1. Biology collection of evidence
Good morning and welcome to OSPI’s presentation on the Biology Collection of Evidence.
I am Scott Killough, the science assessment specialist for the COE. I was a teacher for 19 ½ years, and I began working at OSPI this February.
WSTA 2014 Conference
Scott killough, OSPI

2. Overview of today’s Presentation
Calendar
COE Philosophy
Guidelines & Policies
General information
Preparing your students for success
Explanation of scoring
Subsequent submissions
The Moodle
Future committees
Contact information
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3. Winter COE Submission: Class of 2015 or earlier
Date
Event
January 28th, 2015
Winter COE Submission: Class of 2015 or earlier
February 9th - 27th, 2015
Scoring
March 25th, 2015
Scores released on WAMS
April 29th, 2015
Spring COE Subsequent Submission: Class of 2015 or earlier
May 11th – 15th, 2015
May 29th, 2015
June 10th, 2015
Summer COE Submission: All eligible students
July 6th – 17th, 2015
August 14th, 2015
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4. Coe philosophy
RCW 28A
The objective alternative assessments for each content area shall be comparable in rigor to the skills and knowledge that the student must demonstrate on the statewide student assessment for each content area.
The COE uses the same performance level descriptors as the statewide student assessment.
Teachers and administrators have made the assumption that the COE assessment is meant to be easier than the state assessment.
The COE is meant for students who have test anxiety or need more time.
Students have several months, if not years, to complete the collection.
The COE is scored using the “best works” model where the top two (sometimes three) scores from each strand are used to come up with the student’s total score. I will go into more detail about the best works model later in the presentation.
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5. Guidelines and policies
Check out the Biology COE Webpages at
Policies are listed under the guideline’s tab at and guidelines are found on the content pages.
It is the district and each site’s responsibility to review all policies and guidelines.
Quickly go through Biology COE web page
Quickly go through the COE guidelines / policies web page
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6. Guidelines and policies: Printing Tasks
Biology tasks may be printed one per student for the sole purpose of drafting a response to a question. The printed material allows the student to read the inclusion bank task while simultaneously entering their work in the response box. All final answers on the biology COE tasks must be submitted through the online system.
Printed materials used for on-demand tasks must be destroyed at the end of the testing session.
Printed materials used for extended time responses must be held by the teacher at the end of each testing session.
The online system does not allow your students to scroll up to the prompt if your students are trying to answer questions at the bottom of the page.
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7. Guidelines and policies: ELL Students
Biology students may have the assessment materials presented to them in their native language. Appropriate native language presentations of the assessment materials include:
Human readers employed by the district.
District-provided print translation of the materials (print translations must be accomplished by school or district staff)
Word-to-word translation devices
Native language presentations of Biology COE materials include directions, stimuli, and questions.
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8. Guidelines and policies: Iep and 504
Universal tools, designated supports and accommodations are detailed in the state's accessibilities guidelines. The Collection of Evidence is designed to support these accessibility features. COE students may access accommodations as stated in their IEP or 504 plan.
Link to Accessibility Guidelines:
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9. Questions ???
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10. General information: Development of a Task
Operational Scoring
Professional, trained scorers
Tasks Piloted
Teachers statewide via Moodle
Task Writing Workshop
Teachers statewide wrote tasks via Moodle
Develop
Test Blueprint
Based on EOC Test Map
Range Finding
Teacher statewide-committee
First Submission June 2014
Statewide Webinars
OSPI staff presents to teachers
Tasks reviewed for content
Teachers via Moodle and committee
Range Finding of informal pilot
The gray areas indicate committees comprised primarily of teachers.
We actually have a task writing work shop scheduled for this November. We hope to generate six new tasks for the inclusion bank.
Content review ensures that the scenarios and questions address the intended science standard and item specification.
The six tasks that are created as a result of the task writing work shop will be piloted by teachers this spring.
Pilot Rangefinding will then take the student responses from the piloted tasks and determine score points for those student responses.
Operational rangefinding performs the same function as pilot rangefinding, however, it draws from a larger sample set of student responses.
