Day 24 - Standards Assessment #2

The students completed the standards assessment. While they were working on the assessment I came up with a new way of assessing the students. So far, assessing the students has been somewhat of a challenge.

Initially, I would give the students challenges and then they would be assessed on the standards (not the challenges). The challenges served as a practice for the standards assessment. There was an issue with the students thinking that they would be assessed with something similar to the challenges. However, as they were told, they would only be assessed on the standards. The challenges involve the students figuring out the mathematics behind the topics studied. The assessments involve the students actually using what was deduced from the challenges. This did not work out. Many of the students did not see the connection between the challenges and the assessment. Because of this, I changed something.

Next, I tried giving the students an assessment twice in a row after going over the first one. This worked for many of the students, but I still feel that students did not put together any thoughts or deeper insight within the small time frame between the assessment.

Finally, I came up with a whole new way of assessing. What I am going to try is giving the students the assessment initially. When taking the assessment the first time, the students will be asked to include notes and their thoughts on the problem and what they might be confused about. This will help when the students will retake the exactly same assessment. They will be taking the assessment over again after completing the necessary challenges. This will hopefully help them tie together the challenges with the assessments.