WestEd Assessment and Innovation experts will present at the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) 2023 National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA), June 26–28, in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s conference theme is Improving Student Learning for All: Advancing Innovative Uses of Assessment Data.
WestEd, a national leader in designing, developing, researching, and innovating assessment instruments for over 20 years, will facilitate and co-facilitate ten sessions on critically important challenges and issues in assessment today, presenting fresh ideas and solutions for developers and researchers to consider in the coming years.
WestEd’s sessions will focus on four key themes:
- Providing meaningful and relevant assessments for our youngest students in K-3 to help ensure they start their educational career on the right foot and that any challenges they face are identified and addressed early before they lag behind their peers
- Centering fairness and equity in the design and delivery of assessment systems so that all students see themselves reflected and valued in the assessments they take, and artificial gaps between subgroups of students are reduced or eliminated
- Seeing assessment as a continual work in progress, where instruments and systems are never considered complete, as they can always be refined and made more useful and relevant to student learning through rigorous research and innovation
- Leveraging technological advances, such as Artificial Intelligence tools, to reduce costs and the assessment burden on students while at the same time getting more meaningful and useful results into teachers’ hands as quickly as possible to help inform their instruction.
Below is a schedule for sessions. See you in New Orleans!
Monday, June 26
Session: Waiting for Stability—Another Perspective on Embedded Standard Setting
Time: 2:00 p.m.– 3:00 p.m.
Location: Strand 13A – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Marianne Perie (WestEd), Karla Egan (EdMetric), and Salih Binici (Florida Department of Education)
Embedded standard setting has been touted as the future of cut scores. Psychometricians look for stability in item calibrations and scales, meaning that the same item should be equally difficult from one year to the next. However, student motivation can affect item difficulty. In this session, presenters will describe their experience with item shifts and the alignment of intended performance with actual achievement. They will also caution when to use a formulaic approach to setting cut scores.
Session: Creating and Sustaining Inclusive Balanced Assessment Systems That Support All Students
Time: 3:30 p.m.– 5:00 p.m.
Location: Strand 10B – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Sandra Warren (Independent Researcher), Sheryl Lazarus (National Center on Educational Outcomes), Caroline Wylie (ETS), Megan Hopkins (WestEd), Virginia Ressa (National Center on Educational Outcomes), Rebecca Velikaneye (Wyoming Department of Education)
This session will highlight the work of CCSSO state collaboratives working in collaboration with the National Center on Educational Outcomes to develop a resource for state departments of education to use as they work with districts on creating inclusive, balanced assessment systems that produce valid results and supports valid interpretations of those results. Presenters will discuss their planning process, and session participants will be invited to share their experiences regarding creating and sustaining inclusive, balanced assessment systems.
Tuesday, June 27
Session: Re-Humanizing Assessment: Creating Culturally Responsive Assessments for All Students
Time: 9:00 a.m.– 10:30 a.m.
Location: Strand 12B – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Nirupa Mathew (Curriculum Associates), Molly Faulkner-Bond (WestEd), Billy Green (New York City Department of Education), Jennifer Randall (Center for Measurement Justice), and Melondy Knight (Curriculum Associates)
In this session, presenters describe ongoing efforts to research, create, use, and communicate a common goal of inclusive assessment practices. The session begins with an overview of the sociopolitical context in which they do this work. In addition, it will update the multi-year research plan, discuss data collection challenges and solutions, and share qualitative data. Besides sharing their exploratory findings, they will share their process and lessons learned for creating diverse project teams.
Session: Refining Accountability Systems for English Learner Success
Time: 9:30 a.m.– 10:30 a.m.
Location: Strand 12A – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Pete Goldschmidt (California State University, Northridge), David Brauer (Ohio Department of Education), Matthew Goodlaw (New Mexico Public Education), Megan Hopkins (WestEd), Delia Pompa (Migration Policy Institute), and Shelly Spiegel Coleman (Californians Together)
In this session, presenters will report on a mixed-method, multi-state study that aims to help rethink accountability with an eye to both addressing problems with the validity of summative assessment outcomes for English Learners and incorporating community values into accountability systems.
Session: Grade 3 Is Too Late: Let’s Focus on PreK Through Grade 3, Shall We?
Time: 3:30 p.m.– 4:30 p.m.
