Forty-five educators attended the most recent informational session about the new NYS grade 5 and grade 8 science assessments. For those that were unable to attend, this article will serve as a summary of that day.

What will be on the test?
The Grade 5 test will include all science standards from the 3-5 grade band and the Grade 8 test will include all science standards from the 6-8 grade band. According to the Science Test Guidance document released by the state, each domain of science (Life, Physical, Earth & Space, and Engineering) will be represented on the test proportionally to its appearance in the standards. These two documents (ELS and ILS) can help to see the breakdown of what Science Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and which science domains will be emphasized most on the respective exams. Test questions will be written at a level 2, 3, and 4 from the Performance Level Descriptions (PLDs).

​How can we prepare our students?
Many teachers are looking for a vocabulary list, a set of practice questions, or a list of “what our kids need to know”, however the new science standards (NYSSLS) do not operate as a factual list of what students need to know, rather how they figure things out.
​
Teachers should be using the Science Practices and Crosscutting Concepts (two of the three dimensions) regularly in class to have students figure out the “facts” of science. If explicit teaching of these two dimensions has not been happening up to this point, NOW IS THE TIME TO START. If nothing else, teachers should be using the Science Practices and Crosscutting Concepts language as they engage in science content leading up to the exam.

There is not a review book that can be purchased with practice questions. The state has released 4 clusters of questions that strongly resemble the way questions will look on the actual exam. Teachers can have students access these questions and work through them on the site – probably the best method to practice CBT skills as well. Teachers may also print these out, or they can be found in Castle Learning. Other ways to practice questions directly related to NYSSLS is using Inner Orbit, an online assessment-building platform accessible to all students and teachers at the 5th and 8th grade levels.

I have also gone through the NYS Science Learning Standards with a comb (not necessarily fine-toothed) to create vocabulary lists at each grade band level. I have created this more as a vertical alignment tool than a test-prep tool. I would strongly encourage teachers to start with the SEP and CCC vocabulary before worrying as much about the DCI (Disciplinary Core Idea) vocabulary.

Other preparation resources:

• Grade 5 Science Review - Student Packet
• Grade 5 Science Review - Teacher Guide
• Grade 5 Science Review – related Gifs and images
• Mini Lessons for explicitly teaching SEPs and CCCs
• Performance Level Descriptions (PLDs) - Elementary
• Performance Level Descriptions (PLDs) - Intermediate

How do the NYS Science Investigations tie into the exam?
The NYS Science Investigations that were released in October 2022 are to be used as performance activities at the end of the unit of study related to the tasks. These should be run as any science activity is run with all students in the classroom – including scaffolding for a variety of needs and appropriate modifications for students with IEPs. Every student should have exposure to all four of these Investigations prior to taking the Grade 5 or Grade 8 NYS Science Assessment. It is in the student’s best interest that they are proficient at these activities, however it is not required. Approximately 15% of the test will be indirectly related to the Investigations. The questions will NOT directly ask about the Investigations, but rather will be within the realm of the content in the Investigations, as well as the skills that are practiced by the students.

By:  Kelli Grabowski, CA BOCES Learning Resources

On June 4th, 2024 New York State will welcome the new Algebra I Regents exam based on the Next Generation Standards!  The full list of June Regents exam dates and times can be found here.  With COVID pushing the start time for all Next Gen assessments back a few years, this assessment will be the first High School Math adventure after Common Core. The good news is that not much will change according to NYSED Math representatives.  In fact, before with any new test implementation they would keep the old test around for an extra year for those that need to retake it.  Since the change is so minimal, the January 2024 Common Core Algebra I test was the end of that exam.  We’re now moving forward to Next Gen.   ​

We will be offering summer trainings for Math, you can find them in this pamphlet.  Along with our July 9th day with Paul Riccommoni from Penn State around the importance of Vocabulary in Math as well as retention of information for students.  If you have any other Math questions feel free to reach out to Jillian Putnam for elementary Math at [email protected] and for middle/high school, Mark Carls at [email protected]. 

By:  Mark Carls, CA BOCES Professional Development

Preparing students for computer-based testing (CBT) is essential in today's educational landscape. CBT is different from traditional paper-and-pencil tests, so students need specific skills and strategies to perform well. Here why Castle Learning can help you prepare students for CBT:
 
1. Familiarize Students with the Testing Environment
   - Let them practice using the same type of computer or device they will use during the test.
   - Familiarize students with the testing platform and user interface.
 
