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It gives form and context to what is on the paper, and usually the thinking on paper is oh so much more with the talk to accompany it.

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Using manipulatives as part of assessment is often viewed as 'cheating'  -- manipulatives should be an integral part of how our student show us what they know. 

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Using manipulatives as part of assessment is often viewed as 'cheating'  -- manipulatives should be an integral part of how our student show us what they know. 

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Assessment tasks should never be about kids trying to read our minds about where the marks come from. It should be about showing what they know, and that can be orally, visually or using manipulatives. 

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Assessment tasks should never be about kids trying to read our minds about where the marks come from. It should be about showing what they know, and that can be orally, visually or using manipulatives. 

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Here is a look at Fosnot, Lawson etc. in FDK 

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Here is a look at Fosnot, Lawson etc. in FDK 

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.....the other thing that rocks about trajectory + landscape tools is that it begins with champion student learning- by forcing teachers to think about what thinking is evident- what do they have vs. lack....

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.....the other thing that rocks about trajectory and landscape tools is that it begins with champion student learning- by forcing teachers to think about what thinking is evident

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Do you assess Skills... Concepts... Strategies... the use of Representations...

Something tells me our curriculum tells us more about HOW to assess than we might think!  Notice the verbs within each expectation!  Notice the tools/strategies we are to assess!

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To borrow a Fosnot/Jon So phrase: "if learning is not happening you are not teaching.... you need to 'back the bus up' and reflect"
Trajectories and landscapes keep me reflecting creative and curious about learning in my class. They help add a voice to my reflections on Learning as well as leading me to ask more questions!
I believe these tool are

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Assessment and evaluation are two different things. Assessment is ongoing, its root means to "sit beside"--happens through varied means, most important being observations and conversations.

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Assessment and evaluation are two different things. Assessment is ongoing, its root means to "sit beside"--happens through varied means, most important being observations and conversations.

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The process of assessment can either motivate or demotivate our students!

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modelling, sharing, math congress

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I tell my students that I care about the fact that they've learned and understood, not WHEN they've understood.  Sometimes I've even said "I don't care when you learn it, I care that you learn it" to show that the learning never ends with me.

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I am trying to help my students understand the criteria. Co-creating success criteria with students is something I want to try. I think this will make feedback to students much more seamless.

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I am trying out the student learning notebook to keep track of my observations and conversations as well as products. I need to use all three to support my thinking about where students are at.
Christine

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Assessment and evaluation , although related, are different processes!

Assessment needs to be about us figuring out how our students are thinking!

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I want my students to see math in the real world, but I want the work they do to be real. Sometimes we try to be contextual with math tasks and it just becomes artificial.

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Give opportunities for students to "show you" and orally explain their thinking.

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Teachers need to be very aware of the large role language plays in math

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Teachers need to be very aware of the large role language plays in math

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students need to find math meaningful and engaging. I encourage lots of math talk and for students to take risks. Learning occurs when mistakes happen

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Give frequent feedback to improve student learning.

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Give frequent feedback to improve student learning.

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Opportunities should be provided to our students to show their understanding in a variety of ways. This could be through conversations, tasks, or other means.

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I find that 1-to-1 conversations with students about their learning provides me with great insight into their thinking and understanding
fh

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Math needs to be relevant and contextual. The skills students learn today will impact their future. The ideas behind math and the thinking that comes from developing solutions to real problems is critical. Observations and conversations are extremely important in the reasoning and proving of math, one a teacher can't necessarily get from a test or product. Tests and grades imply that learning is over...that is one of the biggest failures of math classrooms

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I want my students to see Math and the real world connection. 

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I want my students to see Math and the real world connection. 

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-Shahzadi

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Allow for collaboration and group work. I like to challenge students to persevere through challenging math tasks and problem solving.

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Allow for collaboration and group work. I like to challenge students to persevere through challenging math tasks and problem solving.

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Self assessment is very important in math as students evaluate their level of focus, the "processes" involved in learning & problem solving, next steps and thinking about further inquiry and what they still want to learn.  Group assessment enables collaboration and learning about how we can learn and solve mathematical problems.

