Bridging Innovative Assessment, High-Quality Instructional Materials, and Collaborative Learning

• In Event: Anchoring Assessments in Instruction: Lessons From States Implementing Instructionally Relevant Assessment Design Principles in Science

Abstract

Objectives and Perspectives
Since the development of NGSS, high-quality instructional materials have emerged to reflect the three-dimensional, learning progression-aligned approach outlined in the NGSS, although these materials have not been universally adopted. States largely cannot dictate the instructional materials adopted in classrooms, but they can signal the type of teaching and learning that is a priority through state assessments (Bridge, Compton-Hall, & Cantrell, 1997). This is what Massachusetts did.
Over the course of two years, Massachusetts state science leveraged their status as an Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) state to develop curriculum-anchored performance assessments that are designed to be coherent with an NGSS-aligned instructional model, specifically the freely available OpenSciEd curriculum. During this time, Massachusetts state education leaders, in conjunction with assessment and science experts, developed multi-day performance tasks that center NGSS-aligned scope and sequence and prioritize independent and collaborative learning practices, as well as locally-relevant phenomena. In the second year of the program, the state piloted the tasks, developed reliable scoring processes, and considered ways to include scores of the performance tasks on a scaled version of their IADA summative assessment.

This presenter will provide an overview of how she and her team designed the performance assessment system, including tensions and decision-points that they navigated throughout. Then, she will share the strategies that helped increase teacher implementation, as part of the sustainability strategy (Coburn, 2003; Gutiérrez & Penuel, 2014; Kittelman, Strickland-Cohen, Pinkelman, & McIntosh, 2020).

Data and Methods
Over the course of two years, Massachusetts documented the implementation of the innovative, performance task-based science assessments and their uptake with research partners. The research partners analyzed documents collected from professional learning, calibration, and task evaluation sessions and qualitative interview data from practitioners involved in the initiative, as well as second-wave adopters, and other stakeholders. They shared back this information with Massachusetts in memos and reports, which will inform the next round of implementation.

Emerging learnings and significance
High-quality performance assessments support students’ critical thinking, creative problem solving, and development of social emotional skills, such as growth mindset (Immordino-Yang, Darling-Hammond, & Krone, 2019; Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2014) and the NGSS are designed to support all learners in adopting the skills and mindsets needed to investigate the world like scientists. Combined, assessments that incentivize and reflect NGSS-aligned teaching and learning can bring a coherence to school systems that has yet to be actualized (Boesdorfer, Arias, Mull, & Lieberum, 2020).

At the end of the first year of implementation, state leaders in Massachusetts had developed six multi-day “bridge” tasks for elementary and middle school students. These tasks are intended to allow students to transfer learning from the OpenSciEd curricular materials to the innovative assessment and feature local phenomena identified in partnership with classroom teachers. Developing these assessments took significant time and resources, which is why supporting teacher leaders to implement and improve upon these tasks became a central focus of the second year of the pilot. These emerging lessons reflect the challenges embedded within both state summative assessment reform and in developing a state-led initiative that is sustainable.

Author

• Corrine Steever, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education