Assessment Consortium Releases Math Content Specifications
Catherine Gewertz on August 30, 2011 Education Week
SMARTER Balanced’s math content specifications rest on four statements that describe the end goals of the assessment system. For each of those claims, the consortium specifies the types of evidence that would show that students have met those goals. Here are the claims:
• #1: Students can explain and apply mathematical concepts and carry out mathematical procedures with precision and fluency.
• #2: Students can frame and solve a range of complex problems in pure and applied mathematics.
• #3: Students can clearly and precisely construct viable arguments to support their own reasoning and to critique the reasoning of others.
• #4: Students can analyze complex, real-world scenarios and can use mathematical models to interpret and solve problems.For a taste of how the claims and evidence lay out, take a look at page 19 of the content specifications. It shows one of the claims (in this case, claim #1), details the different ways evidence of mastery might be collected (“… This content can be assessed using a combination of selected response and short constructed response items, but may also be evaluated at a deeper level within long constructed response items and performance tasks…”), lists types of evidence of learning (such as this: “factors & multiples: Determine factors and multiples of whole numbers (1-100); Identify prime and composite numbers”), and specifies which standards are addressed by those activities.
Content Specifications with Content Mapping
for the Summative assessment of the
Common Core State Standards for Mathematics
REVIEW DRAFT
Available for Consortium and Stakeholder Review and Feedback
August 29, 2011
Developed with input from content experts and SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium Staff, Work Group Members, and Technical Advisory Committee
Project Facilitator: Linda Darling-Hammond Stanford University Palo Alto, CA
Principal Authors
Hugh Burkhardt, Shell Centre, University of Nottingham
Alan Schoenfeld, University of California, Berkeley
APPENDIX C
Provided Conjunction with
Content Specifications with Content Mapping
for the Summative assessment of the
Common Core State Standards for Mathematics