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11. General information: Biology COE Test Map
Systems
Inquiry
Application
Cell Processes
Populations
Evolution
Items 2 3
Points 8 12
Percent of COE 14 21
Percent of EOC 15
20-25
20-23
15-18
14-16
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12. General information: eligibility
Eligible to Compile: Students are eligible to work on a biology COE if they have taken or are currently enrolled in a high school biology course.
Eligible to Submit: Students are eligible to submit a biology COE if he or she:
has attempted the state test one time
is a transfer student who has been approved for Direct Access
has been authorized to complete a subsequent COE
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13. General information: Choosing tasks
Include at least six and no more than eight tasks from the biology inclusion bank, accessed via EDS System.
Be sure each strand (Systems, Inquiry, Application, Cell Processes (LS1), and Evolution/Genetics (LS3) ) is represented at least three times, with Ecosystems (LS2) represented at least four times.
Administer at least two tasks as “on-demand” tasks. You may want to start with every task as on-demand, and then switch to extended-time.
Refer to the scoring matrix that comes up later in the presentation.
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14. General information: All tasks in a collection must…
Be the individual work of the student.
Be completed in a classroom setting under the supervision of an education professional.
Be completed without assistance from a teacher or other education professional.
Have responses written in English, although students may use word-to-word bilingual dictionaries or have the assistance of human translators.
Follows the same administration protocols as the science EOC.
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15. General information: “On-demand” Tasks
An on-demand task is a task that students submit with no opportunity to edit or revise after completion.
Using the online system, teachers may grant access to individual items within a task or the entire task.
Each time a student is granted access to the on-demand task they must complete the item or items during that “session”. In other words, during the testing period.
Students cannot make revisions to items completed during previous sessions.
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16. General information: “Extended-time” tasks
If a task is not “checked” as on-demand the online system automatically considers it extended-time.
Extended-time tasks are tasks that students are allowed to review and revise after completion.
The questions that make up an extended-time task may be administered during multiple sessions.
Teachers open access to extended-time tasks on a recurring basis for a specific period of time. (e.g. 7:45 a.m. for 60 minutes)
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17. Questions ???
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18. preparing students for success
Teach the K-12 Science Learning standards assessed on the Biology EOC. Reference the WA State 2009 K-12 Science Learning Standards and the Biology Test and Item Specifications
The standards are the target, whereas, a school’s curriculum is the bow and arrow.
Teach the academic and general vocabulary needed for student success.
Provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know and can do. Use several formative assessments to gauge student understanding and/or readiness.
Science learning standards page 64 APPA: content standard
Test and Item Specifications page 25 APPA (1): performance expectation
There is only one target, but there are many different kinds of bows and arrows. Use the curriculum in order to teach to the standards.
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19. preparing students for success: sample items
EOC Items:
COE Tasks:
All of the sample items and questions provide students with numerous opportunities to review content, as well as, get acquainted with the formatting of the questions.
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20. preparing students for success: Writing practice tasks
Do not make revisions to current inclusion bank tasks, and use them for practice. For example: Do not take a current inclusion bank task, change nouns and pronouns, and keep the same scenario.
Using the inclusion bank tasks as a guide:
Create original scenarios.
Use the short-answer item templates to form questions.
Refer to
Practice tasks should make no reference to existing inclusion bank tasks.
Item templates provide the general formatting behind many of the questions.
Research and Explore / Content standard APPB / Performance expectation (2)
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21. preparing students for success: suggested Best practices
Assign biology tasks for your COE students. Making sure those tasks meet the sufficiency rules.
Have all of the tasks start as “on-demand”. The teacher can easily switch them to extended time when the student wants to make revisions and improve their answer.
Teach to the standards in a variety of differing scenarios or contexts. More specifically, teach one “content standard” at a time.
Teach the academic & general vocabulary associated with that standard and tasks.
Use a variety of classroom practices, classroom assessments, guided and independent practice, and other activities to assess, and if need be, reteach the standard.
Third bullet: Go to “Content Standard” matrix
Point out LS1 and LS2 / Items 2 and 3 from several tasks / similar questions
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22. preparing students for success: Best practices, cont.
