As all K-12 teachers work diligently to prepare students for success as measured by our state’s expectations, the Texas Education Agency periodically releases information pertaining to the new State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR. Parents and teachers alike need to stay informed of these releases as they are often times posted only for a brief time and then shortly removed. The following is a direct excerpt from one of these releases:
“As part of the effort to provide a clearly articulated assessment program that focuses on fewer skills and addresses those skills in a deeper manner, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) is changing the way process skills are assessed on all social studies tests, all science tests, and grades 3-8 mathematics tests. For the STAAR program, process skills in social studies, science, and mathematics will be assessed in context, not in isolation, which will allow for a more integrated and authentic assessment of these content areas. process skills will be incorporated into test questions and reported along with content skills under the content reporting categories. Process skills will not be listed under a separate reporting category as was done previously with the TAKS program. TEA will report both content and process student expectations for test questions that address a content skill and incorporate a process skill. Tests will have a minimum percent of questions that include both content and process skills.
RELEASED GRADE 3 SAMPLE QUESTION:
Melissa had some money in her purse when she went to the mall with her mother. She spent $5 on a book. Then her mother gave her $10. After Melissa spent $2 on a snack, she had $23 in her purse. How much money did Melissa have in her purse when she first went to the mall? Mark your answer.
A $26 B $17 C $20 D $6
This test question addresses:
CONTENT: TEK 3.3B Select addition or subtraction and use the operation to solve problems involving whole numbers through 999
PROCESS: TEK 3.14C Select or develop an appropriate problem-solving plan or strategy, including drawing a picture, looking for a pattern, systematic guessing and checking, acting it out, making a table, working a simpler problem, or working backwards to solve a problem.
RELEASED GRADE 5 SAMPLE QUESTION:
There are 319 students who volunteered to work at a craft fair. An equal number of volunteers came from each of 4 grade levels. About how many volunteers came from each grade level?
A 100 B 80 C 325 D 40
This test question addresses:
CONTENT: 5.4A Use strategies, including rounding and compatible numbers to estimate solutions to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems
PROCESS: 5.1B Solve problems that incorporate understanding the problem, making a plan, carrying out the plan, and evaluating the solution for reasonableness”
(*No Grade 4 examples had been released at this time.)
As additional sample questions are released and information is provided to Texas schools, we will make every attempt to Keep Our Parents Informed of the direction that all Texas students must take to meet the TEKS and state expectations. We hope that this will give you a small idea of what your teachers and children must accomplish and why some of the work and methodologies should look different this year.