[Assessment_Advisory_Committee] classroom activity communication

[CARTER Holly]

To: Assessment Advisory Committee
Subject: Classroom Activity Communication

Thank you all for engaging with us over the past couple weeks as we evaluated the new Smarter Balanced consortium policy on the classroom activity and decided how best to implement this policy in Oregon. As we discussed on our call last Friday, ultimately we decided to remove the classroom activities this year. To that end, we have developed the following communication which is being shared with key partners today and will go out statewide tomorrow. This was a difficult decision to make, and your input was instrumental.  Thank you for your collaboration and partnership.

Smarter Balanced Classroom Activity Requirement Removed for 2015-16
New for 2015-16, the Smarter Balanced Consortium has voted to remove the classroom activity as a required precursor of the Smarter Balanced performance tasks for Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA). This change in administration was made following the recommendation  of the Smarter Balanced Technical Advisory Committee and a vote taken by the Smarter Balanced governing states. The decision to remove the classroom activity requirement is part of the Smarter Balanced Consortium's commitment to continuous improvement and represents a way to streamline the test administration process without negatively impacting access for students.

To ensure that students would not be negatively impacted by the removal of the classroom activity, the decision to remove the classroom activity was informed by a multi-state review of all performance tasks to be used during the 2015-2016 testing period conducted by the Smarter Balanced Consortium. Given that the initial intent of the classroom activity was to provide students with additional background in the subject matter associated with the performance task in order to level the playing field, the purpose of the review was to confirm whether the performance tasks contain sufficient explanation and context on their own without relying on a pre-test classroom activity. The outcome of this review determined that the majority of performance tasks contain sufficient scaffolding and embedded accessibility supports (including glossaries and footnotes) so that they can stand alone, without the necessity for a pre-test classroom activity. The review also identified those performance tasks that could not adequately stand alone; these performance tasks have been eliminated to ensure that only those performance tasks with sufficient embedded accessibility supports to stand alone are presented to students. Moving forward, all performance tasks to be developed in future years will continue the practice of having embedded supports, and will not be written to include a classroom activity component.

As a result of the discontinuation of the classroom activity, we anticipate seeing a variety of benefits, including:
*       Accessibility supports such as glossaries will be built directly into the performance tasks;
*       Performance tasks will be randomly assigned to students within a school and classroom without being associated with a common classroom activity, increasing test security;
*       Testing time will be reduced up to one hour (30 minutes each for Mathematics and ELA);
*       Logistical considerations related to the administration of the classroom activity will be eliminated, including printing of materials, tracking student participation, and providing make-up opportunities.

ODE will update the 2015-16 Test Administration Manual and training materials related to administering the test to reflect the removal of the classroom activity. To support students through this transition, it is strongly recommended that teachers use the Smarter Balanced practice tests available through the OAKS Portal at www.oaks.portal.org<http://www.oaks.portal.org> to ensure students have an opportunity to practice responding to a performance task and to familiarize both teachers and their students with the wide variety of supports available to make the tests accessible to students.


Holly Carter
Interim Director of Assessment

Office of Learning | Inst., Stand., Asmt, &Acc. Unit | Oregon Department of Education
Phone: 503.947.5739 | Fax: 503.378.5156 | *holly.carter at state.or.us




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