Study Guide

Overview and Test Objectives
Field 121–124: Upper Elementary (3–6) Education¹
Subtests 1–4

Test Overview

Table outlining the test format, number of questions, time, and passing score.

Format	Computer-based test (CBT)
Number of Questions	Subtest 1: Professional Knowledge and Skills: 50 multiple-choice questions Subtest 2: Literacy: 50 multiple-choice questions Subtest 3: Mathematics: 50 multiple-choice questions Subtest 4: Science and Social Studies: 60 multiple-choice questions
Time	Subtest 1: Professional Knowledge and Skills: 1 hour 15 minutes* Subtest 2: Literacy: 1 hour 15 minutes* Subtest 3: Mathematics: 1 hour 30 minutes* Subtest 4: Science and Social Studies: 1 hour 30 minutes*

*Does not include 15-minute CBT tutorial

Test Objectives

Subtest 1: Professional Knowledge and Skills

Subarea		Range of Objectives	Approximate Test Weighting
I1	Learner-Centered Supports	001–003	60%
II2	Professional Knowledge and Strategic Partnerships	004–005	40%

Hover over each subarea for details of subtest content or see table above.

Sub area 1 60%, and Sub area 2 40%.

Subtest 2: Literacy

Subarea		Range of Objectives	Approximate Test Weighting
I1	Literacy in Context	001–004	30%
II2	Literacy Skills–Instruction and Practices	005–008	30%
III3	Literacy Processes–Instruction and Practices	009–012	40%

Hover over each subarea for details of subtest content or see table above.

Sub area 1 30%, Sub area 2 30%, and Sub area 3 40%.

Subtest 3: Mathematics

Subarea		Range of Objectives	Approximate Test Weighting
I1	Mathematics-Specific Teaching Practices	001–004	20%
II2	Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Grades 3–6: Whole Numbers and Operations	005–008	40%
III3	Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching Grades 3–6: Fractions, Decimals, and Operations	009–012	40%

Hover over each subarea for details of subtest content or see table above.

Sub area 1 20%, Sub area 2 40%, and Sub area 3 40%.

Subtest 4: Science and Social Studies

Subarea		Range of Objectives	Approximate Test Weighting
I1	Science–Engaging Learners in 3-Dimensional Science Learning as Identified in the National Research Council's A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas	001–004	25%
II2	Science–Learners' Sense-making and Science Teaching Pedagogy	005–008	25%
III3	Social Studies–Instruction and Practices	009–013	50%

Hover over each subarea for details of subtest content or see table above.

Sub area 1 25%, Sub area 2 25%, and Sub area 3 50%.

Subtest 1: Professional Knowledge and Skills

 

Subarea I1—LEARNER-CENTERED SUPPORTS

Objective 001—The Whole Child

Includes:

• Demonstrate how to support the whole child through identification, knowledge, and understanding of young children's characteristics and needs, including multiple interrelated areas of child development and learning, learning processes, and motivation to learn.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the multiple influences on the development and learning of the whole child, including but not limited to: cultural and linguistic context, economic conditions of families, social emotional needs, trauma, health status and disabilities, peer and adult relationships, children's individual and developmental variations, opportunities to play and learn, family and community characteristics, and the influence and impact of technology and the media.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods for supporting children by using practices that engage and empower all learners, including awareness of current public policy issues and processes and the impact on the education of all children.
• Demonstrate understanding of common disabilities in children, including etiology, characteristics, and classification, and their implications for learning development.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify signs of emotional distress, toxic stress, child abuse, and/or neglect in children; follow appropriate procedures for mandated reporting; and utilize skills and strategies for clarifying and communicating sensitive issues with appropriate parties (including but not limited to child abuse, neglect, hygiene, and nutrition) to promote children's physical and psychological health, safety, and sense of security.

Objective 002—The Learning Environment

Includes:

• Demonstrate the ability to build meaningful learning environments and curricula by focusing on children's characteristics, needs, and interests; linking children's language, culture, and community to learning; using social interactions during routines and play-based experiences; incorporating technology and integrative approaches to content knowledge; and utilizing incidental teaching opportunities and informal experiences to build children's development in all areas.
• Demonstrate the ability to implement norms and routines and use classroom management strategies that support individual and group motivation and behavior among learners to generate active engagement in play and learning, self-motivation, and positive social interaction and to create supportive and dynamic (flexible) indoor and outdoor learning environments.
• Demonstrate the ability to guide individuals and groups in problem-solving techniques to develop positive and supportive relationships with children; encourage and teach positive social skills and interaction among children; promote positive strategies of conflict resolution; and develop personal self-regulation, motivation, and esteem.
• Demonstrate knowledge and use of a variety of strategies, instructional accommodations, and adaptations of the learning environment, including accommodation of instructional and assessment materials as appropriate to meet children's abilities or disabilities, home language, and culture, to promote the full participation of all children, including those with special needs, in general education classrooms.
• Demonstrate understanding of the teacher's role as a participant in the development, enactment, and assessment of an Individualized Education Program (IEPI E P) and 5045 oh 4 plan, including the identification and evaluation process.
• Demonstrate knowledge and use of a variety of strategies to promote full participation of English learners in classrooms (including literacy strategies).

Objective 003—Instructional Practice

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of and the ability to use ongoing systematic observation, documentation, and screening tools; other appropriate forms of formative and summative assessment tools; and approaches embedded in assessment-related activities in curriculum and daily routines.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to manage and implement standards-based content instruction to support English learners in accessing the core curriculum as they learn language and academic content.
• Demonstrate knowledge and application of research-based instructional strategies to support the whole child's learning and development through the visual and performing arts.
• Demonstrate knowledge and application of research-based instructional strategies to support the whole child's development through movement and physical activity.
• Demonstrate knowledge and application of research-based instructional strategies to create opportunities to develop critical knowledge, skills, and behaviors that contribute to lifelong health.

