EdSteps is an online resource that allows teachers, students, and parents to submit and compare student work samples across a continuum of achievement levels. It provides assessments in areas that are difficult to measure, such as writing, problem solving, and global competence. Users can view submitted work aligned to standards and see what steps students can take to improve. The website aims to launch in 2010 with initial submissions in writing and global competence. It seeks to build a library of work samples to help students and teachers gauge performance and progress.

1. Building EdSteps
A resource for teaching and assessment
Writing • Global Competence • Creativity
Problem Solving • Analyzing Information

2. EdSteps is …
 A Web-based resource that teachers,
students, and parents can use to compare
one student’s work to the work of many
others.
 An illustrated answer to the question: Where
is my student now — and what should he or
she do to improve?

3. EdSteps is …
Groundbreaking
An online resource for teaching and assessment
in areas that are typically difficult and costly to
assess:
 Writing
 Global Competence
 Creativity
 Problem Solving
 Analyzing Information

4. EdSteps is …
Grassroots
Teachers, students, and parents submit work
samples. Work samples are welcome from:
 Kindergarten through high school students
 College and graduate students
 Individuals in the workplace
 Any state, any country

5. EdSteps is …
Guidance
Student work is ranked on a continuum of
progress — from emerging to accomplished
work — so that it is clear what a student should
do to improve.

6. Creating a continuum of student work
 Paired comparisons: Reviewers look at two
pieces of student work and decide which is
more effective.
 Ranking: Thousands of such comparisons will
be used to rank work samples and create a
continuum — a gradual progression — from
emerging to accomplished work.
 More than a score: The continuum provides a
clear picture — through work samples — of
how a student can do better.

7. Creating a continuum of student work
 Select 1,000 representative samples from a
collection of 5,000 samples.
 1,000 samples of student work will generate
125,000 pairs of work.
 Each pair will be judged by at least 100
reviewers.
 The work is then ranked on a numerical scale
from emerging work to accomplished work.

8. More than a score
EdSteps offers:
 Context for each work sample. Visitors will
see detail about each student work
sample, including the grade level of the
student who created the work. (Work samples
will not include the author’s name or school.)
 Reflections on the work by educators and
visitors.
 Options for searching.

9. Global Competence

10. Global Competence
 Global Competence is the knowledge, skills,
and dispositions to understand and act
creatively and innovatively on issues of global
significance.

11. Global Competence Matrix
Investigate Recognize Communicate Take
the World Perspectives Ideas Action
Students Students Students Students
investigate the recognize their communicate translate their
world beyond own and others’ their ideas ideas and
their immediate perspectives. effectively with findings into
environment. diverse appropriate
audiences. actions to
improve
conditions.

12. Global Competence Matrix
Investigate Recognize Communicate Take
the World Perspectives Ideas Action
Students investigate the world beyond their immediate environment.
Students:
 Identify an issue, generate a question, and explain the significance
of locally, regionally, or globally focused researchable questions.
 Use a variety of languages and domestic and international sources
and media to identify and weigh relevant evidence to address a
globally significant researchable question.
 Analyze, integrate, and synthesize evidence collected to construct
coherent responses to globally significant researchable questions.
 Develop an argument based on compelling evidence that considers
multiple perspectives and draws defensible conclusions.

13. Global Competence Matrix
Investigate Recognize Communicate Take
the World Perspectives Ideas Action
Students recognize their own and others’ perspectives.
Students:
 Recognize and express their own perspective on
situations, events, issues, or phenomena and identify the influences
on that perspective.
 Examine perspectives of other people, groups, or schools of thought
and identify the influences on those perspectives.
 Explain how cultural interactions influence
situations, events, issues, or phenomena, including the development
of knowledge.
 Articulate how differential access to knowledge, technology, and
resources affects quality of life and perspectives.

14. Global Competence Matrix
Investigate Recognize Communicate Take
the World Perspectives Ideas Action
Students communicate their ideas effectively with diverse audiences.
Students:
 Recognize and express how diverse audiences may perceive different
meanings from the same information and how that impacts
communication.
 Listen to and communicate effectively with diverse people, using
appropriate verbal and non-verbal behavior, languages, and
strategies.
 Select and use appropriate technology and media to communicate
with diverse audiences.
 Reflect on how effective Communication impacts understanding and
collaboration in an interdependent world.

15. Global Competence Matrix
Investigate Recognize Communicate Take
the World Perspectives Ideas Action
Students translate their ideas and findings into appropriate actions to
improve conditions.
Students:
Identify and create opportunities for personal or collaborative action
to address situations, events, issues, or phenomena in ways that
improve conditions.
Assess options and plan actions based on evidence and the potential
for impact, taking into account previous approaches, varied
perspectives, and potential consequences.
Act, personally or collaboratively, in creative and ethical ways to
contribute to improvement locally, regionally, or globally and assess
the impact of the actions taken.
Reflect on their capacity to advocate for and contribute to
improvement locally, regionally, or globally.

16. Building EdSteps: Submit student work
 EdSteps invites submission of work in two areas in
spring 2010:
 Writing
 Global Competence
 This is not a contest for the “best” work.
Submissions are needed that illustrate work at all
levels of achievement and from all grade levels.
 Teachers, parents, and students can submit work
samples online.
 Submission of work in the other areas will follow.

17. Join us in building EdSteps
 Council of Chief State School Officers
 The New York Times Knowledge Network and
Epsilen
 School districts and state departments of
education
 Nonprofit organizations
 Businesses
 Supported with funding from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation

18. www.edsteps.org