Governing states have approved the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Formative Master Work Plan, which details the approach to developing formative Common Core State Standards assessment practices and professional development materials for educators.

Formative, interim and summative assessments comprise the three central components of the SBAC vision for a balanced assessment system that contributes to improved teaching and learning. While the summative component will be used as the accountability instrument, and the interim component can provide information across the school year on student progress using a comprehensive set of released items and tasks, the formative component is designed to provide resources and tools to teachers to improve their thoughtful use of assessment activities to enhance day-to-day classroom instruction.  

The assessment practices and strategies that will result from the Formative MWP will help teachers address learning challenges and differentiate instruction. The Formative MWP outlines key projects that will help SBAC achieve this vision.

Key projects include a digital library, national advisory panel, professional learning materials, exemplar instructional models, engaging member states and educators, criteria to evaluate publisher materials and a professional learning social network.

The digital library is at the center of the Formative MWP and will house resources created by SBAC and those submitted by states and educators. The digital library will allow teachers to rate and comment on materials so that knowledge from the classroom can be shared across the consortium.

To develop criteria for the resources to be included in the digital library, SBAC will convene a national advisory panel of experts on formative assessment practices and quality instruction of the CCSS.

SBAC will develop online professional learning materials and supplemental assessment resources, including trainings on the components of the assessment system, the CCSS learning progressions, and using reporting data to inform instruction.

Additional trainings will also be developed to help educators access and interpret SBAC interim and summative score reports as well as to search the web-based resources, use collaboration tools and comment on resources in the digital library.

For more information, visit www.smarterbalanced.org.