Understanding Proficiency is a project of WestEd, developed in partnership with the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE). On this website you will find student work samples — scored and annotated by teachers — on performance tasks in Mathematics and ELA/Literacy for all tested grades (grades 3–8 and high school), case studies that analyze individual students’ responses across all of the questions in a performance task, and teacher reflections on patterns that emerged in scoring student work. In addition, the site provides professional development tools with suggested activities for using Understanding Proficiency resources to support educator learning, including videos of educators scoring and discussing student work.
Why Smarter Balanced performance tasks and what you can learn from this resource
Smarter Balanced performance tasks are aligned to the Common Core State Standards. They are designed with open-ended prompts that require students to interpret multiple sources of information and then produce written work to express their understanding and analysis of the information. By analyzing student samples from the Smarter Balanced Practice Test performance tasks, educators can not only better understand how the Smarter Balanced assessment system evaluates college and career readiness, but improve their own capacity to interpret, learn from, and respond to student work.
Process for developing Understanding Proficiency Resources
This resource was created by practicing educators in states that use the Smarter Balanced assessment system. These educators, all of whom are experienced with Smarter Balanced performance tasks and scoring tools, implemented the performance tasks in their own and colleagues’ classrooms and then came together in grade-level teams to collaboratively analyze and score the student work. Their assignment was to identify student work samples that illustrate the range of score levels possible for their grade-level task, and reach agreement on the scores for each of these samples. The educators’ scores were confirmed by WestEd and SCALE content specialists. These scores, which represent the consensus of multiple educators and content specialists, are not official Smarter Balanced scores. The annotations, case studies, and teacher reflections represent the educator teams’ deep thinking about their scoring decisions, the range of responses in their class sets, and the instructional implications of the task and student work.
How can these resources support professional learning?
The Understanding Proficiency resources are intended to support educators in:
- Collaborating with colleagues to learn from student work
- Understanding the design and purpose of the Smarter Balanced performance tasks, as well as the scoring tools and processes used to analyze student responses
- Seeing what student work looks like at different score levels
- Identifying common challenges students have when engaging in more complex assessment items
- Recognizing strengths students can exhibit when given more open-ended opportunities to demonstrate learning
- Examining the ways in which English learners (ELs) can demonstrate proficiency on performance tasks, and identifying strategies to support them
Look at the Professional Development Tools section of this website for suggested activities to leverage these resources to support professional learning!
EL Case Studies
Understanding Proficiency offers at least one case study of an English learner (EL) for each grade band (3–5; 6–8; high school). These case studies provide an analysis of each student’s performance across all the questions in a performance task as well as a discussion of suggested next steps for instruction. The professional development tool Exploring Proficiency for English learners provides suggested activities for supporting educators to examine these EL case studies. Visit the English learner page to find these resources.
Teacher Teams
Understanding Proficiency is the culmination of the hard work and thoughtful reflection of a team of talented educators. Many thanks to the following educators for producing content for this website:
Rachel Allen (ELA Team)
Ma Bernadette Andres-Salgarino (Math Team)
Mathematics Coordinator, Santa Clara County Office of Education, San Jose, CADeborah Atwell (Math Team)
Teacher / Professional Development Provider, Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles, CAKristyn Bennett (ELA Team)
K-5 Common Core Coordinator, Santa Paula Unified School District, Santa Paula, CAJoan Commons (Math Team)
Justin Conn (ELA Team)
Assistant Principal, La Costa Canyon High School, Carlsbad, CAKathleen Cotton (ELA Team)
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Coach, Rochester School District, Rochester, NHVirginia Day (ELA Team)
Reading Specialist, Amherst Middle School, Amherst, NHTheresa Hilkey (Math Team)
Shawne Hillard (Math Team)
Principal, Center Woods Upper Elementary School, Weare, NHJennifer Ianiero (ELA Team)
English Teacher and Professional Development Leader, Centennial High School, Kern High School District, Bakersfield, CADonna Lione (Math Team)
Assistant Principal, Temecula Valley High School, Temecula, CAMary Lord (ELA Team)
ELA Coordinator, Shasta County Office of Education, Shasta, CAAndrea Marks (ELA Team)
4th Grade Teacher, Nevada City School District, Nevada City, CANadirah Nayo (Math Team)
Professional Development and Math Specialist, Pasadena Unified School District, Pasadena, CACheryl M. Pinette (ELA Team)
Reading/Writing Specialist, Hillside Elementary, SAU #3, Berlin, NHKathleen Pon, Ed. D. (Math Team)
Deputy Superintendent, Instructional Services, Rocklin Unified School District, Rocklin, CADaniel Pooler (Math Team)
Hudson Memorial School Mathematics Department Chair and K-8 STEM Coordinator, Hudson School District, Hudson, NHLeanne Raddatz (ELA Team)
English Teacher and Professional Development Leader, Centennial High School, Kern High School District, Bakersfield, CAJessica Simpson (Math Team)
Assistant Principal, Desert Sands Unified School District, La Quinta, CAMichael T. Smith (ELA Team)
English Teacher, West Ranch High School, William S. Hart Union High School District, Santa Clarita, CAKeila Snider (Math Team)
Jill Summerlin (Math Team)
Math Consultant, Tillamook School District, Tillamook, ORRachel Weber (ELA Team)
8th Grade Language Arts Teacher and Site Literacy Coach, Alta Loma Middle School, South San Francisco Unified School District, South San Francisco, CAJulie Webb (ELA Team)
Education Consultant, J. Webb ConsultingMarilyn Williams (ELA Team)
Assistant Principal, Springfield High School, Springfield, ORRebecca Pacheco Williams (Math Team)
Math Specialist and National Board Certified Teacher, Temecula Valley Unified School District, Temecula, CANancy Veatch (ELA Team)
5th and 6th Grade Teacher, Evergreen Union School District; Adjunct Faculty, California State University, Chico; part-time Teaching Ambassador Fellow, US Department of EducationDiana Zaragoza (Math Team)
Professor of Early Childhood Education, Sacramento City College, Sacramento, CA
Associate Director, California Math Project at UC Davis, Davis, CAKey Zublin (Math Team)
Principal, Kalapuya High School, Bethel School District, Eugene, OR
About WestEd
WestEd is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research, development, and service agency that partners with education and other communities throughout the United States and abroad to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults. WestEd has more than a dozen offices nationwide, from Massachusetts, Vermont and Georgia, to Illinois, Arizona and California, with headquarters in San Francisco.
About SCALE
SCALE’s mission is to improve instruction and learning through the design and development of innovative, educative, state-of-the-art performance assessments and by building the capacity of schools to use these assessments in thoughtful ways, to promote student, teacher, and organizational learning.
About the Helmsley Charitable Trust
Understanding Proficiency was developed with generous support from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.
Smarter Balanced Materials
This site contains materials that are copyrighted by the Regents of the University of California. Do not reproduce for commercial purposes without permission.