Formative Assessment
inTASC 6: The teacher understands and uses multiple methods of assessment to engage learners in their own growth, to monitor learner progress, and to guide the teacher’s and learner’s decision making.
Introduction
In this section, the importance of continuously monitoring students data is highlighted. A variety of assessment methods are used to support instruction throughout a lesson, standard, and unit. Students in the community I serve are often two or three years behind in mathematical knowledge. As an Algebra II teacher, tracking and addressing gaps in student learning has been vital to making sure students are mastering grade-level content. The data I gather through formative assessments allows me to differentiate lessons to service individual needs. Multiple methods of assessment are used to create a full picture of a student’s grasp of the topic. Some focus on conceptual understanding, while others address procedural fluency and reasoning. Engaging learners in a variety of methods of assessments allows me to ensure that my lessons are preparing students for success.
Regular Data collection
Weekly Diagnostics
At the start of every week, students take a short diagnostic quiz on the content that will be covered that week. I use the data to inform the approach I take to the following day’s lesson. I can identify students that will need extra assistance and adjust my approach to covering new content.
These diagnostics cover a single topic. This example of the Coordinate Pairs Diagnostic had students demonstrate that they remember coordinate pairs well enough that I did not need to plan a lesson to reteach the concept. I chose to check in with the students who had trouble individually and move forward with another topic.
The questions on this diagnostic were intended to check how well students can graph and identify points on the coordinate plane. From my experience the previous year with the same group of students, I knew that I needed to know which students required intervention before moving on to graphing linear functions. Students' scores on linear function assignments and assessments would certainly be impacted by their abilities to properly identify coordinate pairs.
Daily Exit Tickets
In my unit on Similarity, students were given exit tickets every day that were helpful for adapting my teacher strategy the following day. These 3-5 question exit slips provided me with an idea of how effective that day’s lesson was at preparing students for the next day’s content. These are Google Forms so students can get immediate feedback on their answers and can reflect on what may have gone wrong. Students can use time at the end of class to ask clarifying questions and correct misunderstandings before moving on to homework assignments.
This exit ticket asked students to generate, in their own words, and explanation of what it means to be similar. This is the deeper level of conceptual knowledge that I wanted students to reach in the lesson. The multiple choice questions inform me on how well students can recall and apply the concepts and rules for similarity that they have learned so far. The extension question asked students to apply similar rules in an unfamiliar problem.
This exit ticket followed the one above. It expanded on the previous day's extension question and asked students to demonstrate their growth on the concept. The extension question in this exit led into the next topic- triangle proportionality. Students can use their scores to track their own progress and develop a fuller picture of their mastery in the unit.
These data we used to give students cumulative and week to week feedback. Students were able to use this feedback to better prepare for the unit test, as they could clearly see which topics gave them the most challenges.
Exit Ticket Analysis
After students took their first Exit Ticket on Similar Right Triangles, I knew that I would have to cover the topic again. Students really struggled answering the third question that I took from an ACT, despite performing almost perfectly on similar problems. Only 32 of 66 students selected the correct answer. This question was used as the bellwork problem the following day so that students could discuss it with their teammates and I could share my approach to solving the problem.
This style of assessment is more effective later in the unit as I am ensuring students are approaching mastery of a topic. Students can start to get a sense of what I’ll expect from them on the test and can use the immediate feedback from the Google Form to reflect on their need to practice.
Show What You Know Quizzes
Show What You Know (SWYK) assignments are designed for reflection. Students work independently for a set amount of time on a skills worksheet, then reflect on the progress they were able to make. Students then have the opportunity to discuss the assignment with their teammates. Teams can help one another and bring up any concerns about the content before a whole group reteach. Students then have more time to work independently on the worksheet to see if the activity helped their understanding.
On this SWYK for Expressions, the goal was for students to understand their level of comfort with distribution and factoring out a monomial. Different methods were used to teach each concept, so I wanted students to have discussions about the style of learning that works for them.
This example highlights a student who was able to distribute for the most part, but struggled with combining like terms. None of the answers involving combining like terms are simplified, and the error in Question 8 makes it clear this student needs more assistance. They could not complete any of the problems for factoring out a monomial without assistance from a teammate. They got help with Question 13 but could not apply it to Question 14.
use of Technology
Using IXL to Adapt Learning Within Lessons
Homework assignments are online through IXL. These assignments focus on one concept and scaffold from the simplest applications to the “Challenge Zone.” The Analytics dashboard displays students who are currently working on the assignment and highlights students who need additional assistance. I can quickly identify students who are stuck and reteach as necessary.
The strength of IXL lies in remediation of skills that a familiar but not mastered. Students who master a concept by achieving a SmartScore of 100 can move on to harder practices. The structure of how these IXL practices are assigned is covered more in the Student Investment category.
Within a problem set, questions are scaffolded to prepare students to engage with the level of work expected from them at the Algebra II level. On the left, several students are in the lower range working on identifying equivalent ways of representing distribution. On the right, students are engaging with much more rigorous problems that deal with the same concept. Students who struggle with these kinds of questions are automatically returned to lower level practices to help them explore their gaps.
Conclusion
Collecting meaningful data in the classroom requires consistency and attention to detail. The focus must be on both what is being assessed and how it is being assessed. Learning can take many shapes in a math classroom, so a variety of approaches to formative assessment is critical to understanding what learning is happening. Weekly, daily, and within-lesson assessment all play a role in how I adapt to my students’ needs in the classroom. I make adjustments based on the patterns I notice and more effectively engage students in their own progress. Students can recognize where their own gaps are and use the tools and resources I offer to help close them. Frequent assessment and self-assessment in this way help students make stronger connections to the standards covered in my class.