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.

Suggestions for Future SBAC Blogposts???

You can view the results in a spreadsheet at this link.

Desmos Circle Challenges and Explorations

Hover over the Thinglink image below to view the Desmos explorations and challenges for equations of circles.  Click on the Thinglink circle icons to view a description/link.




Should there be more challenges/explorations?  If so, what might they look like?  Or do they already exist? (If so, please share!)

Credit to Michael Fenton for challenge ideas from his Match My Line lesson.

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 Math Rubrics for Scoring

All SBAC problems are worth 1, 2, 3 or 4 points.  For performance tasks, the problem may be broken into parts, with each being worth 1-4 points.  Below is a generic 4-point rubric provided by Smarter Balanced.  You can view the generic rubrics for 3, 2, and 1 point problems here.

Many of the released items from Smarter Balanced include a rubric, modeled after the generic rubric, which provides additional details about how the problem will be scored.  Below is Sample Item 43028, called "ebooks", from this website.  The rubric for "ebooks" is below the problem.

Rubric for "ebooks".

The performance task problems are longer, and so the scoring is broken down into different parts for the problem.  Below is the introduction to the performance task called "Thermometer Crickets".  In this task, students are asked to find a line of best fit for a set of data, and compare this model to a classic model for chirps-per-minute to temperature called Dolbear's Law.  The rubric for "Thermometer Crickets" is posted below the problem.

The rubrics for the SBAC Practice Test can be found here.

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.