Have students answer mock tasks or sample items. Students can peer review answers and rank them according to quality of answers.
Help students develop conceptual frameworks. Check for understanding using formative assessments.
Positive feedback from formative assessments indicates students are ready to go to the computer lab.
Through the online system open access to the items that address the content standard that was taught.
Through the online system review student responses.
Student responses inform decision to move onto new content standard, or reteach.
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23. preparing students for success: Appropriate teacher assistance
For all COE tasks, as with the EOC exams, there is no teacher assistance allowed during a testing session.
Teachers may review student responses at the conclusion of a testing session in order to guide the teacher’s instruction.
Teachers may need to differentiate the instruction and form subgroups within the class.
Within a subgroup, teachers may reteach the content standards without making direct reference to the inclusion bank tasks.
Third bullet: Analogy of Cathy’s third grade class:
25 students / 5 different places of reading comprehension / have to be at the same place by the district’s benchmark test.
Your students could be at many different places in their understanding of the content, but they all have to be at the same place by the time your students submit their collections.
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24. preparing students for success: Lessons learned
Some items asking for a description include two bullets in the prompt to encourage students to first identify, and then give reasons or details in support. However, all responses to “describe” items should identify or point out a factor and then provide a detail or reason, even if no bullets are included.
When drawings are submitted as a response or in support of a response, those drawings must be labeled in order to be scored.
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25. preparing students for success: Lessons learned, cont.
Describing the path of a carbon atom during photosynthesis and/or cellular respiration was challenging for many students. LS1A and LS1B
Describing the nitrogen cycle was difficult for many students. Many responses did not provide a complete path of nitrogen from air to plant to animal, or some variation of that sequence. LS2A
The complete lessons learned document:
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26. Questions ???
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27. Columbian White-Tailed Deer
Tasks
Items
Strands
Systems
Inquiry
Application
Cell Processes LS1
Ecosystems LS2
Evolution/
Genetics
LS3
OD:
Banana Slugs 1 3 2 4
Bear Crossing 
Carbon Matters
Columbian White-Tailed Deer
DIY Plant Experiment
Sea Lions
Sufficiency
This collection 6
Scores/Strand
Earned points 5 9
Cross-cut = paired with
The scoring system will take the score that benefits the student the most (horizontally and vertically)
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28. Scoring a collection: Explanation of matrix
Those scores highlighted in yellow are the scores that are counted toward the overall earned points.
Many systems questions are cross-cut with LS2 questions. See scores in bold. The scoring system will take the one score of the two available that benefits the student the most.
Six tasks will meet the sufficiency requirements.
Some strands went well beyond the needed number of items per strand. See LS1.
This student earned 41 points.
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29. Subsequent submissions: standard
Standard Subsequent COE:
If a student’s original COE score is above 50% of the proficient cut-score (21 to 40) the student is limited to a subsequent COE with exactly four new work samples.
It is recommended that at least one of the four new samples be completed as an on-demand task.
Sufficiency requirements for Standard Subsequent COE submission:
Examples of every strand must be represented at least once in the collection.
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30. Subsequent submissions: expanded
Expanded Subsequent COE:
An expanded subsequent COE may be submitted if the student’s full collection has a score that is less than or equal to 50% of the proficient cut-score (20 or lower).
An expanded subsequent collection contains 5 or 6 new work samples with
Two on-demand tasks required.
Sufficiency requirements for Expanded Subsequent COE submission:
Examples of every strand must be represented at least once in the collection.
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31. Visit the Biology COE Moodle http://moodle2. ospi. k12. wa
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32. Future committees Content Review: Pilot Tasks Pilot Rangefinding:
March 9th to 13th
ESD 113 Tumwater
Pilot Tasks
April and May
Need several teachers to pilot new tasks
Pilot Rangefinding:
June 23rd to 27th
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33. Questions ???
PowerPoint will be located on the COE website under the tab “Training”.
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34. Contact information
Amanda Mount, OSPI COE Customer Support Operations COE Specialist Technical Questions Scott Killough, OSPI Science COE Specialist
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