Assessment Articles

Portfolio: This article was talking about a teacher who decided to use portfolios as a way of assessment in her math classroom. She allowed the students to pick the materials they felt should be in the portfolio and then they had to so some sort of reflection with them. I really like the idea of portfolios I think it is a great way to allow the student to be proud of the accomplishments and advances they have made throughout the year and to showcase their skills. I think it allows will cause the students to put out better work. It is using a hidden message to better the efforts of students without them even knowing that is happening. 

Conversation: This article is addressing the importance of conversation in the math classroom. The article is addressing how based on conversations in the classroom the teacher might need to change the plans for the day. For example this teacher was able to realize that her students were struggling with some of the properties of a rectangle, so instead of moving on she created a small mini-lesson on the spot to help improve her students’ understandings of the topic. I really like the idea of assessing the conversations that take place in a classroom I believe that it allows for the teacher to reflect on her teaching methods based on how well the students are speaking about the topic they just learned. I believe that this is allows for the teacher to create stronger lessons and for the students to speak up about their understandings.

Open-Ended: This article is addressing how open-ended questions can work in a math classroom. I really like this because I believe that it allows students to really vocalize their thought process for the math concept. This also allows the teacher to feel like they are better able to understand and student’s understanding.  

Reasoning: The article is addressing problem solving. The students are asked to define and explain area in their own words to the teacher. This is yet another way for the teacher to hear and better understand their students’ understandings of a certain math topic.

Options: This article is addressing some different ways of assessing math in the classroom. The articles focused on the difference between multiple choice and performance based assessment and how performance based assessment is better.