What would it look like if we designed all aspects of the assessment system to prioritize impact on instruction and students? Traditional ideas about assessment systems describe assessment systems in the ideal world, where state summative assessments have the smallest footprint, and meaningful classroom assessments are the most important component. However, in practice, we know this is not always the case–because of the stakes and funding attached to large scale testing (both perceived and real), assessments that are not meant to inform instruction end up shaping a lot of the decisions educators make about student learning. In this session, we will discuss how we rectify this in assessment system design, including examples and implications for state, district, and classroom assessments. The session will include opportunities for participants to inform the development of policy documents to inform assessment system development.

TAKEAWAYS:
Systems of assessment can center students and instruction, and simultaneously surface trustworthy information for decision-making – if they are intentionally designed to do so.

SPEAKERS:
Sara Cooper (Contextus), Kelley Turner (Winchester Public Schools: Winchester, VA)

Over the last few years, access to digital resources to capture student understanding of chemistry concepts has greatly increased. This technological shift, along with a focus on the use of storylines to engage students in chemistry, provides an opportunity to implement digital interactive notebooks. Through the use of various on-line platforms, student beliefs and understanding can be documented and tracked over the course of a storyline. Digital notebooking is a dynamic process that integrates different learning experiences to challenge and reinforce student understanding. This method actively engages students in a manner that encourages discussion and collaboration. Support is built into the digital notebook for absent students and those that need additional resources to understand a concept. This session provides an overview of the digital interactive notebook creation, along with guidance for educators to take this process and use phenomena relevant to their students.

TAKEAWAYS:
This session will provide a brief overview of how I use digital interactive notebooks in my classroom, along with guidance on how educators can begin the process of building their own. Resources and editable chemistry notebooks will be shared that focus on different chemistry phenomena.

SPEAKERS:
Sarah English (Sweet Home High School: Sweet Home, OR)

After the pandemic, we wanted to bring in as many hands-on, real-life chemistry experiences to our students as possible. After watching labs through a screen and sending materials home, our team had a new passion to get as many labs and investigations in as possible! What that passion evolved into was working on non-traditional assessments that required students to plan and carry out an experiment for an assessment in addition to the labs during class time instead of the traditional “in your seat” with paper and pencil assessment. We wanted to give our assessment meaning and bring purpose back to the labs. Presenters will share several different formats that we have tried as we went through year one of implementing SEP3 Planning and Carrying Out an Investigation.

TAKEAWAYS:
Presenters will share how they developed non-traditional assessments related to SEP3 Planning and Carrying Out Investigations in their standards-based grading chemistry curriculum. Presenters will share recommendations/challenges for teachers to think about as they implement SEP3 in their classrooms.

SPEAKERS:
Nathan Gustin (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Karen O'Connor (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Ashley Rose (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), John Deppong (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Kristen One (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL)

Presenters will discuss how a partnership with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the SIU STEM Education Research Center @ Carbondale, IL built a 100% IL-developed Science Assessment. There was a concerted effort by SIU to include willing and qualified IL educators to score constructed responses and item development. It proved to be a powerful professional learning experience. Participants improved their understanding of NGSS (Illinois Learning Standards in Science (ILS-S/NGSS) and classroom practices. Participants report this experience was rewarding personally and professionally, and their classroom instruction benefited students. We will present participant survey data and testimonials to support our claims. Teachers often say there is a lack of meaningful and rewarding NGSS/science professional learning opportunities. We found the Illinois Science Assessment Project is one of the few. We suggest other states, agencies consider the same.

TAKEAWAYS:
Meaningfully including in-service educators in developing your state assessment will transform the black box of large-scale summative assessment to a joint endeavor that will see teacher buy-in and professional development increase, and student learning and scores go up.

