Discipline Specific Learning Outcomes
The arts contain anchor standards as well as discipline specific learning outcomes which serve as assessment.
There are “I can” statements for each arts discipline, allowing the standards to be phrased into student-friendly language and helping to provide students better understanding on how they will be assessed and evaluated.
Model Cornerstone Assessments
In addition to discipline specific learning outcomes, model cornerstone assessments are an optional, non-mandated, assessment tool that can be used for yearly common assessments. Model cornerstone assessments are intended to engage students in applying knowledge and skills in authentic and relevant contexts. They call for higher-order thinking and habits of mind in order to achieve successful results.
The term cornerstone is meant to suggest that just as a cornerstone anchors a building, these assessments should anchor the curriculum through the assessment of important performance tasks demonstrating acquired content knowledge and skills. Their authenticity and complexity are what distinguishes them from the selected-response items found on many tests.
Cornerstone Tasks
Cornerstone tasks serve as more than just a means of gathering assessment evidence. These tasks are, by design, “worth teaching to” because they embody valuable learning goals and worthy accomplishments. The illustrative cornerstone assessments included in the standards reflect genuine and recurring performance tasks that become increasingly sophisticated across the grades.
The standards are built with the expectation that schools or districts will value the understanding and transfer of knowledge and skills that will come with a standards-based curriculum in the arts and therefore, acknowledge that they are important curricular goals.
(Adapted from the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards’ “Need to Know Now”, Volume I-2019: Issue 7 Model Cornerstone Assessments)
