The Good, The Bad, and The SBAC
The Good
It’s high noon and the roll out of the SBAC online testing is tomorrow. Administrators have organized the school into areas of testing and non-testing, with our Seniors presenting their Senior Projects in the non-testing areas. Alternative classrooms have been designated in the event that wireless should fail (as it did in my wing this week). Each proctor has a assistant who has received training in conducting the exam and what drink we want from Starbucks.
The first test is the computer adaptive math test, and the allotted time for administering it is around two and a half hours. The test is untimed, so if students don’t finish in two and a half hours, well…we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Actually, there is supposed to be a designated location where students can go and complete their tests, but that means they have to log off and log back on. Students will have to stop at a saved point to avoid re-doing problems. This move could result in a number of interesting events, but I’ll save those for the next blog.
The Bad
Day 2 is beginning to cause consternation among the faculty now that we have seen the activity that is the basis of the task questions. Most of us did not realize that half of the math portion of the assessment would be task-based.
Over 25% of Florin High School’s students are EL, with many more having been previously classified as EL. Typically our students struggle more with word-based problems and applications. Students and teachers don’t make excuses for doing poorly on those problems. There is just a steeper hill to climb to get to the answer.
A list of accepted accommodations.
The SBAC
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has established “accommodations” for English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities, but even with pre-programmed accommodations, Day 2 will be challenging for those with the EL designation and for those without it. The data collected on our students for this assessment will certainly have a significant impact on future instruction. Reading and writing across the curriculum has long been a focus, but a greater emphasis on reading mathematical material will surely emerge.
But for now, we will breathe deep, get a good night’s sleep, and be ready when Starbucks opens tomorrow. Tune in next week for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the SBAC assessments.
Posted on April 21, 2015, in Uncategorized and tagged California, common core, education, educational technology, SBAC. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Cleaning Off The Whiteboard 
Yes, I reviewed and even wrote a good handful of Math performance tasks a while back, although, mainly at the lower grades. I don’t recall what the percentage of performance tasks on the tests, but they definitely will require additional practice and getting used to. (Hopefully, the test blueprints they posted include some of that information.)
I found the format of performance tasks on the screen to be a bit challenging. Line breaks weren’t always pretty and a lot of scrolling up and down was needed. From what I remember, the prompt was on the left-hand side of the screen and the items on the right-hand side, both of which had scrolling bars. Adding special accommodations for students to this new format would definitely make things even more challenging.
In addition to the resource you already posted, here’s a link to another one that you may find helpful. (If any of the links have issues, you can search for “SmarterBalanced_Guidelines_FAQ” in the SBAC search screen.)
Click to access SmarterBalanced_Guidelines_FAQ.pdf
-The Assessment iMETer
I think I am really lucky that I do not have to administer the SBAC test to my kindergarteners. However, I feel left out of the loop on the technology part of the testing. Kindergarteners are not required to do online tests. As a teacher I ask them a question and they respond. I write down what the student says and have a rubric on how to grade students responses. The grading takes a lot of work and effort and time. I wish I could do online testing and have the computer grade the students work.
SBAC, or CAASPP is definitely a mixed bag. I’ve been able to watch *many* test administrations over the past couple weeks, and it has been fascinating. Last year and this, I’ve watched students mostly enjoying the testing, which is weird in itself. As much as one can’t help but have mixed feelings about standardized testing of any kind, this has certainly put a new spin on it, and it seems to be a significant improvement.