Smarter Balanced Hires Chief Strategy Officer
Dr. Magda Chia Returns to Smarter Balanced Santa Clara, Calif. (September 10, 2020) — Smarter Balanced is pleased to announce the hiring of Dr. Magda Chia as our new Chief Strategy Officer. A former teacher, Chia served as a founding staff member of Smarter Balanced and specializes in the relationship between cultural and linguistic diversity and…
Smarter Balanced Releases Back to School Assessment Playbook
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (July 23, 2020) – Smarter Balanced released the Back to School Assessment Playbook, which offers educators in Smarter Balanced member states guidance and recommendations regarding how they can use the new Tools for Teachers website, as well as nearly 150 interim assessment blocks, to accelerate learning this coming school year. The Playbook, developed in collaboration with Smarter…
Remote Learning and the Formative Assessment Process
Strategies You Can Use During Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning The nature of remote learning is that there is more student autonomy—it is likely that students will participate with more independence when they are not located in the same space and/or instructional time as their teachers. Distance learning relies on the formative assessment process for success because…
Now Available for Preview: Tools for Teachers
Resources and strategies to help teachers do what they do best…teach! Available for educators in member states beginning June 16, 2020, Tools for Teachers is an easy-to-use website that features lessons and activities created by educators to enhance instruction, save time, and prepare students for college or a career. A Commitment to Supporting StudentsSmarter Balanced…
UC Regents Vote to Conduct Feasibility Study; Includes Smarter Balanced As Option
(Santa Clara, Calif., May 21, 2020) – The University of California Regents approved a college entrance exam proposal today, voting to suspend its current standardized test requirement (ACT and SAT) for undergraduate admissions until 2024. Starting this summer, UC will conduct a feasibility study, which includes whether to modify a current test, such as Smarter Balanced, as part of its…
Letter to The Editor: Response to Commentary in Education Week
Testing Consortium Responds: ‘We Couldn’t Agree More’ Recently, Education Week published a commentary by Gregory Cizek, a professor of educational measurement and evaluation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The commentary, “The Widening Gulf Between Large-Scale and Summative Assessment,” focused on how Common Core State Standards have made it more difficult for…
We Are All In This Together (Remotely)
A Shout-Out to Smarter Balanced Performance Tasks Jamie Elliott-Delaney, Guest Blogger5th Grade TeacherAppoquinimink School DistrictMiddletown, Delaware Although I am a fifth grade teacher at heart, I have extreme love for any teacher who teaches grades K-5. The dedication, extreme multitasking, wearing of “several hats” daily, and the pure ability to be flexible in any given situation…
COVID-19 News, Resources, and Updates from Smarter Balanced States
COVID-19 is causing school closures, shifts to e-learning, and changes in testing schedules, creating unprecedented challenges for educators and families. Below, we’ve compiled links to national and Smarter Balanced members’ state information pages as a means to leverage knowledge across the consortium. NationalU.S. Department of Education COVID-19 (“Coronavirus”) Information and Resources for Schools and School PersonnelEducation…
Newly Released Sample Questions Can Help Support Instruction
The Smarter Balanced Sample Items Website now includes 104 newly released test questions that previously appeared on the year-end (summative) math and English language arts tests in grades 3-8 and high school. Educators can use the sample test questions to better understand how Smarter Balanced measures college and career ready content and what students need to know and do. The newly released questions add to the nearly…
Making Sense of Test-taking by Touch
Smarter Balanced Braille Accommodations Give Visually Impaired Students the Opportunity to Demonstrate What They Know and Can Do, Equitably Braille is a nearly 200 year old, haptic (touch-based) system for reading and writing that has given millions of people with vision impairment the ability to more effectively access education and contribute to the literary canon….