Credit: screenshot of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Digital Library

The domicile page of the Digital Library features filters for finding content and popular resources, similar a lesson in didactics critical reading and a guide to formative assessments.

Midway through the school year, about half the state'southward teachers have admission to a new "Digital Library" the state purchased to help them teach the Common Core Country Standards, but it's unclear how many teachers are actually using it and how useful information technology is.

The Digital Library is a new product of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, an organization of 21 states, including California, that the federal government funded to develop Common Core tests in math and English language arts. The California Department of Education is paying Smarter Counterbalanced, which is at present operating on annual fees from member states, $six.2 meg this year for the content of the tests, which millions of California students will take this spring.

California is one of 15 states that as well are buying a supplemental service from Smarter Balanced that includes the Digital Library and "interim assessments" that districts may requite in advance of the jump tests to decide how students are progressing.

The Digital Library is intended to be a cardinal support for didactics Mutual Core. It's a bank of resources for teaching the new standards and for changing strategies when teachers decide students aren't understanding what they're existence taught. They include formative assessments – tasks such equally pop quizzes, illustrations and small group discussions that can provide teachers with immediate feedback and evidence of learning. California paid $three.35 million for the supplemental bundle for 2014-15.

One hundred California teachers were selected for a network of educators charged with producing and screening submissions to the Digital Library. They were trained during four days last summer and are paid if they submit a contracted number of items or reviews.

The Digital Library currently has more than 2,500 resources for K-12 teachers covering the various clusters of Common Core standards, content areas and grades. They include items contributed by teachers in the consortium states and instructional videos and tutorials commissioned by Smarter Balanced and produced past Amplify, a subsidiary of the News Corp., and other sources.

In November, the state Section of Education reported that log-ins had been created for 107,000 of the state's approximately 300,000 teachers. In an agenda item for the Jan. fourteen board meeting, the department has updated the enrollment effigy to 155,000 teachers.California Department of Didactics officials don't know the number of actual users in California.

At its last coming together, in November, several members of the State Board of Education, which approved the contract with Smarter Balanced that includes the Digital Library, expressed dismay that more than schoolhouse districts hadn't promoted the resource.

"If we are paying for this to be available to teachers and it is not, then in that location is a problem," said lath member Sue Burr. "I don't know what districts are doing, but it strikes me as very foreign."

The California Department of Instruction says that 400 of the state's nearly 1,000 districts have not provided the Smarter Balanced consortium with information that would automatically generate log-ins and an email telling teachers nearly the Digital Library. It has asked the Educational Testing Service, which administers tests for the state, to contact them to notice out why. The department would not place the districts.

Opinions differ on its value

Los Angeles Unified, the state'southward largest district, reports that all of its teachers should have received log-in information by mid-December. Merely some districts aren't providing log-ins for all teachers considering they've examined the materials and ended the library doesn't mesh with their training approaches.

"At this bespeak in fourth dimension we are but uploading teacher names by request. We accept done minimal advertising of the availability of the Digital Library," said John Shush, supervisor of the Assessments and Achievement Segmentation at the San Francisco Unified School Commune. "We looked at it, merely nothing in particular stood out. That's too bad, because nosotros idea it would exist great."

San Jose Unified also isn't promoting the site but has provided all teachers with access to information technology. "We haven't yet found a resource (in the library) that meets the (district'southward) level of rigor," Jason Willis, banana superintendent of San Jose Unified, wrote in an electronic mail.

"If we are paying for this to exist available to teachers and it is not, then at that place is a problem. I don't know what districts are doing, but information technology strikes me as very strange," said State Board of Educational activity fellow member Sue Burr.

Long Embankment Unified, the state's 3rd-largest district, is more than supportive. Pamela Seki, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and professional person development, said that all teachers, administrators and staff received videos from Smarter Counterbalanced and slides introducing the library. The resources are too on the district'south website.

Anne Oberjuerge, Long Beach'due south 1000-v math curriculum leader, said that she has not heard back from teachers. Just she said that's not surprising, since they're "overwhelmed with the transition to Mutual Core, with so much coming at them at one time."

She said she discovered an first-class resources in the Digital Library on agreement fractions with videos and formative assessments, in English and Castilian, that she emailed to quaternary-grade teachers. She may include a tour of the library in the district's next math training in February, she said.

Filters permit teachers to search the library by grade, subject, standards and other criteria.

