A learning progression describes how student understanding of an important mathematical idea typically develops from novice to expert as students’ competency improves. The learning progression often describes common misconceptions that students may show along the way. Students may also show performance at different levels of the progression depending on the difficulty of the problem they are trying to solve. Not all students progress exactly as describe in the progression, but because many do, they can be helpful for informing teaching.

A key practice is an organizing structure for a set of closely related tasks and interactions that serve a common purpose and must be mastered to achieve college and career readiness. A key practice is primarily presented as a sequence of phases reflecting integrated clusters of reading, writing, and critical thinking skills that students must use in order to accomplish the primary goal described by the key practice and which can be used to inform both ELA instruction and teaching.

It is important to protect the educator’s instructional time in the classroom. Assesslets will be scored and results can be accessed within 6 business days after the administration window has closed.

Assesslets may be administered whenever a teacher determines it is appropriate using GCA’s teaching and learning platform whether it be in a classroom or remote.

Our Assesslets are offered using a clear and transparent pricing structure published on our website. Our prices are fixed at a low rate, and you can even get a custom quote tailored to your needs.

Assesslet reports provide valuable insight for administrators and teachers. Student reports available with Assesslets include:

• Administration Analysis – Track the progress of an Assesslet administration; everything from scheduled to complete.
• Action Analysis – View student results by item and answer choice.
• Standards Analysis –View student results by standard.
• Response Analysis – View student results by item/rationale, score point, or comment code.
• Performance Analysis – View student results by performance level breakdown.

Evaluator Feedback is included for the constructed-response and extended-response items scored by highly trained and experienced GCA raters and are individualized based on each student response.

Evaluator Feedback is provided with a student’s score as an additional piece of feedback that can be useful for students, teachers, and administrators.

Each evaluator feedback provides one specific aspect for students to fine-tune as they review and revise their work. Therefore, students can be grouped based on evaluator feedback to receive tailored instruction on this specific aspect or to provide guidance for peer review.

Evaluator Feedback is available for each student within the District and School Connect Lite platform and can be found in the Response Analysis Report for feedback once scoring is complete.

These are provided for each assessment and included feedback at the item and assessment level (in Excel format).

This describes each assessment component that was reviewed and summarizes GCA’s findings and recommendations for each component (in PDF format).

• Read-behinds: Team Leaders provide a second score to a predetermined percentage of responses that have received first scores from raters. Feedback is provided to raters based on score agreement or on scoring trends. Read-behinds are tailored specifically for each project.
• Validity: During live scoring, raters receive responses that have been previously assigned scores from experienced Team Leaders. After scoring, raters will receive immediate feedback indicating whether the rater’s assigned score is representative of the selected score point on the rubric.
• Lock out: Raters who do not maintain a predetermined level of overall validity accuracy may be prevented from continuing scoring until a Team Leader has provided scoring feedback.
• Daily Report: This report details the score distribution of scores assigned by both individual raters and the entire team’s scoring of a particular item. Team Leaders use this report to provide feedback to raters on scoring trends and scoring biases.
• Calibration Sets: Raters who do not maintain an expected level of accuracy may be assigned a calibration set. These multi-response sets have responses that have been assigned first scores by Team Leaders. These sets serve as a retraining tool and provide further feedback to the Team Leader and rater.

Developed at the University of Georgia, all items incorporate high rigor and best practices.

These resources and more can be found in the Administration and Resource Guides within District and School Connect Lite.

• Overview and Background Materials: Raters are provided an overview of the project’s specific needs and requirements. Raters are also provided any background materials needed to begin training.
• Model Sets: Raters read model sets that typically consist of 8-12 responses per set. These responses are chosen to clearly exemplify each score point in the scoring rubric. Models include annotations that explain why the response received its assigned score.
• Training Sets: Raters score training sets that typically consist of 8-12 responses. These responses cover the entire score range and present challenging scoring decisions for raters. Raters receive feedback from Team Leaders based on their scoring of the sets.
• Qualifying Sets: In order to begin live scoring, raters must pass a qualifying test. These tests typically consist of 8-12 responses that cover the entire score range. Qualifying standards vary according to project requirements.

For over two decades, GCA has designed and managed multiple assessments, including performance assessment programs. These programs have deployed item and assessment development, rater training and scoring, and professional learning that are research-based, consistent with appropriate educational testing theories, and that align with the client’s objectives.

