United States History End-of-Course Assessment (EOCA) Overview Notes 9/13/2016

Slide 1 United States History End-of-Course Assessment (EOCA) Overview
Dr. Stacy Skinner, Social Studies Coordinator, 
Test Development Center
Michael DiPierro, Social Studies Education Specialist, Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support   
Mike: Welcome and thank you for attending. My name is Michael DiPierro and I am joined by Dr. Stacy Skinner. I am the Social Studies Education Specialist and Dr. Skinner is the Social Studies Coordinator at the Test Development Center. The content provided in this presentation is informational and is not intended to replace or supersede local guidance. The information presented is current as of September 13, 2016.

Slide 2 Desired Outcomes
Mike: The first part of this presentation includes information and resources related to the United States History End of Course Assessment courses and the second part will highlight some content-specific strategies.

Slide 3 Course Descriptions and Standards
Mike: CPALMS is the State of Florida’s official source for standards information and course descriptions. For the most current course information, be sure that you are on the 2015 – And Beyond tab as seen in this screen capture. 

Slide 4 Course Standards and Coding Scheme 
Mike: When viewing a course standards you will see additional information. Information related to this standard includes Access Points, Related Courses, Related Resources, Remarks/Examples, and Related Resources. You can also print, export, and share. 

Slide 5: 1003.4282 Requirements for a standard high school diploma. -
(3)(d) Three credits in social studies.—A student must earn one credit in United States History; one credit in World History; one-half credit in economics, which must include financial literacy; and one-half credit in United States Government. The United States History EOC assessment constitutes 30 percent of the student’s final course grade.
http://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/subject-areas/social-studies.stml 
Mike: As seen in Florida Statute 1003.4282, one credit in United States History is a graduation requirement and the United States History End of Course Assessment will count for 30 percent of the students final course grade. 
Courses meeting the United States History graduation requirement are coded with the letters “AH” in the course code directory.
2016-2017 Course Directory
http://www.fldoe.org/policy/articulation/ccd/2016-2017-course-directory.stml.  
 
Slide 6 1008.22 Student assessment program for public schools. -  
(3)(b)End-of-course (EOC) assessments.—EOC assessments must be statewide, standardized, and developed or approved by the Department of Education as follows:
(3)(b)1. EOC assessments for Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Biology I, United States History, and Civics shall be administered to students enrolled in such courses as specified in the course code directory.
http://www.fldoe.org/academics/standards/subject-areas/social-studies.stml 
The U.S. History EOCA was field tested in 2012.
In 2013, the baseline U.S. History EOCA was administered. 

Slide 7 Academic Advisement Flyers - What Students and Parents Need to Know
Mike: The academic advertisement flyers are a good resource to help parents and students understand what is required to earn the 24-credit standard diploma. Be sure to check with your local guidance office for additional information on graduation requirements. 

Slide 8 NGSSS EOC Assessments Fact Sheet 
Mike: The images displayed are from the NGSSS EOC Assessment Facts Sheet. As you can see, this document provides information on the courses that trigger the U.S. History EOCA, the test administration schedule, and the additional information related to NGSSS exams. 
Dr. Skinner: The FDOE updates this document at least annually preceding each Spring test administration for the subsequent administration year. It is important to access this document online to ensure access to the most current information. 

Slide 9 State EOC Assessment Results 
Mike: Results from past End of Course Assessment administrations can be found on the Results section of the FDOE K-12 Assessment webpage. You may have to scroll through the page to find the information you are looking for because United States History is not the only assessment found on this page. 

Slide 10 Content Focus Reports
Dr. Skinner:  Some reporting categories have too few test items to report reliable or meaningful scores at the student level. 

Slide 11 Achievement Level Descriptions 
Dr. Skinner: Achievement Level Descriptions (ALDs) outline the specific student expectations for each of the five Achievement Levels for each EOC assessment. The content of each statewide assessment is organized by reporting categories that are used for test design, scoring, and reporting purposes, and the ALDs express what students at each Achievement Level know and can do for each reporting category.

Slide 12 EOCA – Item Specs 
Mike: The U.S. History Test Item Specifications contains a wealth of information to support the teaching and learning of related courses as seen in the screen capture of its table of contents. In the next few slides we will highlight some information from this document.

Slide 13 EOCA – Scope of Test Items  
Dr. Skinner: Only the core content appears on the test design summary located in Appendix D. Appendix B outlines the U.S. History content assessed by the U.S. History EOCA. The benchmarks serve as the objectives to which the test items are written. Test Item Specifications, p. 5.

Slide 14 U.S. History EOCA – Reporting Categories 
Dr. Skinner: The reporting categories are: 
Reporting Category 1 (33%) Late Nineteenth and Early Number of Points Possible Twentieth Centuries (1860–1910) 
Reporting Category 2 (34%)
Global Military, Political, and Economic Challenges Number of Points Possible (1890–1940) 
Reporting Category 3 (33%)
The United States and the Defense of the International Peace (1940–2010)
Test Item Specifications, Appendix D – Test Design Summary

Slide 15 and 16 EOCA – Cognitive Complexity 
Mike: On the U.S. History EOCA, cognitive complexity is based upon Dr. Norman L. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels. The categories are low complexity, moderate complexity, and high complexity and form an ordered description of the demands an item may make on a student. For example, low-complexity items may require a student to solve a one-step problem. Moderate-complexity items may require multiple steps. High-complexity items may require a student to analyze and synthesize information. Notice the Percentage of Points by Cognitive Complexity Level. It is important that students are exposed to course content at each level of complexity. More information can be found in the Test Item Specifications on pages 7-12.