 

Subarea II2—PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

Objective 004—Ethics and Professional Growth

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of and the ability to critically analyze the ethical/professional codes of conduct in education, including the Michigan Code of Educational Ethics.²
• Demonstrate the ability to apply knowledge of legal and ethical guidelines and professional standards related to children and families.
• Demonstrate understanding of the effects of teachers' professional and personal decisions and actions on learners, caregivers, and other professionals in the learning community.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify, analyze, and engage in ongoing professional learning opportunities that strengthen instructional practice and use reflective practices to design, monitor, and adapt instruction as a means for gauging professional growth.

Objective 005—Strategic Partnerships

Includes:

• Demonstrate the ability to promote and provide opportunities to engage caregivers, families, and communities.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify appropriate agencies and other resources in the larger community to support learning and well-being.
• Demonstrate the ability to use a variety of appropriate communication strategies that support and empower families and communities through respectful, reciprocal relationships.
• Demonstrate the ability to engage in positive partnerships with families and other professionals and articulate the value and appropriate use (and potential misuse) of assessment, including screening and referral practices.
• Demonstrate understanding and awareness of the roles and responsibilities of other building and district professionals in the PK–12 school system, including, but not limited to: early childhood specialists, school psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, physical therapists, school counselors, reading specialists, and bilingual or English as a second language educators.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify specialized personnel in the PK–12 school system and collaborate with them in a system of supports to advance children's learning.

Subtest 2: Literacy

 

Subarea I1—LITERACY IN CONTEXT

Objective 001—Literacy Learning Environments

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to facilitate learners' access to a range of age-appropriate contemporary and classical digital and print materials of a variety of genres (e.g., informative/explanatory texts, narrative texts, signage including environmental print, poetry) and media (e.g., books, magazines, digital texts, audio text, speech-to-text technologies) for both in-school and out-of-school literacy.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to create a variety of organized, safe, and respectful learning spaces and opportunities for learning that foster collaborative and meaningful literacy experiences (e.g., class meeting space, small-group area, furniture arrangement, writing center, reading areas, safe/appropriate use of digital technologies).
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to make accessible and actively use word-learning artifacts (e.g., interactive word walls across disciplines, themes, general academic and discipline-specific vocabulary; online dictionaries and thesauruses).
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to use materials and space to foster literacy and disciplinary inquiry (e.g., class question wall, classroom library, flexible seating, mapping graphic representations against explanations in text, inquiry notebooks, online resources).
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to support and guide integration of digital technologies to aid learners' literacy and learning across disciplines (e.g., opportunities to create digital artifacts of learning, interactive simulations, digital narrative and informational texts, digital presentations).
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to identify and use a variety of flexible grouping strategies based on the literacy task and learners' specific literacy strengths, needs, prior knowledge, interests, and other factors.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to teach, model, facilitate, and provide independent practice with opportunities to use literacy for positive social interactions (e.g., solving conflicts, negotiating in collaborative projects).
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to identify and use a range of digital and non-digital tools to support socialization, oral language, writing development, word study, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Objective 002—Culturally Responsive Practices in Literacy

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of the importance of learners' use of their first or home language(s) and dialect(s) and development of additional languages and literacies, and design instruction that builds on learners' use of their first or home language(s).
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to select instructional materials and resources, including print and digital texts, that value and reflect the multidimensionality of diversity represented in society and learners.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to support learners' interactions with and provide access to high-interest, self-selected reading and writing materials with a range of text complexity across socially, culturally, and linguistically diverse texts.
• Demonstrate knowledge of culturally responsive methods to engage learners in the creation and use of visual representations of thinking and learning (e.g., anchor charts; graphic organizers; personal artifacts, such as learning/response journals; visible thinking routines).

Objective 003—Overall Literacy and Curriculum Design and Assessment

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of inherent connections of literacy processes—reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visually representing—and that the literacy processes are related in complex ways; are integrated in the service of meaningful communication (e.g., to entertain, to persuade, to inform/explain, to argue); and should be addressed by building on their reciprocity.
• Demonstrate understanding that assessment of individual components of literacy is valuable, and demonstrate the ability to administer and interpret the results of multiple formative and summative assessments that examine the literacy processes.
• Demonstrate understanding that a learner's assessed literacy proficiency depends on a number of factors (e.g., background knowledge related to a text's topic, motivation and engagement, features of the literacy task) and that this information will be used to help inform instructional decision-making through the selection and use of research-supported instructional techniques that focus on multiple literacy processes simultaneously.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to design or adapt and implement literacy curricula that support literacy learning for whole class, small groups, and individual learners in all literacy processes.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the impact of language on learners' social and academic development and their developing identities as readers and writers, and plan and implement instruction accordingly.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and value learners' multiple ways of communicating, in- and out-of-school discourses, and variations in language expression, and leverage these to provide appropriate literacy instructional practices and social development of individual learners.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of state standards and competencies applicable to literacy learning as detailed for grades 3–6 in the Michigan K–12 Standards for English Language Arts³.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to provide specific, constructive feedback that targets learners' most critical needs during the literacy processes.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify reasonable goals and expectations for learners that align with their literacy and academic development.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to select texts of varying complexity that align with instructional purposes (e.g., independent practice, study of author's craft and structure, integration of knowledge and ideas).

