Assessment

The Partnership for the Assessment of College and Career Readiness (PARCC) is a consortium of 24 states that received a Race to the Top Assessment Grant from the U.S. Department of Education in the fall of 2010 to build a next-generation student assessment system. The assessments will be based on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics and target students in grades 3–11.

Work is progressing to develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). With private funding from the Carnegie Corporation and support from National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Research Council (NRC) and Achieve, Inc., have embarked on a two-step cooperative process to develop the NGSS. The first step was to develop a conceptual framework that is grounded in current research on science and science learning and identifies the science all K–12 students should know.

The session brings together seven DR K–12 projects focused on game-based STEM learning and assessments of science content and inquiry. The panel provides an overview of what they know about how learning takes place in games and how each of these projects is crafting assessments in virtual and game-based environments. They focus on strategies for leveraging popular game mechanics with research from the learning sciences, psychology, science education, and computer science to support and assess players as they develop robust understandings of core scientific concepts and practices.