Slide 17 and 18 EOCA – Definitions of Benchmark Specifications
Dr. Skinner: The following are included in the Benchmark Specifications
•	Strand
•	Reporting Category 
•	Standard 
•	Benchmark 
•	Also Assesses 
•	Benchmark Clarification 
•	Content Limits
•	Stimulus Attributes 
•	Content Focus 
•	Sample Items 

Slide 19 Stimulus Attribute Examples
Mike: This screen contains sample stimulus attributes and can be found in the United States History Test Item Specifications. 

Slide 20 Sample Questions for NGSSS EOCA
Mike: This is a sample question that can be found in the test item specifications book on page 21 and on the online practice test. We are showing you a sample item with some questions to consider for a few reasons. First, this can generate discussion about the content and skill demands of a test item. Second, by using these questions as a guide, teachers can deliberately plan instruction to support the content knowledge and skills demanded on the end of course assessment. Last, it illustrates the cognitive demand of this item, which can be used to reflect on the level of instruction taking place in the classroom. Ultimately, think about ways to align course standards, instruction, and assessment. 

Slide 21 U.S. History Item Rating Form
Dr. Skinner: The screen shows the U.S. History Item Rating Form which can be found in Test Item Specifications, Appendix A.

Slide 22 Social Studies Skills
Mike: These skills are embedded into each standard and affiliated benchmarks. Some EOCA items may call on the use of these skills. The next section of this presentation will offer some content-specific strategies to support the teaching and learning of some of these skills. They can be found in the Test Item Specifications, Appendix B. 

Slide 23 Resources for Locating Sources and Stimulus 
DocsTeach, National Archives
https://www.docsteach.org/ 
Document Analysis Worksheets
https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/ 
Google Image Search – “Labeled for Reuse”  
https://images.google.com/ 
Library of Congress 
https://www.loc.gov/
TeachingHistory.org
http://teachinghistory.org/ 
Mike: Displayed are some resources for locating sources and stimulus attributes. I seek out sources in the public domain when developing resources. The document analysis worksheets are a great way to build student capacity to analyze documents, but keep in mind that these worksheets are not permitted on the EOCA. We must use these resources as appropriate for our students and work to develop the habits of mind in our students so that they can work independently.

Slide 24 and 25 Political Cartoon Analysis 
Mike: One strategy to help students independently analyze sources is the WAVES strategy. This method helps students break a political cartoon down into individual parts in order to draw conclusions about the cartoon. By examining the Words, Actions, Visuals, and Emotions in an image, students are provided a framework for deconstructing the information provided and putting it back to gather to determining its significance. 
Over the years I have seen different versions of the WAVES strategy used in Broward County classrooms, for example, I have seen “so what?” replace significance, however, I used it as presented here. This strategy can be used with photographs as well.

Slide 26 and 27 Document Analysis 
Mike: SOAPSTone and APPARTS are two strategies to help students analyze documents. You can see some of the overlap and differences in these strategies. For example, some similarities include: speaker/author, audience/audience, purpose/reason, whereas addressing the tone is unique to SOAPSTone.

Slide 28 and 29 Categorization 
PERSIA and SPRITE are strategies to help students gain a deeper understanding of their discipline specific vocabulary, by associating terms with one or more categories. 
PERSIA and SPRITE can be used at various complexity levels. For example, at the low level, students may be tasked with identifying political terms associated with the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the moderate level students may be asked to explain how political causes lead to social outcomes. For example, how did the Fifteenth Amendment lead to poll tax. Additionally, students can complete a word sort activity, where they are tasked with categorizing words based on PERSIA or SPRITE and justifying their categorizations. Students may notice that some words can be categorized into more than one category, which provides teachers the opportunity to have students explain their thinking. At the high complexity level, students can use the terms in each category to draw conclusions about a time period. For example, students may be asked to draw conclusions about reconstruction based on their economic list of terms. Note that the word sort activity can be done with or without providing students categories. Without categories is an open sort and with categories, such as PERSIA or SPRITE is an open sort. 

Slide 30 FDOE Resource – Florida Students  
The Florida student’s website has a wide range of resources organized by the content standards.

Slide 31 FDOE Resource - Toolkits
The FDOE provides a tool kit which provides many of the links included in this presentation. 

Slide 32 FDOE Resource - ePATs
Dr. Skinner: The ePAT items are sample items from the Test Item Specifications. Computer-Based Practice Tests (ePATs) for NGSSS EOC Assessments

Slide 33 Reflection
Mike: Consider the following questions as you reflect on your learning.
1.	Which instructional resources can I utilize to support standards-based instruction?
2.	How do I implement instructional resources to plan, teach, and assess my course’s standards-based curriculum?

Slide 34 and 35 For more information, contact
Michael DiPierro, Social Studies Education Specialist
Bureau of Standards and Instructional Support
Michael.DiPierro@fldoe.org