Objective 004—Motivation and Engagement

Includes:

• Demonstrate an understanding that literacy motivation and engagement develop through meaningful interactions with individuals and information, combined with experiences, including various inquiry activities in which the learner asks and seeks answers to their own and academic questions across disciplines.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to assess literacy motivation and engagement through interviews or questionnaires with the learner, which may be supplemented by teacher observation of learner affect and actions, writing, logs, or academic work.
• Demonstrate the ability to select and use research-supported instructional practices to foster intrinsic literacy motivation, including setting expectations for classroom participation; assuring opportunities for developing self-efficacy through scaffolding, text, and task selection, differentiation, goal-setting, and self-monitoring; offering learners substantive options, choices, and input into learning activities; and arranging collaborative activities that foster literacy learning through social interactions.
• Apply knowledge of methods to provide a variety of meaningful purposes for curricular units and tasks; provide continual encouragement for academic and personal attainment and interests; emphasize the utility, value, and enjoyment of literacy and literacy tasks (e.g., word inquiry, reading of high-interest texts, critical inquiry); and build interpersonal relationships with learners that encourage mutual trust and commitment.

 

Subarea II2—LITERACY SKILLS–INSTRUCTION AND PRACTICES

Objective 005—Print Concepts and Decoding: Phonological Awareness, Phonics

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that print concepts are foundational knowledge about how print, in general, and books in particular, "work," including, but not limited to, knowledge of parts of texts; that phonological awareness is a set of foundational oral language skills that involves conscious awareness of sounds within the speech stream and the segmentation and blending of sounds and has reciprocal relationships with word reading, spelling, and vocabulary; and that phonics is a connection between individual and groups of graphemes (letter symbols) and phonemes (letter sounds) that, among other things, allows readers to translate written symbols into meaningful words (decoding).
• Demonstrate understanding that some print-concept, phonological awareness, and decoding skills are language-specific, not universal (e.g., English and Arabic have different directionality); understanding of the common and fluid developmental progression of phonological awareness skills, including multiple levels of sounds within words, expectations by grade level, and the differences among various phonological manipulations; and understanding that phonics relies in part on a base of phonological awareness skills and developing reciprocally with those skills.
• Demonstrate knowledge of strategies and methods for measuring print-concept, phonological awareness, and decoding skills using observation and assessment tools that engage learners in demonstrating these skills in acts of reading and writing, being cognizant of the language(s) and dialect(s) spoken; and demonstrate knowledge of how to decide whether to seek appropriate intervention resources and instructional support from an appropriate specialist.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use research-supported instructional techniques and targeted interventions to develop print-concept, phonological awareness, and decoding skills.

Objective 006—Spelling

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that spelling is a connection between individual and groups of phonemes (letter sounds) and graphemes (letter symbols) and morphemes (meaning units) that, among other things, allows readers to translate thoughts into written words (encoding); that spelling instruction enables writing and also improves the specific reading skills of decoding and word reading and whose influences include phonological, orthographic, and morphological knowledge.
• Demonstrate understanding that spelling develops through a series of common and fluid stages, with phases within each stage, and through explicit instruction in reading and writing across disciplines and that spelling development relies particularly on developing phonological, advanced phonics, morphological, orthographic, and vocabulary knowledge.
• Demonstrate the ability to use diagnostic and formative assessments to inform instruction, being cognizant of the language(s) and dialect(s) spoken by the learner, including assessments of knowledge of more complex sound-letter relationships; stage of spelling development; and spelling performance within meaningful writing, recognizing that spelling performance may reveal information about learners' phonemic, phonics, morphological, orthographic, and vocabulary knowledge, and demonstrate knowledge of how to decide whether to seek appropriate intervention resources and instructional support from an appropriate specialist.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use engaging and multimodal, research-supported instructional techniques, including practices that simultaneously address morphology and spelling, to explicitly teach, model, provide guided and independent practice with, and provide feedback regarding spelling strategies (e.g., mental graphemic representations, word ladders, word maps, word sorting); involving learners in synthesis, analysis, and manipulations of graphemes, morphemes, and syntax within and across words; and providing multiple and varied opportunities for fluent application in meaningful reading and writing across disciplines.

Objective 007—Syntax

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that syntax is an oral and written language concept comprising a set of principles that govern phrase and sentence structure, which varies across languages and dialects; that in formal English syntax, these principles specify the relation of word order and meaning; and that the grammar of the language indicates how words are combined to convey meanings.
• Demonstrate understanding that syntax involves knowledge of parts of speech (e.g., verb, noun, adverb) and word order (which may vary from learners' home languages); that phrases and sentences vary in complexity (simple, compound, complex, compound/complex); and that analysis of syntax helps to link structure and meaning.
• Demonstrate understanding that syntactic knowledge develops through social interactions in home languages and dialects that may or may not parallel formal English syntax, and thus may develop differently in a school setting when formal academic language expectations are different from home and community languages; that in oral and written academic language, learners' attention is directed to the relation of word order and sentence structure and meaning; and that learners acquire facility in manipulating words, phrases, and clauses within sentences to place emphasis on particular words and ideas and to communicate increasingly complex ideas across disciplines.
• Demonstrate knowledge of assessment tools and methods, such as checklists and rubrics for written language samples, as well as listening for difficulties in oral language samples, and demonstrate knowledge of how to decide whether to seek appropriate intervention resources and instructional support from an appropriate specialist.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use research-supported instructional techniques (e.g., modeling, sentence framing, sentence expanding, sentence combining) to provide authentic opportunities during reading and writing to examine how specific syntactic constructions function in texts and learners' writing across disciplines.

