I am pleased to announce that North Smithfield Schools has received a competitive grant titled "The Mathematics Assessment Project."

This Mathematics Assessment Project will utilize grant funds to convene a group of K-12 teacher leaders to study assessment best practices, research on-line resources and develop a bank of assessment mathematics problems aligned to the common core standards in order to develop unit assessments. The assessments will be formatted to align with newly developed curriculum based on the PARCC model Content Frameworks and Common Core Standards as well as the development of rubrics to assess mathematical practices.

The North Smithfield School Department is committed to improving student achievement in the area of Mathematics. The North Smithfield School Community created a District Plan Strategic Plan outlining the district’s educational philosophy, aspirations for student achievement and fiscal-decision making. Strategic Plan Goal #2 was created based on data and guided by the RI BEP.

Goal # 2: By the 2016-17 school year, increase Math and Science proficiency to 85%.

•    Infrastructure: Create a system to identify and support students in need of    Math intervention.
•    Leadership: Develop and implement a plan for integrating Math and Science.
•    Content: Develop and Align K-12 curriculum to the Common Core State     Standards
•    Support: Develop and implement formative and summative assessments     aligned to Common Core State 
 Standards.

In order to achieve the identified goals and in alignment to our RTTT scope of work, North Smithfield Schools embarked on an intensive study of the K-12 Mathematics Common Core State Standards developing curriculum guides, curriculum maps, and units of study based on the PARCC Model Content Frameworks. Developing unit assessments aligned to the developed curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC content frameworks is the next critical piece. The unit assessments will help clarify the level of rigor expected from the standards and allow for measuring student proficiency of those target skills as the year of instruction progresses.

The focus of this Mathematics Assessment Project will be to develop unit assessments, each assessment will have a variety of DOK questions in a multiple choice, short answer and constructed response format. Teachers will utilize resources available (Illustrative Mathematics Project funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IMS system, RIDE test construction tool, Khan Academy etc..) and compile assessment questions/problems by grade level and Common Core Standard. This work will be done during school hours as well as after school hours. The first step will be to create an assessment/instruction bank identified by grade and standard. Once this is completed, unit assessments will be formatted drawing from the bank of questions/problems that were created. The end products will be fully aligned unit assessments with a corresponding scoring guide. The soring guide will include rubrics and sources.

Equally important to the Content Standards, North Smithfield teachers will develop assessments for the Standards for Mathematical Practice. The standards for Mathematical Practice will be integrated into instruction: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them, Reason abstractly and quantitatively, Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others, Model with mathematics, Use appropriate tools strategically, Attend to precision, Look for and make use of structure, and Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. North Smithfield Schools has recently developed a partnership with Bryant University. Last summer Bryant University professors worked alongside our Middle School and High School Math teachers to explore, discuss and develop actionable steps to implement Mathematical Practices identified in the CCSS. Teachers will create rubrics to assess mathematical practices.