1. Assessment In Mathematics
February 15, 2007

2. Understanding Assessment
Assessment of learning (Summative)
Assessment for learning (Formative)
The assessment cycle
Planning Assessment
Setting clear goals
Using Results
Making decisions
Gathering Evidence
Employing multiple methods
Interpreting Evidence
Making inferences
Van de Walle (2005) p.66

3. The Assessment Standards
Mathematics
Focus on Content and Process Standards in conjunction with curriculum outcomes
Learning
Assessment should inform instruction and promote student learning
Equity
High standards and high expectations with focus on finding out what students do know not what they don’t know
Openness
Establish clear expectations and criteria and ensure all stakeholders are aware of assessment processes
Inferences
What does the data tell me and how will I use it for future plans
Coherence
Assessment is aligned with instruction, there is a balance of assessment methods that emphasize conceptual and procedural understanding

4. Four purposes of Assessment
Promote
Growth
Purposes of
Assessment
Monitoring student progress
Making instructional decisions
Modify
Program
Evaluating programs
Improve
Instruction
Evaluating student achievement
Recognize
Accomplishment
Van de Walle (2005) p.68

5. Assessment and Instruction
Assessment and instruction need to be properly aligned
Good learning tasks are good assessment tasks
Assessment should be integrated
Evidence is used to inform future instructional tasks

6. Task Selection Good problems
Begin where they are
Focus on important mathematics
Requires justification and explanation
Promotes doing mathematics and encourages understanding
May be open-ended
Open Process: many ways to arrive at the answer
Open End Product: many possible solutions
Open Question: can explore new problems related to the old problem
Promotes the Big Five!

7. Levels of questions Level 1: Knowledge and Procedures
Remembrance could be simple recall (defining a term, recognizing an example, stating a fact, stating a property)
Questions within one representation (performing an algorithm, completing a picture)
Reading information from a graph.

8. Levels of questions Level 2: Comprehension of Concepts and Procedures
Makes connections between mathematical representations of single concepts (creating a story problem for an addition sentence, drawing a number line picture to show the solution to a story problem, stating a number sentence for a given display of base ten blocks)
Makes inferences, generalizations, or summarizes ( makes inferences from a graphical display, finds and continues a pattern)
Estimates and predicts
Explanations

9. Levels of questions Level 3: Problem Solving and Application
Multi-step, multi-concept, multi-task
Non-routine problems
Requires application of problem solving strategies
New and novel applications

10. Some types of Assessment
Rubrics
Observation
Journals and writing
Tests
Portfolios
Interviews