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Self assessment is very important in math as students evaluate their level of focus, the "processes" involved in learning & problem solving, next steps and thinking about further inquiry and what they still want to learn.  Group assessment enables collaboration and learning about how we can learn and solve mathematical problems.

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Provide varied activities to build math skills and find ways to connect to other areas of the curriculum to check to see if they can apply and transfer what they are learning.

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Provide varied activities to build math skills and find ways to connect to other areas of the curriculum to check to see if they can apply and transfer what they are learning.

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I like to engage students and let them know where they're at. Then, I build them up.

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I like to engage students and let them know where they're at. Then, I build them up.

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-JB

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Assessment should inform exactly what the student has accomplished and exactly what needs to be done to move the student forward in their mathematical skill and or thinking.

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Assessment should inform exactly what the student has accomplished and exactly what needs to be done to move the student forward in their mathematical skill and or thinking.

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I think a Learning Trajectory should inform the questions we ask each student, the data we collect, the feedback we give and the next steps we take and then repeat...  

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I think a Learning Trajectory should inform the questions we ask each student, the data we collect, the feedback we give and the next steps we take and then repeat...  

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Margaret Allen

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"Test mystique", to use Bennett, Dworet, and Weber's (2008) term, is persistent and pervasive in our dealings with our students, as tests are sometimes seen to have a "mystical capacity to open a window into a student's inner being and the workings of his or her mind".

Some teachers are reluctant to trust their own informed judgements and classroom assessments, deferring instead to testing results, many of them standardized, for the "final word" about the strengths and needs of their own students. As the authors note, teachers will often "defer to test results even when those results contradict their own observations and conclusions arrived at over months of on-site observations and analyses".

I believe this is wrong. We need to trust our eyes and ears, most of all. When I stopped giving math tests, I felt I only knew my students better. That said, short quizzes and tests are appropriate in some circumstances- I liked them as "checking in" on basic skills- for example, can you add and subtract integers correctly?

Wiggins and McTighe (1998), note that using tests as the mark and measure of student achievement is a "long-standing habit". Test mystique still prevails-perhaps in math classrooms more than any other subject.

Here are some assessment principles that I think are effective and fruitful for the mathematics classroom.

1. Engage students in purposeful talk about what they are learning as they work on a classroom task. Walking and talking is assessment. Record and use tracking sheets with anecdotes from this purposeful talk, and treat it as valuable data, part of the bigger picture of how and what the student is learning.

2. Don't be afraid to not give a test. Tomlinson (2008) talks of her early years, when she only knew she was "supposed to give tests and grades", although she didn't like them.

3. Find a system to document observations and anecdotes from conversations. It is often hard to stop in the "flow" and write things down, but techniques like using checklists will help. I have experimented with using tape recorders (old school), and now apps, to record observations, as my handwriting is rather difficult to read. Remember the power of the camera roll- take pictures of work in progress frequently.

4. Use frequent checkpoints in larger assignments. This relates to the concept of chunking-allow students to check-in frequently in their learning. Give students checklists which will aid in task completion. If, for example, a student is building an electric car in Science class, give dates to bring materials, dates to complete sketches, and detailed lists of how the task is to be completed. In the math classroom, allow students to check in as they work on longer problems or assessments. Help their thinking develop.

5. Give frequent feedback to improve student learning. A state of helplessness often sets in when an exceptional student does not know if he or she is doing the work "right"; feedback helps to redirect a student positively, and giving feedback helps bring a task closer to completion. I have read, and refer to quite frequently, the work of Black and William (1998) on feedback for learning. It is quite a long work, but boils down to simply this: feedback works! One single piece of directed feedback is sometimes all it takes!

6. Trust your own judgement!

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Overcoming "Test Mystique"- My Principles For Mathematics Assessment

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"Test mystique", to use Bennett, Dworet, and Weber's (2008) term, is persistent and pervasive in our dealings with our students, as tests are sometimes seen to have a "mystical capacity to open a window into a student's inner being and the workings of his or her mind".

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"The starting point is the mathematics and thinking the student brings to the lesson, not the deficit of mathematics they do not bring."

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"The starting point is the mathematics and thinking the student brings to the lesson, not the deficit of mathematics they do not bring."

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-Phil Daro