hosted collaboration workshop June 15–17. During this time, SNE members worked on contributing nearly 70 new formative assessment resources to the Smarter Balanced Digital Library. SNE members later shifted their attention to the drafting of new Instructional Learning Series documents for release this fall. The Instructional Learning Series is a set of new resources the CDE is developing that will group together collections of instructional materials to support the administration of the interim assessment blocks. Thanks to each of our SNE members who participated in the collaboration workshop!
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