1. Wendi Anderson, Senior Advisor for ELA/Literacy, PARCC, Inc.
PARCC’s Speaking and Listening Assessment: Informing Instruction
Wendi Anderson, Senior Advisor for ELA/Literacy, PARCC, Inc.
June 25, 2014
Students' ability to communicate effectively, including through speaking and listening, is critical for their long-term success in college, careers and citizenship. As part of their assessment system, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is building Speaking and Listening Assessments for grades K-12 to help educators assess students' speaking and listening communications skills, which traditionally have been difficult to measure.
During this segment of the session, participants will explore PARCC’s two modes of assessing speaking and listening and the related tools teachers will use to score student performance. Additionally, this segment will focus on proposed speaking and listening assessment accommodations for English language learners and students with disabilities, including students who may be deaf or hard of hearing, and on the use of speaking and listening assessment data to inform instruction.
Governing board discussing whether or not the S&L will be required or optional (this summer).

2. PARCC’s Speaking and Listening Assessment: Overview
Discussion Rubrics
Assess how well students speak and listen during classroom discussions across content
Current development for K, 1, 2, 3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12
Guidelines/video samples
Listening Logs
Assess student active listening skills in response to oral and video presentations
Rubrics to score listening logs
Samples
Performance Tasks
Measure Speaking and Listening Skills
Sample student responses
Scoring guides
The CCSS call for students to develop speaking and listening skills across the grade levels to ensure college and career readiness for oral communication. These skills include both formal and informal discussion skills, as well as active listening skills. The PARCC S & L assessment tools are being designed to help teachers unfamiliar with how to see, understand, and shape student performances in oral communication and listening comprehension to better do so. There are several components being developed to meet these ends. The first two components listed on the slide, discussion rubrics and listening logs will serve as tools for everyday classroom use across contents. These non-summative, formative tools should help frame expectations for speaking and listening in the classroom, provide the language needed to shape student daily performances, and help teachers unpack the speaking and listening standards (in conjunction with the PARCC Model Content Frameworks).
Performance tasks for students in grades 3 through 11 are being designed from the outset with one of two modes of thinking in creation of the task models. For grades K-2, the task models are being designed around critical oral skills for description—connecting clearly to the demands of the grade-level standards.
The Performance tasks will meet similar goals, but are designed to provide more formalized speaking and listening opportunities for students. For each grade level, K-12, there will be a task model developed and shared that designates the critical demands of a PARCC performance task for speaking and listening, as well as three sample tasks that meet the task model. Each year, students in PARCC states can give every student one of the three sample tasks to assess the formal speaking and listening skills needed for students to develop college and career ready oral communications. Teachers should find the task models useful in designing additional curriculum embedded opportunities for formal oral communication skills development and assessment.

3. PARCC’s Speaking and Listening Assessment: Overview
Mode 1
Mode 2
K-2
Real time engagement
Gr. 3, 5, 7, 9, 11
Advanced Preparation
Gr. 4, 6, 8, 10, 12
Describe (gr. K-1)
Tell or Recount (gr. 2)
Focus of the assessment is on the CCSS speaking and listening strands.
To build a foundation for college and career readiness, students must have ample opportunities to take part in a variety of rich, structured conversations—as part of a whole class, in small groups, and with a partner. Being productive members of these conversations requires that students contribute accurate, relevant information; respond to and develop what others have said; make comparisons and contrasts; and analyze and synthesize a multitude of ideas in various domains.
Mode 1: Purpose: ascertain students’ skills and abilities to engage in “real time” speaking and listening activities that students will encounter in careers and postsecondary education through a variety of pre-recordings; focus is on a single media performance in Mode 1 performance tasks.
Mode 2: Purpose: ascertain students’ skills and abilities to conduct research, including gathering relevant information from a range of resources and then integrating that information into a short presentation of their findings
K-2: In kindergarten, students will be asked to describe a familiar person, place, event or thing. In first grade, students will be asked to describe a person, place, event, or thing. In second grade, students will be asked to tell a story or recount an experience that could include information from at least one text they have read or listened to. Examples of students sharing could include “tell what happened on your weekend” or “describe the character in the story you read during reading group time.

4. The Role of the Teacher/Impact on Learning
Provide oral and written feedback
Use tools being developed
Discussion rubrics
Guides
Listening logs
PD videos
Impact on Learning:
Student growth in oral communication skills
Student achievement across contents
Speaking and listening skills are often “shaped at the point of utterance.” Consequently, teacher feedback provided during classroom discussions and through written feedback on listening logs can be essential in helping students grow in oral communication skills. Teacher use of the tools being developed (discussion rubrics, guides, listening logs, PD videos) can impact student achievement across contents.
Use of even one performance task and provision of effective feedback can help students to develop formal speaking and listening skills needed for interviews, webinars, classroom presentations, and other authentic college and career formal communication opportunities throughout a student’s lifetime.

5. Accessibility, Accountability, and Fairness
Universal Design
Equity
Experts
PARCC assessments and instructional supports are designed from the outset to be accessible and applicable across student populations. PARCC begins by working with all design teams to use Universal Design for Learning for all assessments and tools.
Experts in the research, theory, and application of supports for students who are deaf and hard of hearing are involved in all aspects of the design and development of the PARCC Speaking and Listening assessment tools and instructional supports. The goal is full participation, with embedded supports and accommodation policies and procedures being developed along with each tool and instructional support.
Ed Bosso (Gallaudet); Gary Cook (WIDA)

6. Mode 1: video or audio sources Mode 2: gathering information
Use of Technology
Assessments and materials integrated into the Partnership Resource Center (PRC)
Mode 1: video or audio sources
Mode 2: gathering information
PARCC’s design and development process includes preparing low tech (capturing student responses and most of the administration) and higher tech options for use of the assessments and tools being developed to accommodate the range of technologies available in classrooms across PARCC states.
As with all PARCC work, the assessments and materials will be integrated into the Partnership Resource Center (PRC) and PARCC technology platforms.
The technology needed to administer the PARCC PBA will be limited in scope and will not exceed the demands of that requisite for the PARCC Summative assessment. (Mode 2—gathering information; Mode 1—video or audio sources)

7. Learn More About PARCC
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers On #askPARCC & #PARCC