Students Progress When We Assess

The time has come where I have reached the end of my path in math. I reflect upon all of the valuable information I have learned along the way and am so excited to apply this knowledge in my teaching practices. The last piece of information comes from our last class, Assessment. The main message from assessment is to improve student learning. 

As I reflect on my past experiences being assessed throughout elementary and high school, I recall that tests and assignments were the main forms of assessment where we were given a grade. Elementary school would be based on levels (1-4) and high school was focused to presenting us with percentages based on our performance. However, my eyes have to been opened to various assessment strategies and tools that can be used. When assessing, I believe it is important for students to have a strong understanding of what is expected from them as this is something I would appreciate as a student. It is key to share criteria and rubrics with the students to both the teacher and students which provides something for the students to strive towards for successful learning. In addition, descriptive feedback is an important tool so teachers can feedback students on areas they need to improve on where they can set personal goals. Students can also provide feedback to each other as peer to peer feedback can be beneficial as more information can be given to the student on how to improve based on what others see from a different point of view. This was a focus in our class this week as teacher comments and descriptive feedback is a major component to assessment so students can be provided next steps in order to improve their learning. In our class, we practiced our descriptive feedback by assessing two different examples of student work. As we analyzed this work, we talked about what the student knows, what they do not know, and how they could improve their knowledge. going through these steps helped create our own descriptive feedback for those students as it provided praise in addition to next steps for the student to take so they can improve their learning. 

Example #1
Math Class (2017, Oct 16).
Student Work [Personal Image]

Example #2

Math Class (2017, Oct 16).

Student Work [Personal Image]

As you can see from the examples, these two students had different understandings of the concept. Example #1 was not able to calculate the proper measurements but included the proper units, and Example #2 could calculate the measurements but forgot one of the sides to the box resulting in an incorrect answer. These are the kind of details to look for so we can provide the necessary feedback to these students. 

The Growing Success document is an excellent resource to refer to when it comes to assessing as it contains valuable information about the different tools and forms we can use. As I had to lead the webinar this week on report cards, this document and the readings for class were very beneficial. For the webinar, Erin and I decided to focus on the assessment tools and theories: Assessment for/as/of learning, the achievement chart, and learning skills and work habits. I believe it is important to understand these forms of assessment and include it in any lesson so we as teachers can have concrete examples to refer to when it comes to report card writing and providing feedback to specific students. The more evidence there is, the more specific we can be with our feedback and grading to benefit the students. As we discussed with our webinar group, the main take away from the presentation was the idea of next steps. This is important for students as well as their parents to note so they can work towards a goal and improve their learning. 

Overall, I deem this journey on my path in math a success as it has opened my eyes to so many concepts and ideas that can benefit any classroom in hopes to "make math great again"! Now onto my next adventure... teaching!

via GIPHY

Moving Away From Traditional Classrooms

This week on my path in math, the main theme was the shift from traditional classrooms. During class, we spent our time learning about blended learning and why it is important to include it in the classroom. Our "Math Mindset" Modules on the other hand, focused on allowing students to solve math problems in their own rather than memorizing one method to find the answer. Reflecting on my past experience in elementary school or even high school, I don't ever remember getting this freedom in solving math problems nor being exposed to technology to support my learning. There was always only one way to solve something using a number of steps that required memorization. This resulted in me understanding less as I just memorized the methods to solve things. This week has really opened my eyes to more teaching strategies to improve student learning yet again.

Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2y0zyPS
[Online Image]

To start, blended learning is blend of online and face to face teaching allowing them to be independent as well in their learning so they can work at their own pace. Therefore, it combines the traditional style of teaching with the addition of technology. I believe a technology component in any lesson engages students in a new way to they are more motivated to learn. As 21st Century teachers, we need to expose students to the technology that is readily available as it is part of these students' lives every day where they are becoming more and more reliable on it. So why not include technology components to our traditional classrooms so students become more interested in what they are learning. Personally, I find technology to be fascinating as it is constantly advancing and I have become accustom to using it daily. Therefore, when it is used in a classroom, I am instantly engaged and makes learning more interesting and FUN! I believe young students feel the same way as I saw in my placement last year that my students would light up when I used technology and allowed them to be independent with it to create things. Thus, with blended learning, it gives that opportunity for differentiated instruction while finding that happy medium between teaching face to face and incorporating online tools to make understanding even better and more rich of an experience.

Some resources we explored in class include the game, Got It which works on problem solving skills and growth mindset. You are given sets of numbers where you can perform operations to get your target number in the end. While doing this, you are timed. However, as mentioned in previous posts, math should not be about getting the answer the quickest as it is about applying your understanding which may takes others longer than others to do so I recommend pausing the timer on the side and spending time on fixing your mistakes allowing your mind to grow.
Another interest concept we explored was the pedagogy wheel. It is designed to help educators think and how they can use mobile apps in the classroom. It focuses on different actions - create, analyze, evaluate, apply, and remember/understand. Within these actions, the wheel provides suggested apps to use to perform these actions. I can definitely see myself using this to refer to when needing to think of different apps to use for lesson that require various actions for myself and/or students.

Retrieved from

http://bit.ly/2hTX8XW

[Online Image]

Lastly, the online modules this week focused on allowing students their own freedom in doing math. Using visual representations such as drawing out a problem can make it simpler to solve. Rather than memorizing formulas or rules, representing the problem in a picture makes it more relatable (ie. representing fractions as a chocolate bar) and easier to understand. In addition, we as teachers should discourage memorization in math and focus more on the understanding. As the solve math in their own way, they are applying their understanding so it makes sense for them.

In following our theme of blended learning, I had an A-HA moment about how our Math Mindset modules is Pat's way of using blended learning!! I can't wait to incorporate blended learning like this in my own teaching practices to engage students and help them learn the way they know how.


via GIPHY