How do districts, schools and teachers use the work
of the Content Collaboratives?
Are use of these measures of student academic learning
mandatory?
These instruments will be recognized for voluntary
school and district use beginning in August 2013. They
will not be used in the district or school performance
frameworks for accountability.
What if my district wants to use its own assessments?
If a district chooses to create, augment or purchase
other fair and reliable assessments not identified by
the state, a quality criteria framework and protocol
will be provided to verify that they “meet or exceed”
common Colorado thresholds for student learning
measures.
How do these assessments align with the state
assessments?
The student academic growth measures will be aligned to
the new Colorado academic standards. The student
measures will also be aligned to the new summative
assessments.
Will these be used for school or district
accountability?
These instruments will be recognized for voluntary
school and district use beginning in August 2013. They
will not be used in the district or school performance
frameworks for accountability.
Who is helping the Content Collaboratives?
Professional learning that is aligned to reform goals
and structured around authentic work performed by
educators themselves with the support of experts has the
greatest potential for being implemented and refined at
the classroom level, allowing successes and challenges
to be captured and reported to benefit all participants.
(Scott Marion)
CDE, in partnership with the Center for Assessment, will
be facilitating and supporting the work and meetings of
the content collaboratives. Researchers will be pooling
together many of the assessments that the collaboratives
will discuss and review, and a Technical Steering
Committee will be in charge of ensuring the technical
reliability of the identified assessments.
Researchers: National researchers with qualified
expertise in the assessment of each content area will
pool a qualified batch of assessments for each standard
and for each grade which will be considered by content
collaborative members. These measures of student
academic learning may come from national universities,
assessment providers, and/or districts and states
engaged in educator effectiveness work.
Technical Steering Committee:
• creates guiding principles and quality criteria for
collaboratives to use in reviewing and creating
measures.
• reviews recommendations of collaboratives.
• creates framework for vetting all assessments being
considered for the resource bank (from collaboratives,
schools, districts, other states, etc)
Peer Review Teams: To build capacity and ensure quality,
CDE will facilitate a set of peer review teams to review
the work products of the Content Collaboratives, as well
as the piloting systems of those work products. Members
will represent preschool through high school content
experts in each content area, English language learners
and special education experts, and assessments experts.
The main work of the peer review teams will be to review
how the assessments function within the context of
educator evaluations.
What are the products?
National Researchers:
• offer qualified assessments pooled from states,
districts, countries, vendors, universities, etc. to the
content collaboratives for consideration
Collaborative Members:
• using validated criteria, identify currently available
assessments per content area for use in evaluation of
educators (that, after being piloted and peer-reviewed,
will be listed on the online resource bank);
• augment currently available assessments per content
area for use in evaluation of educators (that, after
being piloted and peer-reviewed, will be listed on the
online resource bank);
• develop strategies for using assessment data to inform
instructional and programmatic modifications;
• identify remaining gaps.
• using validated criteria, work to begin filling the
gaps
Technical Steering Committee:
• creates guiding principles and quality criteria for
collaboratives to use in reviewing and creating
measures.
• reviews recommendations of collaboratives.
• creates framework for vetting all assessments being
considered for the resource bank (from collaboratives,
schools, districts, other states, etc)
What are the long-term goals of the collaboratives?
2012 is the first year of the content collaboratives. In
working with the legislative timelines, the goal of 2012
is to identify and augment assessments that may be
considered fair, valid and reliable, and that, after
being piloted and validated, will be listed on the
state’s online resource bank. However, the work of the
collaboratives does not stop with identifying measures
for the resource bank, with the measures being available
beginning August 2013. The vision is for the
collaboratives to become networks for creating and
disseminating innovative teaching practices. Long term
goals include:
• Increasing student achievement through improved
instructional and assessment practices in every
classroom;
• Enacting Colorado’s education reform initiatives in
every classroom;
• Establishing authentic and active participation in
reform initiatives by educators across Colorado;
• Implementing more effective use of district
professional development budgets and time;
• Decreasing the need for remediation.
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