SBAC Practice Activities: The Basement

This activity is modified from SBAC released performance task called "Home Office", and includes portions of parts A, B, and C.  The flooring options were also changed to allow students to complete the task in a 50 minute class period.

As with other practice performance tasks, students will show work on a Google Doc.  The top of the page includes links to the various pieces of information and tools that the students will need to solve the problem.

In terms of showing work, it has been helpful to remind students to think about each problem as being worth 3 points (1 point for showing work, 1 point for explaining thinking, 1 point for answer with units).  We don't know ahead of time what rubric will be used, so giving students explicit directions on what to show on their Google Doc is helpful.

Once students navigate to the "Introduction and Specifications for Work" page, they will see the diagram below.  The first task is to determine how to split the basement into a home office and workshop.  The budget for this part of the project is $30,000 and the contractor charges $50 per square foot to finish the home office.  The workshop will be unfinished. 

 The first task asks students to finish the maximum area, and to draw a vertical line to separate the home office from the workshop.  The interactive diagram (image below) allows students to use the segment tool to add in the vertical line.

You can also show students how to use the text tool to add labels to the diagram.  When introducing the activity it will be helpful to let students know that the black points are 2 units apart.  

Students struggling to find the various dimensions of the workshop can turn on the grid (see image below), which is set up to scale by 2 units as well.

Students should add a screenshot of their image into the appropriate place on the Google worksheet.  

The second task asks students to pick a flooring for the home office from the table below.  The budget is $1500 for flooring, which is in addition to the $30,000 for the contractor.  Task 2 gives students an opportunity to justify their reasoning.  There are many flooring options to pick from that come in under budget.  Students receive full credit for choosing an option and providing an explanation for how they know that they are staying within the budget.

Task 3 asks students to find the dimensions of a bathroom that takes up 10% of the home office and is 3 feet longer than it is wide.  They are asked to do this by writing and solving a polynomial equation.  I included a link to Desmos so students can use it to solve the polynomial equation (quadratic), which is not factorable.  If this activity is given during a 50 minute class, students will most likely not get to task 3, or it can be completed by our early finishers that need the extra challenge.

The rubric and correct answers for this task are here.  The Google Doc for this assignment is here.

SBAC Equation Editor and Some Notes on Formulas

Below are a few screenshots from the SBAC Equation Editor tutorial.  After the SBAC Interim tests, students may or may not need additional practice inputting answers that include formulas/variables. If practice is needed, please direct students to the tutorial, where they can get immediate feedback on whether or not they are entering answers correctly.

Students can pick from any of the tutorials below.  For these screenshots I am using the Exponents tutorial.

This tutorial walks me through directions on how to enter three different expressions.  The first set of directions are below.

This particular tutorial walked me through how to enter the following three expressions.

When finished, press the button at the bottom left to see how you did.

Score results are below. (I changed expression 3 from what you see in the image above so that we could see what feedback is given for incorrect answers.)

I also learned that standard shortcuts like "^" for raising to a power and "sqrt" for square root still work.

A couple of additional observations:  

• I haven't seen the use of subscripts yet in any of the released problems.  It appears that for sequences students will write f(n)=3n+2 or s(n)=4x-7 (etc.).  Also for recursive rules we will write f(1)=10, f(n)=f(n-1)+3 for n>1 for the sequence with first term of 10 that increases by 3 for each term.
• I have not seen any formulas given for volume.  I have also not seen problems where students are asked to find the volume of cones or pyramids. So far I have only seen rectangular prisms, cylinders, and spheres.

Anything other observations we can note here?  Please email Shelley or add to the comments.

Where's the Geometry: SBAC and claims 2-3

As mentioned the other day, there are very few Geometry problems that are included in the Claim 1 section of the SBAC blueprint.  In fact, there will only be 2 Geometry problems tested at the Claim 1 (concepts and procedures) level of the test.  They will both be from Target O, which is "Define trigonometric ratios and solve problems involving right triangles.  SBAC has provided us with many sample problems from this target.  You can see two of the Claim 1 problems involving trig ratios and right triangles below.

