Math Alignment

TN State Standards

EDAS 5740 Curriculum Leadership

Alicia Horton, Jane Phillips, Christine

Poke, Meredith Ruffner

2nd Quarter Assessment4th grade

Purpose: to assess standards identified to be taught during the 2nd quarter of the school year, as well as standards identified as needing additional teaching support according to data analysis from the previous quarter.

Hamilton County School District designs a pacing guide that provides a curriculum map for teachers ensuring standards will be met within the allotted time.

Assessment and StandardAlignment

“Alignment is a process of teaching the learner to recognize similar situations (content and format) by which assessment will take place” (English, 2010, p. 100).

2 Levels of Alignment

Content Alignment is how “the content of the test is matched to the content of the curriculum” (English, 2010, p. 99).

Context alignment (format alignment) is how “the shape of the assessment item is taught as well as the content of the item” (English, 2010, p. 99).

Content Alignment

The content is designed to teach the standard, and the test is designed to assess the student’s understanding of the standard.

The 2nd Quarter Assessment allows students to demonstrate their conceptual understanding of the standards by assessing them in multiple contexts.

Context (format) Alignment

The 2nd Quarter Assessment uses a multiple choice format but analyzes student understanding by using a variety of thinking skills and practices within Blooms Taxonomy.

Some problems are solved procedurally while others require reasoning.

Assessed Content Strands

Numbers and Operations

Mathematical Processes

Algebra

Correct Alignment

It was determined that all 33 questions on the assessment were aligned with the TN state standards in Numbers and Operations, Mathematical Processes, and Algebra.

More questions focused on Numbers and Operations because students need to have a strong foundation of number sense.

Quarter 2 Assessment

Summary

It was determined that the Quarter 2 Assessment demonstrated categorical concurrence because it “measures the extent to which the same or consistent categories of content appear in the standards and the assessments” (Webb, 2007).

The criterion was met for Numbers and Operations but not for Mathematical Processes and Algebra because less than 5 assessment items targeted the standard in these areas.

To have categorical concurrence within the

Quarter 2 Assessment in the areas of

mathematical processes and algebra, the

number of questions focusing on these

standards needs to increase to more than

5.

The Fix

Conclusion

The assessment demonstrated balance of representation by giving equal emphasis to objectives under a specific standard (Webb, 2007).

References

English, F. (2010). Deciding what to teach and test: Developing,aligning, and leading the curriculum. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

Webb, N. (2007, September). Aligning assessments and standards. Retrieved from www.wcr.wisc.edu/news/coverStories/aligning_assessments_and_standards.php