Objective 008—Vocabulary

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that vocabulary is an oral and written language construct that is central to everyday and academic language, which includes general and discipline-specific vocabulary and involves knowledge of word meanings and the conceptual knowledge across disciplines that underlies them; that it includes understanding multiple meanings across contexts, figurative language, and morphological structure of words; and that it is central to oral language, academic language, reading comprehension, and written composition.
• Demonstrate understanding that vocabulary develops through oral language, wide reading, inquiry, experiences, explicit and implicit instruction (including explicit instruction in word meanings, vocabulary strategies [e.g., looking for a possible synonym in the sentence], and deliberate analysis of the morphemic composition of words). Demonstrate understanding that vocabulary also develops through deliberate analysis of the morphemic composition of words with particular complexity for learners whose home language is not the language of instruction.
• Demonstrate the ability to examine learners' breadth and depth of academic language, including how morphology relates to academic vocabulary knowledge, recognizing that learners may have knowledge of vocabulary not in the language of instruction; assess vocabulary through engagement in purposeful reading, writing, and oral language tasks; and demonstrate knowledge of how to decide whether to seek appropriate intervention resources and instructional support from an appropriate specialist.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use multimodal, research-supported instructional techniques to develop vocabulary, including for learners whose home language is not the language of instruction, through a large volume of oral and written language exposure (e.g., through conversation, read-aloud, audio books, silent reading, wide reading, and inquiry); selecting appropriate words for instruction; providing accessible, explicit explanation of the meaning of words; providing multiple exposures to new words through text and oral language; explicitly teaching morphology (e.g., root words, prefixes, affixes, inflections) and etymology (i.e., word origins); and other techniques.

 

Subarea III3—LITERACY PROCESSES–INSTRUCTION AND PRACTICES

Objective 009—Reading Fluency

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that fluency entails accuracy, automaticity, and prosody; its role in reading development; and reciprocal relationships with background knowledge, motivation, orthographic knowledge, morphological awareness, word recognition, syntax, and reading comprehension (although strong fluency does not guarantee reading comprehension).
• Demonstrate understanding that fluency development entails progression in phonological and orthographic awareness; rapid processing; and aspects of expression, including volume, phrasing, smoothness, and appropriate pace (which may vary based on what is being read, the purpose for reading, and other factors) within and across texts.
• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to assess each dimension of reading fluency (accuracy, automaticity, and prosody), orally and silently (for automaticity); this can best be accomplished by using tasks that also incorporate an evaluation of reading comprehension (e.g., through comprehension questions and dialogic conversations about the reading).
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use multimodal, research-supported instructional techniques to build reading fluency (e.g., repeated reading, partner reading, listening to models of fluent reading, reading texts of increasing difficulty, reading while listening to recorded books) and encourage an increase in time spent reading (oral and silent), in coordination with techniques that build word knowledge and skills from foundational to fluency.

Objective 010—Comprehension

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that comprehension is the ultimate purpose of reading instruction and involves the ability to extract and construct meaning through interaction and involvement with oral, written, and visual language separately or in combination with one another.
• Demonstrate understanding that comprehension of oral, print, visual, and digital texts develops through the integration of many areas, including language development (e.g., morphological knowledge and awareness, vocabulary depth and breadth), word knowledge development, and, in the case of written language, development in fluency, written textual knowledge, comprehension strategies, metacognition, and attitudes specific to written and visual language (e.g., a disposition to read actively to construct meaning through interaction with text), and working memory and executive functioning skills, such as attention and processing speed.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods to assess learners' reading comprehension through tasks including questioning, retelling, dialogic conversations, summarizing, and application tasks (e.g., following a procedure while reading a procedural text), decide whether to seek appropriate intervention resources and instructional support from an appropriate specialist, and recognize that not all comprehension difficulties have the same cause nor do they require the same instructional responses.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use research-supported instructional techniques to develop comprehension, including instruction in all literacy standards (e.g., vocabulary, fluency) and daily time for learners to read in motivating and engaging contexts for the purposes of building disciplinary knowledge and/or advancing personal interests; comprehension strategy instruction; modeling and guiding learners to be metacognitive while reading; instruction in text search, navigation, and evaluation; focused, high-quality discussion of the meanings of text; text structure and feature instruction; and application tasks (e.g., building an argument from textual evidence).
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for assessing and instructing the three categories of comprehension in the National Assessment of Educational Progress: locate and recall, integrate and interpret, and critique and evaluate to select and analyze texts for their affordances and challenges, including for specific disciplinary contexts.

