Tools for Teachers Resources
Access the Tools for Teachers website for a collection of instructional and professional learning formative assessment resources aligned to state standards.
View the Understanding the Formative Assessment Process for more information about the formative assessment process.
Common Links
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| Tools for Teachers | Access lessons, activities, and more that incorporate the formative assessment process and accessibility strategies. This website is meant to support teachers daily during their instruction to help educators reflect on their students' knowledge and take action on next steps to meet learning goals. |
Tools for Teachers Training Videos
What is Tools for Teachers? (01:33)
How Tools for Teachers Supports Educators (04:22)
Tools for Teachers: Website Demonstration for California Educators (07:53)
CDE Formative Assessment in Action Video Series
Tools for Teachers Shared Practices Webinars—YouTube Playlist
Using Smarter Balanced Interim Connections Playlists (06:52)
Tools for Teachers Flyers
Additional Resources
Other Online Formative Assessment Tools
| Purpose | Description |
|---|---|
| Smarter Balanced Content Explorer | This website provides a user-friendly interface to explore the range of English language arts/literacy and mathematics knowledge and skills important for college and career readiness on the Smarter Balanced Assessments. The Content Explorer includes information about how the test questions are developed for specific aspects of the content and includes details about the specific aspects of the test questions. View the Smarter Balanced Content Explorer (06:44) video for more information. |
| Smarter Balanced Annotated Response Tool | This website is designed to help educators better understand the rubrics that are used to score students' written responses to Smarter Balanced constructed-response items and performance tasks. Educators can view examples of student writing, scoring annotations, and rubrics to help understand what to look for when reviewing student responses and understand where to provide support to students in a specific writing area. Educators can use this professional learning resource as they work to standardize and calibrate their scoring of student writing samples. View the Smarter Annotated Response Tool Flyer and the Getting Started with SmART (07:26) video for more information. |
| CAST Item Specifications | Item specifications describe how items for the CAST are developed to assess the California Next Generation Science Standards (CA NGSS). Items on the CAST IAs are developed using the same process and guidelines as items on the summative CAST. |
| CAST Constructed Response Annotated Examples | Annotated examples were created for selected constructed response items on the CAST practice tests. The examples provide rubrics and student samples at each score point. These examples and more can be found on the Practice and Training Test Resources web page. |