GCA has supported a variety of scoring projects with varying rubrics and scoring expectations. Based on experience and extensive knowledge of scoring best practices, our team will provide customized scoring options to clients that meet the needs of their assessment while considering the budget.

GCA has worked with a variety of clients to design and enhance rubrics utilized for the evaluation of writing assessments. Rubrics for two, four, five, and six-point scales, for all genres in the existing curricula, and for analytic and holistic scoring are included in our experience.

For all projects, beginning with training, scorers are expected to understand the concepts of reliability and validity and receive training on the rationale for agreement and adjacency requirements. Scorers are also required to review a technical manual of an existing scoring program to understand the scrutiny of the scoring process and the types of metrics that are reported externally.  This manual is developed based on the specifications of the client intertwined with recommendations from the GCA scoring team.

An annotation is brief text that uses language and terminology from a rubric to explain why a response is assigned a particular score. Annotations have the ability to not only support the clarity of training and scoring guides, but can also be provided to clients to help both students and teachers gain a better understanding of the why behind the score provided from the rubric.

Range-finding is the process used to identify the exemplar responses that will be used to create the model or anchor sets, practice sets, qualification sets, and possibly validity responses to be used during live scoring. Range-finding is meant to identify responses that demonstrate the entire range of the rubric’s score scale, the wide variety of types of responses that will been seen in live scoring, and responses that demonstrate atypical approaches to the writing or performance task.

The members of the range-finding team are highly experienced scorers who have years of experience scoring a wide range of rubrics as well as a wide range of writing or performance tasks. The typical member of a GCA range-finding team will have at minimum, a four-year college degree and at least seven to ten years of scoring experience. These members will also have had several years of experience in creating training materials and leading scoring projects from training through completion. Range-finding teams usually consist of three to five members per team.

Extensive teacher resources including answer keys with rubrics, distractor rationales, and exemplars are provided. We also offer professional learning workshops to help teachers receive the most value from our Assesslets.

Student assessment is an essential component of a high-quality teaching and learning process. GCA can help evaluate the status of district, school, and classroom assessments. This Assessment Audit offers tools and resources to help you determine whether your assessment system is in balance – that is, does it include policies and practices that will meet the assessment needs of all learners? Is it aligned to instruction to promote and to report student learning?

The audit is organized around three guiding questions:

1.  1.   Where are we going?
2.  2.   Where are we now?
3.  3.   How do we improve student learning and achievement?

GCA is also available to review your interim, benchmark and/or classroom assessments and provide feedback on the following components:

1.  1.   Does the assessment align to the learning targets of the standard?
2.  2.   Does the assessment align to instruction?
3.  3.   Does the assessment have an adequate balance of rigor?
4.  4.   Is the assessment accessible to all students?
5.  5.   Does the assessment align with the intended purpose?

Whether on end of the year assessments, or in life in general, a clear indicator of student achievement is the ability to read and write effectively, in a variety of contexts. For this reason, developing students’ literacy skills is one of our greatest opportunities. From this workshop, teachers can expect:

• – an engaging discussion of evidence-based practices in literacy instruction, in a variety of content areas
• – to feel more confident in developing students’ literacy skills

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Assesslets are scored by GCA evaluators who are Georgia residents with years of experience scoring high-stakes Georgia assessments. Our evaluators and trainers include current and former Georgia educators invested in the achievement of Georgia’s students.

All districts may use the Assesslets since these are based on content standards, not on instructional calendars. Teachers have the flexibility to administer Assesslets while they teach those standards.

Assesslets are developed to allow educators a “snapshot” of how students are learning within a content standard.

A second form in all three writing genres offers schools and districts multiple opportunities in one school year to assess each opinion/argumentative, informational, and narrative standard. Additionally, Form A and Form B ask students to read different texts and measure different reading standards.

Schools and districts can administer one Assesslet form (either Form A or Form B) after instruction of a particular writing genre. After receiving timely scoring and feedback from GCA, teachers can provide targeted remediation and continued instruction. Thereafter, teachers can administer the other Assesslet form to measure student progress toward mastery of the writing standards. Additionally, teachers can utilize both Form A and Form B to continue assessing more and different reading standards.

A second form in all three writing genres offers schools and districts multiple opportunities in one school year, such as each semester, to assess each opinion/argumentative, informational, and narrative standard. Additionally, Form A and Form B ask students to read different texts and measure different reading standards.