Objective 011—Composition

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that composition is the process of conveying meaning and communicating information across disciplines and for discipline-specific purposes (e.g., opinion, informative/explanatory, narrative, argument) through oral, written (print or digital), and/or visual language, separately or in combination, and that it is important to active citizenship, many professions, and daily life.
• Demonstrate understanding that written composition develops in a manner that varies across disciplines, genres, and modes of communication; may be influenced by a learner's home language(s) or dialect(s); and integrates many areas of language (e.g., morphological, vocabulary, and syntax knowledge), word knowledge, textual knowledge, and knowledge of composition strategies; and that it requires applications of writing conventions to construct clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate for specific tasks, purposes, and audiences across disciplines.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods to assess the overall quality of a learner's composition (the effectiveness of a specific piece of writing for a specific purpose and audience), print or digital, through observation, checklists, rubrics, and other tools and, if warranted by oral and/or written language difficulties, decide whether to seek appropriate intervention resources and instructional support from an appropriate specialist; and recognize that not all composition difficulties have the same cause nor do they require the same instructional responses.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use research-supported instructional techniques—being cognizant of each child's experiences, strengths, needs, and interests—to develop learners' written composition, including daily time to write across disciplines in motivating and engaging contexts with multiple and varied opportunities to set writing goals and increase stamina; and provide opportunities to offer, receive, and incorporate feedback from multiple sources, including adults and peers.
• Demonstrate knowledge of instruction in writing processes and strategies—being cognizant of each child's experiences, strengths, needs, and interests—particularly those involving researching, planning, drafting, revising, and editing writing in print and digital contexts; opportunities to study text models and non-models and to write a variety of texts for a variety of purposes (e.g., opinion, informative/explanatory, narrative, argumentative) and audiences, including for building knowledge and engaging in disciplinary practices (e.g., scientific explanations, historical arguments), with scaffolding and with attention to disciplinary context; and explicit instruction in writing conventions, handwriting, keyboarding, word processing, and additional relevant areas within the composition standard.

Objective 012—Speaking and Listening

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding that speaking and listening involve receptive and expressive communication skills, including, and not limited to, engaging in high-quality discussions of topics and the meaning and critical analysis of texts across disciplines to support and extend comprehension of multiple and multimodal texts; reporting on a topic; adapting speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, using formal language when appropriate to task and situation; and interpreting multiple perspectives and information presented in diverse media and formats.
• Demonstrate understanding that speaking and listening develop through integrated and reciprocal relationships with reading, viewing, composing, and representing information in diverse media and formats across disciplines.
• Demonstrate knowledge of how to assess speaking and listening through observation, discussion protocols, narrative retellings, checklists, rubrics, and other tools and of how to use intermediary outcomes toward overall quality of expressive and receptive communication, including appropriate use of academic vocabulary, syntax, pragmatics, organization, ideation, voice, discussion moves, and use of reasons and evidence to support claims.
• Demonstrate the ability to identify and use research-supported instructional techniques—being cognizant of each child's experiences, strengths, needs, and interests—to provide learners opportunities across disciplines to engage in discussions to promote comprehension of complex information from multiple perspectives; to communicate information, understanding, concepts, and ideas to diverse audiences; and to engage in read-alouds and text-based discussions of age-appropriate books and other materials, print or digital.
• Demonstrate knowledge of how to use discussion moves (e.g., linking learners' ideas, probing learners' thinking, having learners return to the text to support claims about the ideas in the text)—being cognizant of each child's experiences, strengths, needs, and interests—that help provide continuity and extend the discussion of the ideas in the text; how to provide tasks or discussion routines learners know how to follow when they engage in small-group discussions; and how to provide regular opportunities for peer-assisted learning, especially for emergent English learners (e.g., by pairing learners at different levels of English proficiency).

Subtest 3: Mathematics

 

Subarea I1—MATHEMATICS-SPECIFIC TEACHING PRACTICES

Objective 001—Build and draw on relationships with children, caregivers, and communities in ways that support all children's mathematics learning.

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of strategies and activities that develop children's mathematical thinking by using children's strengths and needs to promote engagement, curiosity, interest, and understanding with mathematical concepts and learning and to inform instruction.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to communicate with caregivers about mathematics and their child in relation to state standards and the school's or district's curriculum, supporting caregivers in fostering their child's success with mathematics in and out of school.
• Apply knowledge of children, their caregivers, and their communities to identify mathematical learning environments that provide all children, in particular children historically marginalized in mathematics classrooms, with access to significant mathematics and engagement in mathematical activities that are both culturally and instructionally appropriate.
• Demonstrate knowledge of strategies to build all children's positive mathematical identities, disrupting patterns of marginalization that reinforce inequities and exclusion.

Objective 002—Plan mathematics lessons and sequences of lessons.

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of how to design ways to interest children and to use their resources and affinities to build access and participation, including taking stock of the mathematical capacities children bring to lessons, anticipating common patterns of mathematical thinking, looking for opportunities to include play in mathematics and mathematics in play, and planning for the mathematical participation of particular children.
• Analyze the mathematics content in instructional resources, referencing standards and progression documents to clarify learning goals and to identify connections among mathematical concepts and across grade levels.
• Use methods that promote broad participation in mathematical work (e.g., choosing activities and planning activities that provide children with multiple entry points and ways of being successful), make children's thinking central to the lesson, provide opportunities for play, and give children opportunities to show their thinking and see value in the contributions they make.

Objective 003—Use formative and summative mathematics assessments to gauge children's learning and to make instructional decisions.

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of methods to elicit children's thinking and solution strategies in multiple representations (e.g., writing, speaking, drawing) to identify evidence of understanding in children's thinking and strategies and use this information to make in-the-moment instructional decisions.
• Understand the meanings and purposes of summative assessment and the process of formative assessments in mathematics.
• Interpret assessment data and use this information to select instructional activities that target children's needs, promote learning, and improve instruction.
• Understand the language, format, and context of mathematics assessments (and assessment questions) for demonstrating children's thinking.
• Distinguish between superficial and deeper evidence about children and attend to key aspects of children's understanding, skill, and engagement, as well as ignore irrelevant aspects.
• Analyze assessment data to plan next steps for instruction, understanding that evidence of children's learning (vs. topic coverage) is necessary for moving on from a topic.

Objective 004—Enact instruction that allows all children to engage with significant mathematics and to develop productive dispositions toward mathematics.

