Introduction to the CSSAP Units

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Introduction to the CSSAP Units

• Joann F. Prewitt
• Delaware Department of Education
• Presented at Large Scale Assessment Conference
• June 18, 2007

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• Social Studies SCASS
• Comprehensive Social Studies Assessment
  Project
• CSSAP

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• Information About CSSAP
• http//scasscssap.org
• History/Background of Project
• Evolution of Project
• Learn about the Units
• News and Updates

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• This project evolved from a discussion of the
  issues facing social studies in 2000.
• Emphasis on teaching/assessing the recall of
  factual information rather than thinking and
  application
• Standards used as topics of content to teach
  instead of concepts to understand
• Textbooks used as the curriculum and often for
  the instructional strategies and the assessment
• Limited or no use of technology as an
  instructional tool or resource
• Assessments only at the end of a unit
• Emphasis on assessment for grades instead of
  analysis of student work

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• Goal of the Project
• Create a product to assist states and
  districts with the issues identified by the
  state members in 2000

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• Guidelines of the Project
• Use research/best practices with a primary focus
  Alignment
• Evidence
• Integration
• Create units that can be used for
• Instruction of Students
• Training of Educators
• Supervisors of Curriculum
• Teachers

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• How can districts align social studies
  assessment, curriculum, and instruction so that
  the level of expectation of the standards is
  reached?
• How can these units be structured so they are
  deep in understanding, rich in resources,
  engaging for teachers and students, but are also
  clear and simple?
• How can units be structured so that they are
  instruction-ready for the classroom and are also
  training tools for understanding alignment,
  evidence, and integration of best practices?

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• This session will show how a collaboration of
  states integrated research models for alignment,
  instructional scaffolding, and backward design of
  instruction and assessment to create a model for
  states and districts to use for alignment of
  formative and summative assessment, curriculum,
  and instruction to produce evidence of achieving
  the expectations of the standards.

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• Units can be used by the teacher in the
  classroom.
• Units can be used for professional development.
• Alignment
• Backward Design
• Scaffolding of Instruction
• Integration of research models
• Delivery of curriculum through technology
• Use of technology in instruction
• Formative assessment
• Summative assessment
• Use of transfer in assessment

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• Application of training and use of the units can
  lead to two key understandings.

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• What is the relationship between formative
  assessment and summative assessment?
• Why is alignment to a level of knowledge
  important to effective assessment?
• Why is scaffolding important to instruction?
• How does alignment of the assessment and
  scaffolding of instruction work together?

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• What evidence should summative assessments
  yield?
• Why is analyzing student work important?
• Why is collaborating with colleagues valuable in
  the process of analyzing student work?

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• To Help States Reach This Goal
• Training is provided to state members
• Professional Development Manual
• Analysis of Student Work Model
• Training products are online to state members
• Future plans include adding student work and
  scoring commentaries to the online units

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• Design of the Units
• Backward design model was used for the alignment
  and the structure/format of the units.

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Planning and Designing Cycle
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• Assessments
• Levels/Depths of knowledge model was used with
  the assessments.
• Level One
• Recall of Information
• Level Two
• Processing/Basic Reasoning
• Level Three
• Complex Reasoning/Application

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• A level 3 summative assessment/transfer task
  that measures understanding will often ask
  students to
• Reason, think, and perform as geographers,
  historians, political scientists, and economists.
• Solve problems, analyze issues, and make
  decisions.
• Interpret and use social studies data.
• Relate and connect events, people, places, and
  eras.
• Provide evidence (historic, geographic,
  political, or economic) to support an answer.
• Make predictions.
• Explain why and how.

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• Assessment
• What are the levels of knowledge?
• How are the levels assessed differently?
• How are the levels aligned to instruction at that
  level?
• What happens to levels one and two when students
  are performing an assessment at level three?

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DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE LEVELS
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• How does the depth of knowledge for the
  assessment work with instruction?
• This is an important question since alignment
  and integration of the best practices models are
  key guidelines for the project.
• Scaffolding was used to build the
  instructional strategies.

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SCAFFOLDING INSTRUCTION
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• Scaffolding of Instruction
• What happens to steps one and two at step three?
• What do the assessments look like at the
  different steps?
• How might the strategies at each step be
  different?
• What are the students being prepared for in the
  assessments at each step?

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• Key Understandings
• How alignment has been used in
• instructional strategies
• formative assessments
• How alignment and scaffolding
• demonstrate integration

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• Evidence
• Key Understandings
• What is evidence?
• What is the source of the evidence?
• How should the evidence be used?
• When should the evidence be used?

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• Reasons for analyzing student work
• To gain information about modifying the
  assessment
• To gain information about modifying instructional
  methods
• To gain information about the performance of
  students

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• Key Questions to be Answered
• in the Design of Assessments
• How is the evidence/information from the
  assessments at each step going to be used?
• Should the evidence/information from each step be
  different?

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Within the Instruction Cycle
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• Key Points to Remember
• Evidence Begins
• with the planning/design of the summative
  assessment
• continues with the planning/design of the
  formative assessments
• continues with the planning/design of the
  instructional strategies
• continues with the analysis of student work and
  feedback