Schools and districts can administer one Assesslet form (either Form A or Form B) in the Fall after instruction of a particular writing genre. After receiving timely scoring and feedback from GCA, teachers can provide continued instruction. Teachers can administer the other Assesslet form in the Spring, in preparation for end-of-year state summative assessments. After receiving timely scoring and feedback from GCA, teachers can provide targeted remediation. Additionally, teachers can utilize both Form A and Form B to continue assessing more and different reading standards throughout the school year.

Form A and Form B mirror each other in item types, form layout, and writing genre. Form A and Form B ask students to read different texts and measure different reading standards. To compare the standards assessed on each form, refer to the Assesslet Blueprints.

Multi-select items have five or six possible answer choices with multiple correct responses. The incorrect choices, called distractors, can reflect common errors or common misconceptions. All multiple-select items include rationales which describe the most likely error or misconception a student made or has when selecting specific answer choices.

Selected-response items have answer choices with one correct key and distractors. Distractors will represent common misconceptions. Rationales will be provided for each answer choice. Rationales  provide clarity around errors in students’ thinking for incorrect choices. Items in grades 1-2 have three answer choices with one correct key and two distractors. Items beginning in grades 3 have four answer choices with one correct key and three distractors.

Game-based assessments are learning activities or assessments that can assess students’ knowledge and skills through an engaging platform. Game-based assessments provide an alternative to traditional “tests.” They could integrate seamlessly as formative tools to monitor learning and assess students’ ability to transfer the knowledge and skills learned during instruction. Game-based assessments can provide a scenario/situation so students can apply their knowledge and skills in authentic contexts.

Performance tasks are open-ended learning activities or assessments that ask students to perform or to create a product to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. Performance tasks typically provide a scenario/situation so students can apply their knowledge and skills in authentic contexts. Performance tasks can be multi-faceted and can provide opportunities to assess knowledge and skills across content areas. Tasks are scored using a rubric and include exemplars, the model performance or product at the highest score point.

Extended writing-response items are open-ended items in English Language Arts which ask students to write informative/explanatory texts or opinion/argumentative texts and are scored using a rubric. These items include exemplars, the model responses at the highest score point. Exemplars will be written as an actual student’s response.

Extended-response items are open-ended items which ask students to generate a longer response and are scored using a rubric. These items include exemplars, the model responses at the highest score point. Exemplars will be written as an actual student’s response.

Extended constructed-response items are open-ended items in English Language Arts which ask students to write narratives and are scored using a rubric. These items include exemplars, the model responses at the highest score point. Exemplars will be written as an actual student’s response.

Constructed-response items are open-ended items which ask students to generate a short response and are scored using a rubric. These items include exemplars, the model responses at the highest score point. Exemplars will be written as an actual student’s response.

• English Language Arts: Grades 1-8 and high school – all genres – $3.50
• Grade 3 English Language Arts / Reading Comprehension Mastery Assesslet – $3.50
• Mathematics: Grades 1-8 and high school – all domains – $3.50
• Mathematics: Grades 1-8 and high school – cumulative – $3.80
• Grade 5 Mathematics Mastery Assesslet – $3.50
• Science: Grades 1-8 and high school – cumulative – $3.80
• Social Studies: Grades 1-8 and high school – cumulative – $3.80

Deconstructing Standards: Deconstructing standards helps ensure that instruction and assessment tools match the rigor of the standards. In this session, participants sharpen their skills in deconstructing standards to identify specific learning targets. There is further conversation about the relationship between learning targets and depth of knowledge (DOK). Several applied activities help participants deepen their understanding of these concepts.  

The Georgia Standards of Excellence in Science and Social Studies have rigorous expectations for student understanding. Updated for 2018-19, GCA offers professional learning sessions in both Science and Social Studies, highlighting trends in the rigor of these standards, and engaging teachers in creating learning activities that match the rigor of the standards. Teachers can expect practical, challenging sessions, and to leave with learning activities that can be implemented immediately in their classrooms.

Reading, writing, speaking/listening, and language are a natural part of learning in any subject area. These text-dependent skills are key to showing mastery of content standards. Revised for 2018-19, our professional learning sessions provide an applied forum for teachers to collaborate with GCA on effective literacy instruction. Everything done in these sessions mirrors work that can be done with students:

– close readings of texts

– small and large group discussions about specific aspects of the texts

– responding, both verbally and in writing, to text-dependent questions

Teachers can expect to hone their literacy instruction in ways that can be immediately implemented in their classrooms. Sessions are customized to specific subject areas and grade levels.