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to support all children, including children historically marginalized in mathematics classrooms, in identifying themselves as mathematical thinkers and design instruction that helps children to recognize their own and other children's mathematical strengths.
• Demonstrate knowledge of a variety of participation structures and instructional routines, including whole-class, small-group, and independent work and a variety of materials, to foster children's talk about mathematics, with particular attention to disrupting patterns of over- and under-participation that reinforce inequities and exclusion.
• Identify classroom organizational routines and strategies that allow children access to mathematical tools and ensure the effective use of manipulatives and resources.
• Identify strategies for creating a classroom culture that values productive struggle, challenging mathematical ideas, constructing mathematical meanings together, and enjoyment of mathematics.

 

Subarea II2—MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING GRADES 3–6: WHOLE NUMBERS AND OPERATIONS

Objective 005—Unpack mathematical content and identify mathematical competence for whole numbers and operations.

Includes:

• Identify mathematical affordances in problems and sequences of problems that can be solved by counting, operations of addition and subtraction, or approaches that integrate these.
• Identify mathematical affordances in a spread of questions that can be asked regarding composition and decomposition and their role in representing numbers with drawings or materials, for example, when using ten frames or base-ten blocks, asking, "What number is this? Show me 123. Show me 123 in a different way. How might we show 1000 with this drawing or material?"
• Demonstrate knowledge of the mathematical work to be done to solve a problem involving any of the four operations, or that is being done or has been done to solve it.
• Identify the goals and conditions, resources, and problem (quandary) of a mathematics problem involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.
• Identify differences in the mathematics content for math problems for any of the four operations when wording, context, or structures are modified.
• Apply knowledge of multiple approaches to mathematics problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, including geometric interpretations of each and connections among them.

Objective 006—Perform mathematical explanations and support children's mathematical explanations for whole numbers and operations.

Includes:

• Formulate questions about how one knows that a count is correct when it is generated in indirect or alternative ways, such as when counting on or back as objects are added, removed, and combined or when using base-ten knowledge to support counting.
• Identify clear mathematical explanations connecting new terminology to objects and coordinating different strategies of grouping (e.g., showing that 345 ones is equivalent to 34 tens and 5 ones and to 3 hundreds and 5 tens minus 5 ones) with language that correctly and clearly references objects and symbols in meaningful ways.
• Identify what is similar and different for problems modeled by the same computation (e.g., identifying which involve the same and which involve different meanings of the operations, describing those differences, and explaining why the computation correctly models both).
• Recognize the difference between explanations that describe computational procedures with and without explicit mathematical connections to the place-value meanings and to the meaning of operations.
• Demonstrate understanding of explicit and elaborated explanations that unpack the structure of and mathematically justify algorithms.
• Interpret and contrast alternative or novel approaches to computations, determining whether approaches, use of models, and explanations are mathematically consistent and correct and, if not, how they might be adapted to be.

Objective 007—Choose, interpret, and talk with representations for whole numbers and operations.

Includes:

• Interpret and represent meanings of counts expressed in others' (e.g., students, caregivers, community, colleagues) talk and recognize mathematical affordances of different representations of counts and the connections and mathematical progression among them.
• Recognize whether or not drawings and their implied use accurately model identified operations, including whether drawings (e.g., geometric interpretations) are consistent with specific meanings of operations.
• Recognize affordances and limitations of different representations for modeling numbers and operations (e.g., ten frames, bundling sticks, base-ten blocks, arithmetic rack, money, arrays, number lines, area models), including ways in which units are visible or not in groups of units and distinctions between grouping and trading models.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to use materials, drawings, and symbols to model a variety of computational strategies based on place value, properties of operations, or relationships between operations (e.g., reasoning about addition and subtraction as reversing operations or division as repeated subtraction) and contrast and connect solutions that use different representations.

Objective 008—Elicit, interpret, support, and extend others' mathematical thinking for whole numbers and operations.

Includes:

• Interpret claims about mathematical understanding based on evidence from performance on counting activities, in particular understandings of quantity and flexible use of structure in base-ten numbers.
• Interpret claims about mathematical understanding based on evidence from performance on computational problems, addressing issues of conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and adaptive reasoning.
• Identify which among a set of partially expressed ideas about the solution to a problem involving whole numbers and operations is most appropriate to a given mathematical focus, such as an interpretation of subtraction as comparison or the role of place value in computational algorithms.
• Clarify and record others' approaches to solving whole-number problems involving operations.
• Analyze the meaning of operations and methods for solving a computational problem as shown in others' talk or work, and then apply the approach on different problems.

 

Subarea III3—MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING GRADES 3–6: FRACTIONS, DECIMALS, AND OPERATIONS

Objective 009—Unpack mathematical content and identify mathematical competence for fractions, decimals, and operations.

Includes:

• Understand what one must know about fractions and be able to do to solve different kinds of problems involving different interpretations of fractions in different representational environments.
• Formulate questions that meaningfully reveal and challenge understanding of the magnitude of fractions and support flexible ways of comparing and ordering fractions.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to rewrite a problem in which quantities vary together in a proportional relationship, to be easier or harder, to change the context, or to assess the mathematics addressed in the problem, while maintaining the original mathematical focus.
• Identify mathematical competence in others' approaches to and explanations for fraction problems using multiple representations involving different interpretations.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to describe a group's mathematical work and thinking in comparing or solving a computation involving fractions or decimals.

Objective 010—Perform mathematical explanations and support children's mathematical explanations for fractions, decimals, and operations.