SPEAKERS:
Harvey Henson (Southern Illinois University Carbondale: Carbondale, IL), Kristin Rademaker (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, teachers have had to restructure how they teach. When schools closed, teachers were given multiple options and had to pick one. Many schools chose the Google Classroom option as it was the easiest for some schools to set up, but didn't allow for inclusivity with every student both in and out of the room. Using examples from my own Chemistry and fully virtual Applied Digital Skills classes, I will show how Microsoft Teams can give both the teachers and students a hub for all their presentations, notes, assignments, and even assessments. It allows teachers the ability to grade assignments and for students and parents to see those grades within the platform. It also allows for teachers to keep track of students' mental health and insights that can be shared with parents or councilors about students' habits on their computer. This may not be a science specific topic, but it works so well for managing a science classroom.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will know how to use Microsoft Teams to host virtual lessons, create postings students can read and interact with, create and grade assignments, and how to check in with the emotional needs of students.

SPEAKERS:
Jill Elder (Assumption High School: Louisville, KY)

Explore the comprehensive assessment system that accompanies the OpenSciEd high school program. This comprehensive system includes opportunities for formative, summative, self, and peer assessment. The session will guide participants through the multiple assessment types and will explore in depth electronic exit tickets and transfer tasks. Electronic exit tickets give teachers an opportunity to formatively assess students' three dimensional thinking at key points in each unit. Transfer tasks are summative assessment opportunities that give students an opportunity to transfer what they have learned in the unit to a novel scenario. Both of these assessment opportunities include teacher and student routines to support student thinking and instructional action.

TAKEAWAYS:
In OpenSciEd HS, the assessment system is structured to support teachers in assessing all three dimensions of the NGSS through formative, summative, peer, and self assessment opportunities.

SPEAKERS:
Zoe Buck Bracey (Senior Science Educator and Director of Design for Justice: Colorado Springs, CO), Michael Novak (Northwestern University: Evanston, IL), Kate Henson (University of Colorado Boulder: Boulder, CO)

The NSTA Atlas of the Three Dimensions maps out learning progressions based on the Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The 62 maps in the Atlas organize all of the elements from standards on a particular topic (e.g., modeling, patterns, or definitions of energy) on a single page. The elements from grades K–2 are at the bottom of the page, and those from grades 9–12 are at the top. Arrows connect elements to indicate how ideas in a particular topic build on each other and how elements in different topics connect to one another. Studying the maps in the Atlas and the additional resources in the appendixes can provide educators with new insights about the standards. This session will provide an overview of how to read a map, the other features of the Atlas, and how educators can use this powerful navigational tool to develop and implement curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants will learn how to read the maps and use other tools in the Atlas to understand and interpret standards, and plan instructional sequences as part of their work in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

SPEAKERS:
Ted Willard (Discovery Education: Silver Spring, MD)

The Next Generation Science Standards promote students doing science. Being able to assess them while they are engaged in the "doing" is essential. Attendees will take a deep dive into the SEPs and learn how to create rubrics that they can use to assess the SEPs while walking around and observing students as they work. The result? Higher student engagement and less papers to grade. This session is led by Dr. Carol Baker, NGSS Writer.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will create a rubric that can be used in their classroom to authentically assess the SEPs.

SPEAKERS:
Carol Baker (NGSS: Orland Park, IL)

Develop your knowledge, skills, and confidence to lead your school or district toward successful NGSS assessment development. We will share one district’s journey to engage teachers in developing NGSS-aligned common assessments focused on SEPs, access, and equity.

TAKEAWAYS:
Develop your knowledge, skills, and confidence to lead your school or district toward successful NGSS assessment development with a focus on SEPs, access, and equity.

SPEAKERS:
Julia Smith (Riverside Unified School District: Riverside, CA)

Participants will gain experience evaluating student learning across the three dimensions using authentic student work samples. Discussion will focus on lesson-level three-dimensional performance expectations and what counts as evidence of student understanding for the three dimensions targeted by the assessment task. We will also use data collected from these student work examples to identify patterns/trends teachers can use to inform instruction to ensure all students have access to science learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
Participants gain experience using the NSTA Student Work Analysis Protocol (open educational resource) and can share the protocol and application with colleagues in their school/district.