Note:  I didn't see a calculator involving inverse trig functions, nor a table of trig values, so I'm not sure how they want students to solve this.

You might be asking yourself, "what about the other Geometry concepts?"  It turns out that most of the Geometry standards/targets are tested at the Claim 2, 3 or 4 level.  The rest of today's blogpost will be about those Geometry problems tested at the Claim 2 or 3 level.

Remember, Claim 2 is about problem solving, and Claim 3 is about Communicating Reasoning.

Other problems from trig/right triangles are also included in Claims 2 and 3.

The question above asks students to solve for h in terms of b.

What about the other Geometry standards? How do they appear on this test?  The answer is that they appear as Claim 2, 3, or 4 questions.  Students will be expected to display problem solving skills and communicate reasoning as they pertain the Geometry.  They also will be expected to apply knowledge of Geometry to modeling problems (Claim 4), which we will look at in a few weeks.  Below are some additional sample problems from Geometry.

 Parallel Lines:

Transformations:

Congruent Triangles:

Circles:

Area:

Volume

There will be additional problems on the Performance Tasks, which count as Claim 4.  Most of the Geometry I have seen so far on the performance tasks includes trig/right triangles as well as area and volume.  More to come on this in a few weeks.  Click here for a link to a word document that contains all the problems from this post.

SBAC: The 4 Claims and how they are tested

Today's post will elaborate on the SBAC Blueprint that was sent out yesterday.

Details about Claim 1:

There is only one target for Geometry and one for Statistics/Probability under Claim 1.  From the chart yesterday we learned that we will see two problems from each of these strands.  The other strands include Numbers, Algebra, and Functions, and together will include 18 problems.  Remember, Claim 1 problems will appear on part I of the SBAC test.  Part II of the SBAC test is the performance task.  More information about the Geometry and Statistic/Probability strands can be seen below.

A few weeks back I sent out this document, which includes all of the released questions that I could find related to Statistics and Probability.  For Geometry I have seen some released problems about equations of circles as well as the triangle congruence theorems.  I am still learning how that fits into the blueprint.  The answer to this question, plus more on the Claims to come later this week.

This information was taken from this link.

SBAC Blueprint: How many problems and what type

Below are two diagrams that show the types of questions and main content standards that will be covered on the SBAC.

Diagram 1:  CAT stands for computer adaptive testing, and includes the problems that can be scored by the computer.  PT stands for performance task, and is generally an extended problem that students will need to explain their thinking for.  I am still learning about the details, but it looks like we can expect 33 shorter problems and 6 longer problems.  The break the test into two parts.  The first part is most of the shorter problems.  The second part is called the performance task and is an extended, multi-part question that students will answer in one sitting.

Diagram 2:  In the table below you can see the breakdown of content that we can expect to see on the test.  The majority of problems will be taken from the priority clusters, though problems from the supporting clusters will be included.  The third diagram is a continuation of diagram 2 (forgot to include this when post first published).

This information is from the SBAC Blueprint.  More on this in the next few days.  Please let Shelley know if there are specific questions to answer or suggestions for what to cover over the next few weeks.

SBAC Calculators

Basic Calculator
This is the calculator that is embedded into the practice problems released by SBAC.  Students can work through the tutorial to learn how to enter fractions, exponents, etc.

Graphing and Regression Calculator
Here you will find the calculator that is embedded more so into the performance tasks.

There will be opportunities to learn more about these calculators soon, as well as class activities.

SBAC Test Resources 2015

Updated links.  Also available on the mvla website under the common core tab, as well as on our common core resources page from 2013-2014.

Smarter Balanced Question Types

Smarter Balanced Practice and Training Tests

Smarter Balanced Practice Test Scoring Guides

SBAC Grade 11 Released Items

SBAC Grade 8 Released Items

Clovis Unified School District SBAC Page.  Organized by claim for easy navigation.

SBAC Calculator