2. Understand the Test Format:
- Ensure students know the structure of the CBT, including the number of sections, types of    questions, and scoring methods.
- Make sure they are familiar with any special features of the CBT platform, such as the ability to flag questions for review.
 
3. Provide Practice Tests:
- Offer practice tests that mimic the format and content of the actual CBT. This helps students become comfortable with the format and identify areas where they need improvement.
   - Review and discuss the results of practice tests to identify strengths and weaknesses.
 
4. Simulate Testing Conditions:
- Conduct practice tests in an environment that simulates actual testing conditions, including distractions, time limits, and the use of the same devices they will use during the test.
 
Overall, preparation for computer-based testing requires a combination of technology skills, test-taking strategies, and practice. By guiding students through these steps, you can help them feel more confident and perform their best on CBT assessments. Castle Learning’s equation editor mimics what they will see on the Questar browser and will prepare your students for the upcoming state tests.

​If your teachers need training and time to work on the Castle Learning interface, please check the registration system for upcoming workshops or reach out to me directly.
 
By: Alexandra Freer, CA BOCES Learning Resources

​This past June the New York State Education Department administered the first ever USHG Framework Regents exam.  This new exam design has 28 MC questions that are attached to a stimulus, a Part II Stimulus Based Short Essay task where students write 2 responses to 4 documents, and a Part 3 six document Civic Literacy DBQ Essay.  The purpose of this new Regents exam is to align assessment to the content, skills, and practices of the Framework and teachers have been anxiously anticipating the arrival of the new exam and curious about both the content and assessment structure. 

​In order to get a better understanding of the exam and student performance, teachers were invited to a regional workshop to analyze the exam and compile data surrounding the content and skills the exam was measuring. 

The information collected was combined and shared so that teachers would have a record of what content was being asked from the Framework, and the types of sources used within the assessment that students would be working with. 

At the completion of this work teachers had a better understanding of the exam structure and state expectations and were able to look at student results to develop ways in which to better assist and prepare for future administrations. 

By:  Rob Griffith, CA BOCES Professional Development

Last year, Mark Beckwith and Sarah Wittmeyer collaborated on a project to create an online database of every test question that has been assessed on the 3-8 ELA and Math state assessments in the last few years. This database, the NYS Assessment Item Notebook, allows teachers to easily click a standard that has been assessed, which in turn generates a list of every released question that is connected to that standard. The Notebook is tremendously helpful because it contains all of this public information in one place, rather than having to open a myriad of PDFs.
 
Districts in our region have been using this tool in numerous ways. At Cuba-Rushford, middle school ELA teachers have been analyzing the question stems to notice patterns in how standards are being assessed. For example, teachers noted that many questions reference specific paragraphs, such as “How do paragraphs 3 and 4 contribute to the story?” By mirroring their own questions to students in this format, students will be more familiar with the structure of the state exam. Additionally, analyzing question stems can uncover vocabulary that students may need to help them succeed. For example, if students don’t understand what is meant by “contribute”, they may struggle right at the beginning of attempting to answer the question.
 
In Fillmore, middle school ELA teachers have created a mid-year benchmark assessment using the Assessment Item Notebook. Teachers reviewed their data to determine standards that are commonly assessed. Then they selected two passages and ten multiple choice questions to assess students with in January. The benefit to using these questions is that it will give them an indication of how students will perform against the rigor of the state assessment. Also, because they know which questions are connected to which standards, data analysis is easier and can offer areas for them to focus on before the state assessments.
 
If your district would like support in using the NYS Assessment Items Notebook to guide data analysis and instruction, please reach out to our team!

By:  Brendan Keiser, CA BOCES Professional Development

Over the past couple of years in New York, the state education department has been developing a new framework for Social Studies instruction, and a new format for the Global History and Geography Regents exam.

The combination of these two changes has brought an opportunity to review and revise social studies curriculum.  One district that has spent time focusing on these changes and developing assessments that align to the content and the format of the state changes has been the Pioneer Central School District.    
 
