Introduction

This lesson was designed to provide practice and support following the first two ICN training sessions about the topic of alignment checking. This lesson was intended to reinforce ideas presented in the ICN session and provide practice in applying those ideas to a simulated situation. (A workshop setting was used to help apply these same ideas to a specific local situation.)

While completing this lesson, it will be useful for you to have access to your notes and handouts from the ICN sessions on alignment checking. In addition, it would be helpful to have a copy of the ITAP Alignment Paper, "Checking the Alignment of an Assessment Tool and a Set of Content Standards", which can be downloaded from the ITAP website library.

During the lesson, take notes that might help you and your team later on as you apply the ideas to your district’s alignment checking. If you have some previous experience with alignment checking, make note of differences in the approach you’ve used before and the one being illustrated here. Then you can decide later, with your team members, which aspects of alignment checking you will need to discuss and make decisions about before implementing the checking process with the tools in your district’s assessment system.