Seattle, Washington
June 24 – 26, 2024
Conference Website
This year’s National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA) will convene state leaders, assessment practitioners and other experts to learn lessons from these innovations and continue to build effective, coherent systems that best serve all learners and stakeholders across the system. NCSA’s platform will facilitate an exchange of best practices, strategies, research findings and valuable resources that support states in implementing high-quality assessments and robust accountability systems, ultimately driving better outcomes for all students.
Tuesday, June 25
Fully Integrating Simulations into a Large-Scale Science Assessment Program: Scoring Students Doing Science Using Simulation Data
Kevin King, Sam Ribnick, Leslie Bondaryk, Sarah Quesen
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM, Level 4 – Room 401 (Chelan)
States have struggled to fully realize the vision of multi-dimensional science assessments. Massachusetts developed assessment tasks using simulations built around a compelling phenomenon with an authentic context, to better measure students’ use of science and engineering practices.
The design is focused on the inclusion of simulations as an integral part of a task. Students gain information from their interaction with the simulations to use in responses and some score points are generated via information reflecting student actions within the simulations. To best leverage the simulations, teams collaborate on parallel and intersecting paths of development, implementation, administration, scoring, and analysis. The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is at the cusp of moving this work from innovation to implementation, based on extensive testing and evaluation. The team will reflect on how lessons learned will be applied moving forward and how they can be applied to other such endeavors.