CA HSS Framework Implementation: Scopes/Sequences, Assessment, Unit Development, Formative Assessment, and Literacy...

I just finished developing a full set (12) of benchmark performance-based assessments for grades 9-12 that are aligned to the HSS content standards and written to SBAC specifications. We (district, site, HSS department) decided collaboratively that we would ditch the Illuminate CST style junk--we're still using Illuminate as the platform for delivery-- in favor of selecting a set of targets to hold constant while slowly increasing the text complexity and length over the 9-12 spectrum. We also wanted something that would serve as a cross-curricular point of reference with ELA. 

The HSS department has also been hard at work developing summative tasks and projects that measure a full scope of content and CCSS standards, including the SL and W standards not assessed by SBAC. The summative assessments were much more engaging than my benchmarks. They attended to a broader scope of literacy practices and historical think skills. We also implemented processes for student evidence tagging and scoring for the more traditional tasks with written products scored in conference with students. The result is a nicely integrated/cohesive/comprehensive system of interim assessments comprised of benchmarks and classroom-embedded summative assessments.

We also created a benchmark review protocol for students based on the ELA/ELD Collaborative, Interpretive, and Productive standards to try and build a formative aspect into what would otherwise be a summative exercise in frustration. It was also an opportunity for us to use the system of assessments as goals and backward map instructional approaches. We did similar work with their summative tasks, developing processes for teaching academic vocabulary, doing close reading and analysis, engaging in structured academic conversations, and supporting students throughout the writing process. These processes necessarily affected the shape and content of day-to-day instruction.

We started early. The district director of C&I and the principal of the school approached me to help build a scope of work for their HSS team in the Winter of 2015. We decided to implement the then draft HSS framework. I developed a sequence of training that led the teachers in understanding the framework and the implications for standards blending, scope and sequence development, assessment development, unit design, formative assessment practice, ELA/ELD, and UDL. We embedded Google Apps training throughout by just making it the way we worked together. We developed new scopes and sequences, new tasks, new IDM units, and built formative assessment plans. We dwelled on literacy practices. We also had great conversations around how to integrate available resources, current affairs, and historical skills throughout. Tyson brought doughnuts.

We're not all the way there, but we are in a position where we can start refining our curricula and instructional approaches. I really wish I wasn't losing one of the teachers to retirement. I think we've found a great equilibrium between content and skills.

Key takeaways:

1. Literacy is a shared lift and the History-Social Sciences are uniquely suited to doing deep analytical work with complex non-fiction. If you aren't investing in your HSS department and leaning on ELA, you're trying to bench press 300lbs with one arm.
2. Interim spaces need to be cleared of NCLB debris. Lean and integrated systems that connected to classroom-embedded assessment are far more valuable.
3. Authentic interim assessment needs to be methodically stitched to instructional practices by making anything and everything formative where possible. Let SBAC be summative, everything else is open for continuous improvement and students need support in that cycle.
4. Instructional plans should give way to formative assessment cycle planning and real-time assessment of student progress should dictate speed, not a pacing chart.
5. Invest in the capacity of classroom teachers by tapping their creativity and creating greater opportunities to exercise individual, collective, and decisional capital.
6. (Pet Cause) Human Geography should be mandatory for every ninth grader in California! The content is a superb landscape for young people to practice critical thought and inquiry while making sense of an insane globalized world. So far I have helped implement Human Geography for all 9th graders for two schools and would happily spend the rest of my career only doing that. And building IB programs, I love that too.