As a result of new, more rigorous college and career standards, many school leaders and educators are asking, “What does a college- and career-ready assignment look like?” Ed Trust answers that question in a new report and interactive assignment tool.
“Checking In Update: More Assignments From Real Classrooms” is the second report in Ed Trust’s Equity in Motion series. After the release of the first “Checking In” report, school leaders and teachers specifically asked for more sample assignments. The second report analyzes real assignments from middle school teachers in English language arts, science, and social studies/history classrooms across the country. In both a report and interactive tool, Ed Trust examines the rigor of each assignment, highlights key components, and poses questions for educators to consider.
Perhaps the most compelling part of the report is a unique interactive assignment tool. As part of this web resource, each assignment is presented without comment to allow users to take it in as if they are a student seeing it for the first time. Once users review the assignment, they can use the interactive icon menu to turn on the annotated comments. Each assignment page also includes information about the assignment based on the four domains of Ed Trust’s Literacy Assignment Analysis Framework.
The assignments represent a range of middle school grades and subjects and were collected from schools with different student demographics. They fall within the low, mid and high range on the Literacy Assignments Analysis Framework. Assignments that fall within the high range are worthy of careful consideration as they – and assignments like them – hold much promise for middle school students. For each assignment, Ed Trust first notes how it scores on the framework and then lists the details that support the scoring. In the second half of the annotation, they highlight particular key areas of the assignment that stood out and pose questions for readers to consider.
For the Interactive K-12 Assignments Analysis Tool, see https://edtrust.org/resource/interactive-k-12-assignments-analysis-tool/
For the full report, see https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CheckingInUpdate_AssignmentsFromRealClassrooms_EdTrust_April2016.pdf
For the Literary Assignment Analysis Framework, see https://edtrust.org/literacy-assignment-analysis-framework/