The middle school teachers at Pioneer spent three days in April reviewing their curriculum and developing assessment tasks that reflected the changes from NYSED.  Utilizing a stimulus source, such as this map, teachers were able to develop questions and tasks that reflected Geographic Reasoning, one of the social studies practices outlined in the Framework.

Spending time doing this type of curriculum development and work not only is preparing teachers for these changes, but allows them to prepare the students as well for what they will be asked to accomplish when they are assessed with the Global History and Geography Regents exam in the future. 

By:  Rob Griffith, CA BOCES Professional Development

Over the past three years, there have been several major changes to our public education system as part of the Regents Reform agenda.  The first change was the decision from NYS to implement the Common Core Standards for English and Mathematics.   These Standards are designed to help our students be better prepared for college and careers in the 21st Century.  The Common Core Standards are rigorous and challenging to both students and teachers.  As a result, they have forced every teacher of English and Mathematics to rethink and re-design their instruction and assessments. 

Another change in the state is how school districts evaluate a teacher’s performance.  For the first time in the state’s history, teachers are now accountable for how well students achieve on NYS assessments in grades 3-8, Regents exams and on local tests in other subject areas that are given to measure student growth.  Teacher performance is coupled with an additional recommendation from the state to use data from additional assessments given periodically throughout the year to inform instruction.  With all of these changes being put into place in a relatively short period of time, many parents as well as teachers have expressed concerns over the increase in the amount of testing that our students are now experiencing. 

The State Education Department has responded to these concerns by funding an initiative to examine the number and types of tests that school districts are giving students and to learn about how to design high quality assessments.  Thirteen school districts in the Cattaraugus-Allegany region have been awarded a nearly four hundred thousand dollar ‘Teaching is the Core’ grant from NYS Education Department.   The primary purpose of this grant is to improve the quality of all classroom assessments, while also reducing the number of assessments that do not inform instruction.  In addition, this grant can help districts identify and/or develop high-quality assessments already in use for instructional purposes that can simultaneously be used for teacher performance purposes.

For the past three months, the thirteen districts participating in this grant have been looking at their current classroom assessments to see if they have a strong alignment to the Standards.  We are also looking to see how assessments are used to inform instruction – the way in which feedback is provided to students during the assessment process; the way in which teachers use the results of the assessments to inform their instructional decisions; and the degree to which assessment results are used to address the needs of diverse learners (including students with disabilities, English language learners, and gifted learners).  We are analyzing the timing of classroom assessments – a balanced assessment system should include diagnostic, formative and summative assessments as well as pre/post measures to assess growth.  We are also looking at the types of assessments we are giving – are they rigorous and authentic?  Do they ask students to recall information, create a product, demonstrate their learning through a performance or explain their thinking processes?   What we are discovering is that our current assessments are rarely modified to meet student needs and do not allow students various ways to access content and/or demonstrate their learning.  And finally, we are questioning the reliability of our assessments – how do we know if teachers have the same vision for quality and agree while scoring student work? 

Most of our work during these first few months of the grant focused on assessment audits – looking at assessment artifacts to see if we need to replace, revise or keep our current assessments.  The primary purpose of this grant is to support districts in their efforts to improve the quality of all educational assessments, while also reducing the number of assessments that do not contribute to teaching and learning.  In addition, this grant can help districts identify and/or develop high-quality assessments already in use for instructional or other curricular purposes that can simultaneously be used for Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) purposes.

As we proceed to phase two of the grant, districts will have multiple opportunities to learn about quality assessment design, how to develop performance-based tasks, designing assessments that increase rigor and authenticity, and learn protocols for looking at student work to provide meaningful feedback to students and their families.  The districts involved in the grant include Allegany-Limestone, Andover, Cuba-Rushford, Genesee Valley, Hinsdale, Olean, Pioneer, Portville, Randolph Academy, Salamanca, Scio, Wellsville, and West Valley.  For additional information and educational resources from NYSED, please visit the “Teaching is the Core Assessment Literacy Series” at http://www.engageny.org or contact Mary Morris, CA BOCES Staff Specialist and TITC Grant Coordinator.

By: Mary Morris, CA BOCES

You may already be aware that CA BOCES has been awarded a nearly four hundred thousand dollar grant from New York State Education Department, but do you know how the Teaching is the Core grant is affecting our understanding of assessment design?

