Abstract
Schools must teach disciplinary knowledge in ways that also help students learn how to learn, so that they can use their knowledge in new situations and manage the demands of changing information, technologies, jobs, and social conditions. In addition to the new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and mathematics, a consortium of states in the USA has developed a set of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that also aim for more intellectually ambitious learning and teaching. Researchers argue that by tapping into students' advanced thinking skills and abilities to explain their reasoning, performance assessments yield a more complete picture of students' strengths and weaknesses. The Partnership for Assessing Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) assessments, to be launched in 2014–2015, will increase the use of constructed response items and performance tasks.