Smarter Updates

Learn more about Smarter Balanced’s latest assessment resources and releases, and updates around supports available to schools, districts, and member states.

A teacher sits at a desk interacting with her remote class.

New Resources to Support Remote Teaching and Learning for Back-to-School 2021

Updates to the Remote Teaching and Learning website include improved navigation and new tools! Flexible lesson planning for in-person, remote, and hybrid teaching is the new normal. Are you ready? The Smarter Balanced Remote Teaching and Learning website is now updated with everything you need to get started. From accessibility strategies to an all-new framework…

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A student wearing a mask calculates equations on a large white board. Text reads: "2020 in Review: Supporting Teaching and Learning During and Unprecedented Year"

Smarter Balanced Year in Review 2020

Supporting Teaching and Learning During an Unprecedented Year What a year! Looking back at 2020 comes with mixed emotions, but the truth is, Smarter Balanced made big strides in supporting educators at a time when they needed it most.   Classroom teaching became remote learning and teachers had to quickly adjust to this new reality. Together with students…

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Cover of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium "2020 Bach to School Assessment Playbook: Using the Smarter Balanced Assessment System to Improve Student Learning." The cover features the outline of a student sitting cross-legged with a computer in their lap.

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…

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Illustration showing the Smarter Balanced supports for formative assessment strategies on a computer screen.

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…

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Example of an extra credit assignment that Jamie Elliott-Delaney, Guest Blogger received from her student.

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…

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