Join us for a workshop designed to guide you through the intricate map of the Smarter Balanced Assessment System (CAASPP) and its many components. Taught by State Network and Tools for Teachers authors, this session aims to provide participants with the opportunity to explore all the tools, lessons, and assessments freely available to California educators.
In this hands-on session, you’ll explore all the FREE tools, lessons, and resources available to California educators—from Interim Assessment Blocks (IABs) to the ever-evolving Tools for Teachers. We'll highlight how the Common Core State Standards and California Framework align with CAASPP to support meaningful instruction (not just test prep). 💡
You’ll walk away with practical ways to:
Use assessment data to drive differentiated instruction
Boost student confidence through format familiarity
Make summative testing low-stress and high-success 🌟
Come for the learning, stay for the sparkle—and leave empowered to make assessments work for you and your students!
Would you like to learn how to use the Interim Assessment Blocks (IABs & FIABs) and the data they can provide as a way to inform classroom instruction? Bring your compass and join this duo of State Network Educators as they help you navigate your way through the process of data driven instruction using the tools provided within the CAASPP/Smarter Balanced system of supports. Participants will learn how to create an assessment loop structure that can be applied to any IAB/FIAB in order to maximize its effectiveness. In addition, attendees will be shown actual classroom examples and data to illustrate each part of the assessment loop.
This workshop, taught by State Network Educators, Digital Library authors, and Google Certified Trainers, is designed to show teachers how to use the Smarter Balanced practice test questions, training test, sample items, and Pear Deck to create an interactive engaging experience for students. Participants will learn how to use content from Smarter Balanced and Pear Deck features to create an interactive formative assessment opportunity for students in an effort to reduce anxiety and stress related to the formatting of the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment. The goal of this session is for participants to walk away with the knowledge and skills needed to create a lesson that can be used with students Monday morning.
**Must have a FREE Smarter Balanced Tools for Teachers account to download resources**
A 3-Acts Task is a whole group mathematics task consisting of three distinct parts: an engaging and perplexing Act 1, an information and solution-seeking Act 2, and a solution discussion and revealing Act 3. In Act 1, you will introduce the task using as few words as possible. As students begin to think about the task, one of the "wonderings" posed will be the focus of the 3-Acts investigation. Then in Act 2, the student experiences a productive struggle while seeking new information and resources to understand the tools and information needed to solve the task. Act 3 serves as the resolution to understand different ways in which the problem could be solved. In doing so, teachers will use the formative assessment process to reteach or extend the lesson.