Includes:

• Recognize whether or not an explanation regarding the equivalence, comparison, or computation of fractions uses the standard definition of a fraction.
• Identify and appraise features of others' explanations for comparing or computing with fractions.
• Demonstrate strategies and activities to support others' understanding of the meaning of a fraction ^a/_ba over b for different interpretations of fractions in different representational environments.
• Demonstrate strategies and activities to support others' understanding of the equivalence, comparison, and basic computation of decimals based on place-value ideas.
• Demonstrate understanding of a variety of approaches to computations, including alternative, novel approaches, determining whether approaches, use of models, and explanations are mathematically consistent and correct and, if not, how they might be adapted to be.
• Demonstrate knowledge of different approaches to reasoning about situations in which quantities vary together in a proportional relationship, determining whether approaches, use of models, and explanations are mathematically consistent and correct and, if not, how they might be adapted to be.

Objective 011—Choose, interpret, and talk with representations for fractions, decimals, and operations.

Includes:

• Identify affordances and limitations of different materials, manipulatives, and drawings as representations of fractions.
• Demonstrate knowledge of appropriate representations, including geometric and linear models, for supporting the solving of problems involving fraction quantities.
• Recognize whether or not others' drawings accurately model identified computations with fractions and decimals, including whether drawings are consistent with specific meanings of operations.
• Apply knowledge of ways to use unmarked or partially marked number lines to interpret and compare fractions with various numerators and denominators, attending carefully to the unit interval as the conventional whole, the role of unit fractions and iteration, and the estimation of magnitudes.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to model decimal multiplication and division using visual representations with care and precision regarding place-value interpretations of the numbers and with clear distinctions between linear and area quantities.
• Use tables, charts, graphs, double number lines, and bar models to present solutions to problems in which quantities vary together in proportional relationships, coordinating the talk with the use of the representations in solving the problems and explicitly mapping among the solutions using the different representations.

Objective 012—Elicit, interpret, support, and extend others' mathematical thinking for fractions, decimals, and operations.

Includes:

• Identify questions and activities to draw out particular ways of thinking about comparing or computing with fractions when that thinking is not transparent.
• Determine others' mathematical understanding based on evidence from performance on fraction or decimal comparison problems.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to clarify and record others' approaches to solving fraction problems involving operations.
• Identify incorrect reasoning about fractions, including reasoning about their magnitude, comparison, and computation, and formulate counter-speculations for that reasoning.
• Interpret reasoning about solutions to problems in which quantities vary together in a proportional relationship as exemplified in others' talk or work, and then apply the approach to different problems.
• Identify which key aspects of a given fraction interpretation are present and absent in others' talk or work.

Subtest 4: Science and Social Studies

 

Subarea I1—SCIENCE–ENGAGING LEARNERS IN 3-DIMENSIONAL SCIENCE LEARNING AS IDENTIFIED IN THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL'S A FRAMEWORK FOR K-12 SCIENCE EDUCATION: PRACTICES, CROSSCUTTING CONCEPTS, AND CORE IDEAS⁴

Objective 001—Scientific Phenomena

Includes:

• Understand the role of scientific phenomena in 3-dimensional science teaching and learning.
• Demonstrate knowledge of strategies, methods, and activities to identify, evaluate, and use productive scientific phenomena for learners' scientific learning, including everyday observations of the world (e.g., a puddle disappearing over time).

Objective 002—Engaging Learners in Science and Engineering Practices

Includes:

• Understand the nature and importance of scientific and engineering practices, giving priority at the 3–6 grade band to the practices of asking questions and defining problems, developing and using models, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations and designing solutions, and engaging in argument from evidence.
• Identify grade-appropriate elements of scientific and engineering practices, including developing and using models and engaging in argument from evidence.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the key aspects of the engineering design process and how it is similar or different from science (e.g., engage in a problem to try and revise in iterations, such as building a bridge).

Objective 003—Engaging Learners in Developing and Using Disciplinary Core Ideas

Includes:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of life, earth, and physical science disciplinary core ideas consistent with grades 3–6 found in the Michigan K–12 Standards for Science.⁵
• Identify grade-appropriate elements of the disciplinary core ideas within instructional materials.

Objective 004—Engaging Learners in Developing and Using Crosscutting Concepts

Includes:

• Understand the nature of the crosscutting concepts and relate them to 3-dimensional learning (giving priority to patterns, cause and effect, systems and systems models, scale, proportion and quantity, and energy and matter) and identify them within instructional materials.
• Integrate crosscutting concepts in lessons, curricula, and assessments.

 

Subarea II2—SCIENCE–LEARNERS' SENSE-MAKING AND SCIENCE TEACHING PEDAGOGY

Objective 005—Selecting and Modifying Instructional Materials for 3-Dimensional Learning

Includes:

• Identify and modify instructional materials to create learning environments that engage learners in using the disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts to explore, describe, and explain phenomena.
• Demonstrate knowledge of connections between science and other discipline areas (e.g., engagement in measurement, analysis, and the crosscutting concept of patterns within science learning; writing to explain science understanding).

Objective 006—Learners' Scientific Sense-making

Includes:

• Understand how learners make sense of scientific phenomena, ideas, experiences, and data and what scientific sense-making looks like in individuals (e.g., speaking, writing, visually representing, enacting) and whole-class interactions (e.g., speaking and listening).
• Identify instances of sense-making and elicit learners' ideas, in individual, small-group, and whole-class interactions, that embrace the complexity and iterative nature of sense-making and move beyond indicating whether the ideas are correct vs. incorrect, accurate vs. misconceptions.