Location: Strand 10B – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Kara Courtney (Data Recognition Corporation), Joanne Jensen (WestEd), Nicole Mosser (Michigan Department of Education), and Jon Vaupel (Minnesota Department of Education)
In recent years, many states have implemented kindergarten readiness assessments (KRAs) to evaluate students upon entering kindergarten. Despite KRA implementation, states report students’ kindergarten readiness has, on average, remained unchanged. In order to improve pre-kindergarten student performance, quality preschool programs and instruction are imperative. The goal of this session is to examine how standards and assessments are used in two states to evaluate student performance and areas for improvement.
Session: Assessment Designed and Intentionally Evaluated for Deeper Learning Will Lead to More Equitable Outcomes: Massachusetts’s Innovative Design Journey
Time: 3:30 p.m.– 4:30 p.m.
Location: Strand 10A – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Kevin King (WestEd), Sarah Quesen (WestEd), Lauren White (Pearson), Sam Ribnick (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education), and Lydia Martinez Rivera (WestEd)
Massachusetts is creating and implementing an innovative science assessment designed to promote more equitable access to deeper learning and ensure that all students can see themselves as scientists and engineers. This session will focus on the state’s goal of “Deeper Learning for All” and will describe state’s assessment design and implementation story.
Wednesday, June 28
Symposium: Responsible AI Innovation in Assessment and Scoring
Time: 8:30 a.m.– 10:00 a.m.
Location: Strand 11B – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Lei Liu (ETS), Jaylin Nesbitt (WestEd), Ikkyu Choi (ETS), Tamara Heck (Michigan Department of Education), and Mo Zhang
This symposium describes research examining fairness and equity issues related to responsible AI innovations in support of student learning. A collection of five presentations will focus on the current gaps in AI innovations to support students with language challenges or students using African American Vernacular English, and potential methodological considerations to address these challenges. A discussant will lead a discussion on how to leverage these research studies to inform future AI innovations to provide personalized learning and assessment experiences tailored to individual needs.
Session: Test Equity and Fairness from the Voices That Matter: A Minority, Social Justice, and Parent Perspective
Time: 8:30 a.m.– 10:00 a.m.
Location: Strand 12B – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Elda Garcia (National Association of Testing Professionals), Maria Armstrong (Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents), Jennifer Randall (Center for Measurement Justice), Jade Caines Lee (University of Kansas), Christina Laster (National Action Network), and Molly Faulkner-Bond (WestEd)
This session will explore how to create fair, equitable, and anti-racist assessments and assessment systems. Panelists will explore their definitions of equity and fairness, share past efforts, and provide potential solutions toward equitable assessments and assessment systems.
A moderator will facilitate a discussion about social justice challenges and anti-racist assessment solutions. Panelists will discuss the implications of unintended consequences under current assessment systems, especially on historically marginalized groups. Participants will be invited to engage in conversations and initiatives that improve assessment value and promote transformative accountability.
Session: And Then There Were Three: Updates from the IADA States That Piloted Assessments in 2021–22
Time: 11:00 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Location: Bolden 6 – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Marianne Perie (WestEd), Ruth Caillouet (Louisiana Department of Education), Sam Ribnick (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education), and Tammy Howard (North Carolina Department of Public Instruction)
The states of Massachusetts, Louisiana, and North Carolina operating under the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) piloted assessments in 2021–22. Their approaches required test developers to combine their content and psychometric teams to apply lessons learned from the data to future development. In this session, experts from each state will describe lessons learned from the last school year and how those were applied to the subsequent school year.
Session: Use of Integrative Item Clusters to Measure Multidimensional Science Standards: Evaluating Progress
Time: 11:00 a.m.– 12:30 p.m.
Location: Strand 12B – 2nd Floor
Presenters: Kevin King (WestEd), April McCrae (Delaware Department of Education), Sarah Quesen (WestEd), and Corrine Steever (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education)
Since the rollout of NGSS, many states have diversified how they structure, develop, and use item clusters in their test designs. Some states adopted fully integrated item clusters as at least one component of their summative large-scale assessment. This session will focus on goals in designing assessments based on integrated item clusters. The panel explore what we know quantitatively about the use of integrated item clusters.
Email Danny Torres, Associate Director of Events and Digital Media, for more information.