For the past three months, the thirteen districts participating in this grant have been looking at their current classroom assessments to see if they have a strong alignment to the Standards.  We are also looking to see how assessments are used to inform instruction – the way in which feedback is provided to students during the assessment process; the way in which teachers use the results of the assessments to inform their instructional decisions; and the degree to which assessment results are used to address the needs of diverse learners (including students with disabilities, English language learners, and gifted learners).  We are analyzing the timing of classroom assessments – a balanced assessment system should include diagnostic, formative and summative assessments as well as pre/post measures to assess growth.  We are also looking at the types of assessments we are giving – are they rigorous and authentic?  Do they ask students to recall information, create a product, demonstrate their learning through a performance or explain their thinking processes?   What we are discovering is that our current assessments are rarely modified to meet student needs and do not allow students various ways to access content and/or demonstrate their learning.  And finally, we are questioning the reliability of our assessments – how do we know if teachers have the same vision for quality and agree while scoring student work? 

Most of our work during these first few months focused on assessment audits – looking at assessment artifacts to see if we need to replace, revise or keep our current assessments.  The primary purpose of this grant is to support districts in their efforts to improve the quality of all educational assessments, while also reducing the number of assessments that do not contribute to teaching and learning.  In addition, this grant can help districts identify and/or develop high-quality assessments already in use for instructional or other curricular purposes that can simultaneously be used for Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) purposes.

As we proceed to phase two of the grant, districts will have multiple opportunities to learn about quality assessment design, how to develop performance-based tasks, designing assessments that increase rigor and authenticity, and protocols for looking at student work to provide meaningful feedback to students and their families.

The districts served through this grant include Allegany-Limestone, Andover, Cuba-Rushford, Genesee Valley, Hinsdale, Olean, Pioneer, Portville, Randolph Academy, Salamanca, Scio,  Wellsville, and West Valley.  The lead facilitator for this grant is Jennifer Borgioli, Senior Consultant from Learner-Centered Initiatives, Ltd.   www.lciltd.org

By: Mary Morris, CA BOCES

Students were familiar with analyzing a story using a story mountain, including: setting and characters, conflict or problem, the rising action, the climax or turning point, the falling action and the resolution or solution. After working with this article at a faculty meeting, Mrs. Hillman decided to have the students develop the rubric for the keynote project. She worked with her students on identifying key characteristics and understandings of each story element and what would be needed for each rubric score. The students were aware of what they needed to do for a quality score in each rubric category. 

Each child took a different element. After reviewing other rubric samples, they created a four-point rubric for their element. Mrs. Hillman modeled how to do this with the exposition (characters and setting). Students got to work on their element, thinking about key understandings of their element. After completing their own element, students met as a group to share and discuss. This would be a group effort so they all had a say in the qualities of each element.  Even though each student only had one element of the story mountain to develop in their portion of the report, they were very involved since it was a group activity.  There was a lot of discussion since they were developing parts of something bigger that they were going to be putting together.  With teacher guidance, they edited and revised the rubric.  

Each child created their portion of the keynote presentation for their element. Their project was edited, revised, and reworked until students were satisfied with it. They referred to the rubric they created as they revised.  This made it easier for the students since they had control of what they needed to include for each element. Once they felt it was complete, they emailed it to Mrs. Hillman. She combined all the elements into one presentation. Once all the elements were compiled into the group project, students were able to watch and share the presentation with the principal. Each student presented the element they had worked on in the rubric. 

When the keynote presentation was complete, Mrs. Hillman projected the student created rubric using Apple TV; students also had a rubric in front of them to look at.  The students graded the keynote project based on their rubric criteria. They analyzed each element and compared it to the rubric language. They provided feedback to each other, continuing to using the language of the rubric. The students loved this approach as they were personally invested in the rubric creation. All the students agreed that this project was easier to do well on than others were since they wrote the rubric and knew what they needed to do to get a certain score. They felt like they were set up for success. They liked to have the control over how they were graded and even wanted to eliminate the “one” score since they were not going to get that! When asked if they wanted to try this again for another project, they said definitely. 

By: Gina Palermo, CA BOCES Professional Development and Cuba-Rushford Curriculum Coordinator