Objective 007—Pedagogical Strategies that Support Culturally Relevant Sense-making in 3-Dimensional Learning

Includes:

• Demonstrate knowledge of research-based pedagogical strategies that support learners' sense-making in grade-level-appropriate and culturally appropriate ways, including leveraging learners' prior experiences and knowledge, varying activity structures, and using talk and group work for science to elicit learners' thinking, cultural and community connections, and curiosity when making sense of phenomena.
• Demonstrate understanding of how to identify, modify, and design lessons and lesson sequences and assessments to create learning environments that provide opportunities for iterative learners' sense-making and explanation building through classroom talk, written words, diagrams, and movement.
• Demonstrate knowledge of ways to create an inclusive linguistic culture that leverages individual interactions and small-group work and provides opportunities for conversation (e.g., elaborating and building on their own and others' ideas) for the purpose of engaging learners in sense-making through 3-dimensional learning (e.g., partner talk, asking for clarification, asking for evidence and reasoning, asking for others to agree/disagree, asking for contributions to build on one another).
• Identify, create, or modify formative and summative science assessments (diagrammatic, linguistic) that address 3-dimensional learning and reveal learners' current sense-making.
• Recognize and assess learners' ideas, life experiences, and learning beyond the technical scientific language by evaluating samples of learners' work and classroom interactions to determine the nature and depth of learners' sense-making and leverage ongoing changes in children's learning to adjust instruction.

Objective 008—Equity and Access

Includes:

• Understand ways to explore questions of context of science learning (e.g., relevant for whom, who benefits, whose interests are served, what are the costs and for whom, who gets to be scientists and according to what criteria, and from whose perspectives is this understanding of the natural world constructed) and leverages learners' multiple community experiences to provide access to high-quality science-learning experiences for all learners.
• Identify learners' and communities' interests, experiences, and resources as assets to their science learning and use these assets to select phenomena, modify or design lessons, and build on during instruction.
• Develop strategies for creating a classroom culture that values productive struggle, challenging science ideas, constructing science meaning together, and enjoying science.

 

Subarea III3—SOCIAL STUDIES–INSTRUCTION AND PRACTICES

Objective 009—Supporting Learners' Understanding of Civic Engagement

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching the responsibility of public discourse, decision making, and citizen involvement through developing skills for participating in community issues by using representational tools and data to interpret, analyze, and create structured discourse that communicates reasoned positions relative to public issues.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching organizational skills for clearly stating a problem as a public policy issue, analyzing various perspectives, and generating and evaluating possible alternative resolutions.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching communication skills to generate a reasoned position on a public issue in order to act constructively to further the public good.

Objective 010—History

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching history as an organizing framework to develop a sense of time and chronology, using events from personal experiences and expanding into the events of larger communities and countries.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching historical thinking that consists of understanding and evaluating change and continuity over time, and make appropriate use of historical evidence in answering questions and developing arguments about the past.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching historical thinking to understand the past in the local community, Michigan, and the United States, as detailed for grades 3–6 in the Michigan K–12 Standards for Social Studies.⁶

Objective 011—Geography

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching geography as an organizing framework to identify and interpret the geographic environment using representational tools, spatial perspective, and concepts that explain human needs and wants and their relationship to their environment.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching geographic reasoning that consists of using spatial and environmental perspectives, skills in asking and answering questions, and being able to apply geographic representations.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching geographic reasoning to understand the geography of the local community, Michigan, the United States, and the world, as detailed for grades 3–6 in the Michigan K–12 Standards for Social Studies.

Objective 012—Civics and Government

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching civics and government as an organizing framework for understanding productive civic engagement, the development of individual rights and societal structures, and relationships between these dynamic forces.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching civic reasoning that consists of conceptual foundations of governments; applying civic virtues and principles of American constitutional democracy; and explaining important rights and how, when, and where American citizens demonstrate their responsibilities by participating in government.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching civic reasoning to understand the government and political processes at the local, state, federal, and global levels as detailed for grades 3–6 in the Michigan K–12 Standards for Social Studies.

Objective 013—Economics

Includes:

• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching economics as an organizing framework for the study of the interaction of individual wants, goods, services, and the resulting exchanges in a structured society.
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching an economic way of thinking to identify, analyze, and evaluate the causes and consequences of individual economic decisions and public policy (e.g., all choice involves cost, individuals make economic choices, people respond to incentives in predictable ways, individuals participate in economic systems, all decisions have consequences that lie in the future, trade and labor create wealth).
• Demonstrate understanding of methods for teaching an economic way of thinking to understand economic activities as detailed for grades 3–6 in the Michigan K–12 Standards for Social Studies.

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footnote ¹ For additional information and background on the content of the Test Framework and for key vocabulary in this document, refer to the Michigan Department of Education's Standards for the Preparation of Teachers of Upper Elementary (3–6) Education, available at https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Upper_Elementary_3-6_Education_Preparation_Standards_649826_7.pdf.

footnote ² The Michigan Code of Educational Ethics can be accessed here: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Code_of_Ethics_653130_7.pdf

footnote ³ The Michigan K–12 Standards for English Language Arts can be accessed here: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/MDE_ELA_Standards_599599_7.pdf

footnote ⁴ A Framework for K–12 Science Education can be accessed here: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13165/aframework-for-k-12-science-education-practices-crosscutting-concepts

footnote ⁵ The Michigan K–12 Standards for Science can be accessed here: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/K-12_Science_Performance_Expectations_v5_496901_7.pdf

footnote ⁶ The Michigan K–12 Standards for Social Studies can be accessed here: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Final_Social_Studies_Standards_Document_655968_7.pdf

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