Filters permit teachers to search the library by grade, bailiwick, standards and other criteria.

Having the resources vetted by teachers and in 1 location, with an effective search office, could prove valuable to California teachers. Even critics of what'due south in information technology now acknowledge the Digital Library's potential.

"The Digital Library is definitely a piece of work in progress,"said Adam Ebrahim, a 9th-grade human geography instructor at Fresno High School and vice president of the Fresno Teachers Association. "I sympathise that what'due south in information technology has been subject field to high levels of scrutiny, which has necessarily slowed the library's growth." Ebrahim said that a place to "find resources, training and clarity, whether what I am doing in the classroom is aligned with the Smarter Balanced assessments" is "essential if we are to avoid misguided systemic panic and narrowed instruction in response to test scores."

Jason Roche, a coordinator and teacher at Fresno Unified's Cooper University, agreed with Ebrahim about the importance of "assessment literacy," simply added in an email, "I am not sure what this site offers that isn't offered by whatsoever number of other sites. The sample lessons or strategies submitted past classroom teachers are well-crafted, but they are standard fare. This site would serve solely as a identify where I might detect a good idea if I'm stuck."

Samples of resources

Leanne Raddatz is one of 100 California teachers who submit and review teacher resources in the Digital Library. Five of her own submissions are in the library.

Leanne Raddatz is one of 100 California teachers who submit and review instructor resources in the Digital Library. Five of her own submissions are in the library.

Leanne Raddatz, one of the California teachers in the network of reviewers for Smarter Balanced, disagrees, proverb she "admittedly recommends that teachers employ" the Digital Library. A 9th-grade English teacher and honors plan coordinator at Centennial High in the Kern High Schoolhouse District, Raddatz said, "I have used several things this yr and been pleased with what I have found."

Raddatz submitted 5 items and all were accepted and posted. One focuses on Shakespeare's use of allusion in Romeo and Juliet – references to Greek mythology, the Bible and historical events – to reveal the significant of complex texts. Some other is an all-encompassing strategy for educational activity high school students how to write complex and compound sentences that incorporate varieties of dependent, noun, adverbial and relative clauses. She does this by creating exercises for small groups and pairs of students using a device called a Frayer Model, a chart with 4 sections that helps students understand key words and concepts.

Raddatz said she likes how the library is evolving into a resource "based on the commonage wisdom of teachers" in which teachers tin can comment on and critique submitted resources and create forums to discuss them. But she also acknowledged that at her schoolhouse, very few teachers accept signed into the Digital Library, despite her encouragement. It's a claiming for teachers to detect time to explore information technology, she said.

Shush, of San Francisco Unified, and Roche and Ebrahim, the two Fresno Unified teachers, said that Smarter Balanced should turn the Digital Library into an open-source resource, in which all teachers can submit content, which other teachers would and so rate and discuss.

"I would beloved to come across crowd-sourcing with moderation to let users determine," Ebrahim said. "I would open it up to teacher-generated assessments that could be implemented in the classroom." **

Debate over public access

Under the terms of the contract, the Digital Library is available exclusively to teachers in the consortium states that buy the service. State board members likewise said they favored opening up the library to parents and the public.

Given what he described every bit "the conspiratorial nature of some of the opposition to Common Cadre," Land Lath of Education member Carl Cohn said it would be a good thought to provide parents and the public access to the library.

But Joe Willhoft, executive director of the Smarter Balanced consortium, said that the consortium is relying on the income from a paid service for teachers. Opening it to the public would run a risk making it available to non-paying states, he said.

Bill Lucia, CEO of the advancement organization EdVoice, said that the Digital Library'due south resources should be publicly available since Smarter Balanced was funded with taxation dollars. Simply Willhoft said federal funding did not pay for some of the content, and Smarter Counterbalanced can accuse for admission to a website it creates.

Stating there is "real marvel" about the library, state board member Patricia Rucker encouraged Smarter Balanced to at to the lowest degree provide the public with sample videos, worksheets and items.

Diane Hernandez, director of the state Department of Pedagogy's Assessment Development and Administration Division and California'due south K-12 liaison with Smarter Balanced, said final month she has raised this possibility with the consortium and will update the board on the progress at next week's coming together.

** Note: Ebrahim and Roche have created a series of planners that teachers could use in  creating  lesson plans to teach the Common Core. They say the planners as well could be used to post formative assessments for the Digital Library. Here is a link to a sample.

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