Tides: Report On Technical Quality Of 7th Grade Student Assessment

Introduction

This report describes activities undertaken to create, pilot, and analyze technical quality of student assessments in seventh grade for the Transforming Instruction by Design in Earth Science (TIDES) project. For the project, middle school teachers are randomly assigned to one of four conditions to test the efficacy of an Understanding by Design approach to improving teacher quality. The first condition, Investigating Earth Systems (IES), will provide assigned teachers with training in the use of a 9-week curriculum unit designed by Earth science experts. The second condition, Earth Science by Design (ESBD), will provide assigned teachers with professional development aimed at helping them design their own standards-aligned 9-week curriculum units. The third, Hybrid condition will provide assigned teachers with professional development designed to help them adapt IES curriculum materials using principles from the ESBD program. For the fourth control condition, assigned teachers will be free to participate in whatever professional development they might have otherwise taken part in for the duration of the study.