Friday, June 11, 2010

ATI and the Common Core Standards

With the June 2, 2010 release of the Common Core Standards by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, a new set of opportunities has been presented to educators to establish more rigorous and beneficial academic expectations for students and schools.

The development of these standards has already influenced the standards revision process in many states. Those states currently in the process of revising and updating their local standards will now have an opportunity to consider how the Common Core Standards will inform their new educational objectives, whether through direct adoption or mapping of common goals, as part of a collective effort to raise student achievement across the nation.

Assessment Technology, Inc. is eagerly anticipating the opportunity to assist districts using Galileo K-12 Online in the transition to new state standards and in aligning their standards with the Core Curriculum Standards. ATI’s existing process of specification to develop precise assessment and instructional content is the key factor in the process to manage this transition.

As we develop materials and questions to instruct and measure student success on the state standards we write specifications that not only accurately and effectively measure the standard, but further refine the process by defining the particular skills or knowledge inherent in components of that standard. This fundamental, systemic approach places the full content of the Galileo K-12 Online banks in a format that allows for detailed and precise mapping, or in this case remapping, of assessment items and instructional materials to particular characteristics of state standards.

The diversity of our 74,000+ item bank and 1,500+ Instructional Dialogs draws on our experience writing to measure the standards present in each state and then finding the exact mapping appropriate to those items in other states where that same skill or knowledge is demanded. Rather than applying generic items at the most broad levels, we have defined the specifications to allow lessons, activities, and items to be used exactly where they are needed. This expertise will be a tremendous asset as ATI works with our partner-districts in the transition from the generation of standards we have all been using over the last five to eight years, to the new state or Common Core Standards as they are adopted by the states.

2 comments:

S. Jasmer said...

We are implementing common core for grade K-1 for the 11-12 school year. Will ATI have aligned assessments and dialogs available?

Scott Cunningham said...

ATI will offer assessments for K-2 using the Common Core State Standards as well as for other grades as Districts choose to make the transition. Districts looking to implement Common Core in 2011-2012 are encouraged to contact their Field Service Coordinator to begin the process of using the Common Core.

Instructional Dialogs will be realigned to the Common Core State Standards and the development of Instructional Dialogs for K-2 using Common Core will proceed. Dialogs for K-2 are a newer development, so many of those Dialogs will be created expressly for the new Common Core expectations.