Articles by Rich Cairn

PARCC assessments so far fail to use any primary sources. Image Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries

Latest in our series of reviews of new assessment resources.

PARCC Prototype Assessments – An Overview

In August, 2012, PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), one of two Federally supported consortia of states working on assessments of the Common Core State Standards, released its first set of prototype assessments, offering important signals about where these key tools are headed.

These prototypes aim to communicate what the process will be about and something of how it will work, including the use of online technologies. These are not sample tests. And so far, they cover a very narrow range of content.

According to PARCC, “This initial release of 26 prototypes is just the beginning. Over the next two years, additional prototypes and rubrics will be released to represent the full range of assessment tasks that will be included on actual PARCC assessments beginning in 2014–2015. These new additions will help to paint a more complete picture of the PARCC assessment design in each content area and at each grade level.”

PARCC assessments aim to employ “texts worth reading,” and “questions worth answering.” Furthermore, all tasks feature a degree of text complexity. All require students to find and use evidence. All require students to build content knowledge.

The PARCC site offers additional details, including thoughts on its plans to make assessments accessible to ALL students.

What Is Useful for History Educators about the Prototypes?

What is most valuable about these prototypes is that they offer in-depth explanation and rationale for how and why the question and rubric are structured as they are. Exactly how does the question address the standards? And why did the question writers choose each component of the assessment? It is as welcome as it is rare to get this kind of insight from test developers. As one would expect, of course each question quite closely addresses specific standards.

The prototypes offer a glimpse of how online testing will shape the process. For example, in one question, students click on points of evidence within the text passage. This modest demonstration is certainly useful.

It is less clear how the format will shape apparently common open response questions.

Sample question:
• Based on the information in the text “Biography of Amelia Earhart,” write an essay that summarizes and explains the challenges Earhart faced throughout her life.
• Remember to use textual evidence to support your ideas.”

Questions are solid but the process so far simply leads to an empty box, backed by a pdf of a rubric. Perhaps the most informative resource on the site is the ELA Expanded Rubric for Analytic and Narrative Writing. Once again, The rubric is solid, but not in itself groundbreaking. It is not yet clear who will score the answers.

What about the Prototypes Does Not Work for History Educators?

None of this first batch of prototypes address topics of history. Furthermore, none includes any primary sources. The seventh grade assessments center on biographies of historical figure, Amelia Earhart. Yet the questions stress her personal character and the human interest story of her disappearance rather than the larger social, political, or technological significance of her life and work.

It is difficult to judge the quality of the elementary prototypes, in any case, since they identify but do not include the associated texts.

Summary

This work is good as far as it goes. Yet with the clock ticking, one hopes that illustrative history-focused prototypes appear soon.

In this release, PARCC does not yet attempt to address here the many logistical challenges that high stakes online testing raises. Those questions like many others, will have to wait.

The First Thanksgiving 1621, painted by J.L.G. Ferris–in 1932. This sample Stanford assessment activity requires students to think about the significance of the date of the subject versus the date of publication.

At last, performance assessments that engage students, focus on specific meaningful learning goals, and provide effective support tools for implementation! Beyond the Bubble: A New Generation of History Assessments is indispensable for every secondary history classroom.

The site is jam-packed with powerful tools.

Ten assessments range in topic from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement. All feature primary sources from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program–which funded work on the site. Each assessment addresses specific standards of the Common Core State Standards. Each also clearly teaches one or more key skills for assessing primary sources, well-explained on the Stanford History Education Group’s (SHEG) Historical Thinking Matters site.

Each skill is further demonstrated with half a dozen additional assessments on a variety of topics. Thus a teacher can vary and repeat assessments to evaluate and reinforce the skills.

Assignments are complex enough both to be interesting and to require effort and thought. Yet their structure and execution are simple and clean enough to be useful.

Each of the ten Core Assessments also features, a) a detailed explanation of how and why it works, including an example of student work, b) a detailed rubric anchored by several further examples of student work. This combination of explicit, leveled information keyed to student work is the gold standard for such tools. Both teacher and student can see exactly what is meant by basic, emergent, or proficient performance.

The site benefits from the research and meticulous attention to detail typical of Sam Wineburg and his colleagues and graduate students at Stanford. Brief, attractive videos explain how the site works and suggest tips for successful implementation. The “Approach” page details the thinking and development process used to create the tools. Note that all assessments went through multi-phase piloting with real students.

Beyond the Bubble’s Assessment Design Principles:

• Good assessments balance knowledge of content and historical thinking.
• Good assessments ask students to apply content knowledge rather than reproduce it. 
• Good assessments ask students to consider content in ways that require thought, judgment, and deep understanding.

Emerging America adds to these an informal design principle: Solid assessments are worth a students’ time in their own right. i.e. Students will enjoy and learn from the assessment. This site thoroughly meets that principle also.

There is just one significant limitation to Beyond the Bubble: it includes grades 6-12 assessments only. (And OK, the site name is silly. Yet I ADORE the silly cartoon picture and video of George Washington. So go figure.)

Nice work SHEG. Keep on lighting the way!

Learn more about Inquiry Based Instruction and useful tools for assessment from Emerging America and the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Program.