Teachers use formal and informal Formative Assessments to check for student understanding and mastery of content objectives regularly throughout the lesson.  This creates a culture of continuous improvement and assists teachers as they meet the needs of all learners. 

Summative Assessments are devised to be rigorous evidence of learning and include authentic products or tasks as well as traditional standardized-style assessments.  Authentic Assessments allow students to demonstrate their learning of content and skills with real world and relevant tasks or research and may include opportunities for students to demonstrate their personal learning style and multiple intelligence.  More traditional assessments, similar to standardized assessments, are also administered and consist of items that assess for depth of knowledge and application of both content knowledge and critical thinking skills in Social Studies.  Detailed data analysis is conducted to determine if reteach or intervention is needed.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) administers two assessments in Social Studies:  Grade 8 SS STAAR and the High School US History EOC, which is taken by our 11th Grade US History Since 1877 students.  The TEA provides a blueprint for each assessment that organizes the Readiness and Supporting Standards that will be assessed by Reporting Categories, this informs teachers of  the composition of the assessment.

The McAllen ISD SS Department administers 2 District Benchmarks per school year for 8th grade SS AND for 11th Grade US History EOC preparation.  These assessments replicate the types of assessment items students will face when they take the STAAR/EOC.  The data from these assessments is used to guide teachers in their instruction and intervention practices.

Social Studies Department

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