Design Accessible Formative Assessment

BCPS's Story

Baltimore County Public Schools serves approximately 115,000 students in Baltimore, Maryland. BCPS began the shift to a 1:1 technology implementation model six years ago to achieve its vision for student learning—that learning should be driven by accessible instruction for all students. BCPS uses its learning management system and a variety of digital assessment tools to support data collection to personalize instruction. The district uses these assessments to provide teachers, administrators, and district leaders with real-time feedback on student performance toward learning goals. To ensure that all students can demonstrate what they know and understand, BCPS brings the UDL (Universal Design for Learning) approach to teaching and learning to the design of assessments, offering students multiple means to demonstrate proficiency and built-in accessibility features such as text to speech and options for recording audio responses. Leaders shared that they spend time working across teams to strategize for students who “live outside the access points” and explore how to engage and “pull in” students through adapted assessments and learning experiences to ensure that the depth of knowledge for all students in the district is accurately measured. 

In shifting to these tools, BCPS devoted significant professional learning time to build teacher capacity in use of the available assessment tools and daily formative feedback to inform instructional design and practice. The Office of Digital Safety, Educational Technology & Library Media created a variety of professional learning options, including self-paced modules, large-group instruction, synchronous and asynchronous opportunities, and classroom-embedded coaching, to ensure that teachers have the skills to effectively evaluate student learning and provide constructive, timely, and relevant feedback. The district leaders shared that the Learning Management System (LMS) enabled them to see how students navigate through the curriculum in real time. The LMS has been a critical support for teachers in harnessing data to inform their instruction, including how to look at the whole data story—beginning, middle, and late-year—to help them better understand student learning needs and provide actionable feedback to learners. Interviewees underscored the criticality of immediate access to data: “It doesn’t help for teachers to get the data six months later; they need real-time/just-in-time access” to student data. 

Read more about BCPS’s journey to an inclusive technology ecosystem, visit their case story in the Assessment Overview.