More effective assessments provide more useful information about student understanding and instructional next steps. In these active, hands-on sessions, educators bring in their own classroom assessments for a tune-up:

– Educators take their knowledge to the next level by expanding their assessment development skills

– Educators collaborate with GCA facilitators and other educators from across Georgia, and gain valuable feedback

– Educators walk away with practical tips from current GCA item writers

Educators should expect to fill their toolboxes with improved assessment skills and practical item-writing knowledge that can be used in 2018-19 and beyond.

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As Georgia’s educational testing and measurement organization, GCA develops, administers, and scores state, district, school, and classroom assessments.

An assessment is only as good as the process by which it is created. GCA has vast experience in the process for designing, developing, administering, and scoring assessments. The assessment development process is a comprehensive process which involves multiple steps to ensure the validity and reliability of the assessments.

GCA works closely with our clients at every phase of the assessment process, from designing through scoring and reporting. Our experience, combined with the flexibility in customization for our clients, allows us to create products that are aligned with our client’s expectations and requirements; most importantly, customized services provide a substantial cost savings.

While GCA offers an all-inclusive development package, we recognize our clients have varying needs. GCA also provides specific services that best suit your assessment needs, including:

• – Planning
• – Assessment Development
  •   - Webb’s Depth of Knowledge
  •   - Deconstructing Standards
  •   - Learning Targets
  •   - Universal Design
• – Administration
• – Scoring and Reporting
• – Research
• – Evaluation
• – Professional Development

A balanced assessment plan that includes formative and summative assessments, combined with analysis and the use of results will enable PLC team members to plan together and to assist each other, ensuring student achievement.

The professional learning is organized around five essential questions:

1.  1.   To what extent does the school have a balanced assessment plan?
2.  2.   To what degree have stakeholders been trained for using formative and summative assessments to support decision making?
3.  3.   How are teachers using assessments of and for learning in their classrooms?
4.  4.   How do collaborative teacher teams analyze data and student work?
5.  5.   How do teachers use assessment results and exemplars of student work?

In any subject area, scaffolding student growth occurs through carefully-considered questioning sequences. For example, before students can explain some of the key causes of the American Revolution, students need to identify and describe these causes. Before students can construct a graph showing the relationship between two variables, students need a working understanding of key terms like dependent variable and independent variable. In other words, each question in a sequence is important, and eliminating steps from a sequence can inhibit student understanding.

This session focuses on research-based strategies for sequencing questions effectively. Sessions can be tailored to specific grade-levels and subject areas, or sessions can span multiple grade-levels and subject areas to facilitate vertical and cross-curricular alignment of these strategies.

• Student Forms, delivered electronically as PDF files which feature paired passages and documents in a variety of genres (in ELA only), and 5-10 items including selected-response, constructed-response, and extended-response, as well as performance tasks.
• Teacher Resource Guides including detailed keys, distractor rationales, rubrics, exemplars and suggested instructional strategies.
• Scoring services provided by GCA evaluators with years of experience scoring high-stakes Georgia assessments.
• Results returned within two weeks in the form of an enhanced Data File including instructional comment codes.

GCA has a long history of collaborating with K-12 teacher professionals and their students to hone text-dependent writing skills. This collaboration starts with teacher professionals and GCA co-creating standards-based text-dependent writing lessons that integrate reading, discussion, and writing. What follows is co-teaching of this lesson with students. These sessions are highly customized. Teacher professionals build capacity in developing and facilitating text-dependent writing lessons. Students develop greater skill and confidence in text-dependent writing. GCA learns from both the teacher professionals and the students!

The literacy standards found in the Georgia Standards of Excellence require regular text-dependent writing (i.e., writing that involves a careful reading of associated texts), in all subject areas.

Scoring text-dependent writing with consistency and accuracy, according to standards-based rubrics, can be a challenge. Because accurate scoring is required to develop a valid understanding of student achievement, it is important to address these challenges.

GCA has deep expertise scoring text-dependent writing in multiple content areas, and offers practical, evidence-based professional learning on scoring text-dependent writing with accuracy and consistency.

This professional learning is particularly recommended for districts who observe local scoring of student responses to text-dependent writing questions found on district-level benchmark assessments. District personnel who participate in this professional learning norm their scoring to promote consistency and accuracy, the effect of which is more valid results.

Details Coming Soon