SPEAKERS:
Zoe Evans (Bremen City Schools: Bremen, GA), Kristin Rademaker (NSTA: Arlington, VA)

Making the move from a traditional grading system to a standards based grading system can be an overwhelming task. It was especially challenging for two of Stevenson High School’s largest teams: AP biology (10 teachers) and accelerated chemistry (18 teachers). We will share how we came up with our standards and our success criteria for teaching skills and scoring student work. We will also share how those standards and success criteria have changed over the last four years. Attendees will be able to view our assessments, look at student work, and then score sample assessments. Presenters will also share several different calibration strategies that have worked for our larger team, ranging from Google jamboards, Google slides, and Google forms.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will walk away with a scaffolded way to determine the skills they want to assess in their course and how they can begin to develop success criteria. Attendees will also take away some strategies for how to calibrate their scoring.

SPEAKERS:
Kristen One (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Nathan Gustin (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Karen O'Connor (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL)

I will walk the audience through a landing page of my scale development for grading based off of Marzano’s book of scales for NGSS. I will explain how to convert the 0-4 grade into percentages for conventional grading systems. I will walk them through how to allow students to self-assess their knowledge gain based on objectives and putting those objectives into ladders of curriculum sequence. I will also explain how to use benchmark sheets for the Science and Engineering Practices that match their SEP part of the scale. I will also share the books and websites I gained my knowledge from, so attendees can develop their own mental model of the system for Standards-Based Grading and Learning.

TAKEAWAYS:
You will walk away with a landing page that lays out a system that can be your starting point into SBG & L in the three dimensions, with many resources contained within.

SPEAKERS:
Michelle Gall (North Bend Central Junior/Senior High School: North Bend, NE)

In 2019, The Louisiana Department of Education was awarded an Education, Innovation, and Research(EIR) grant titled “Improving Pre-Engineering and Computer Science Education through Micro-Credentials”. As one of very few EIR grants awarded to a state education agency, we have had the opportunity to blend both research and practice through multiple lenses as we engage teachers and students across our state. The project has served as a mechanism for the research team to examine how job embedded professional development impacts the practices of our teachers, the content delivery in our classrooms, and its effects on student learning. We plan to share key take aways, including insights into the writing and revision process, how the series took shape over time, and preliminary outcomes from the qualitative measures utilized. This may be of interest to participants considering portfolio based assessments as a means of improving professional learning within their own context.

TAKEAWAYS:
Attendees will gain insight from the perspective of a state agency into the process and key learnings from a four-year project focused on portfolio-based assessments in STEM.

SPEAKERS:
John Underwood (Louisiana Department of Education: No City, No State)

Our science department began transitioning to a standards-based grading system during the 2018-2019 school year with all courses using standards-based grading in 2020-2021. We teach the Physics and AP Physics 1 courses and will share our experiences preparing for and implementing standards based grading in both of those courses. Our department uses the science and engineering practices as the standards on which we score student proficiency. Our session will outline our philosophies on grading and reporting, our journey into and through standards based grading, and provide practical resources and tips on how to implement standards based grading in a 3D classroom. We plan on sharing our scaled learning skills on which we assess proficiency as well as our success criteria. We will share examples of assessments along with associated student work. Our session will allow time for small group discussions as well as a Q&A portion.

TAKEAWAYS:
How do you implement SBG in a physics course? In an AP course? How do you weave in the SEPs, DCIs, and CCCs? We’ll answer these questions and more while we share our philosophy, formative and summative assessments, sample student work, tips and tricks to make it work, and what to avoid.

SPEAKERS:
Andy Fitz (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Josh Bozeday (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Kristy Wrona (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL)

Goodbye, grading labs and lab reports -- Hello, lab practicals! Come learn how we’ve planned, implemented, and graded lab practical assessments in our SBG AP Physics 1 course. They are quick, individual, hands-on, aligned to science and engineering practices, and appropriate for an AP course.

TAKEAWAYS:
We will share how we’ve developed non-traditional lab assessments related to each unit in our standards-based grading AP Physics 1 curriculum. Presenters will share examples, recommendations, and challenges for teachers to think about as they implement lab practicals.

SPEAKERS:
Kristen One (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL), Kristy Wrona (Adlai E. Stevenson High School: Lincolnshire, IL)