Guided Math: Chapter 8

I'm linking up with Amanda from "The Primary Gal" to bring you Chapter 8 of the "Guided Math" Book Study.

I really like this quote and I feel that it really sums up my thoughts on assessment, “The more the teacher knows about the students' learning during instruction, the more accurately instruction can be tailored to meet them.” It makes total sense to me. Math can’t be taught as one size fits all. I think that’s why people believe that they are ‘no good’ at math, or  they are not a math person, myself included. Differentiated math instruction is a lot more work for the teacher to plan, but it reaches the needs of all of the students. In order to differentiate the teacher really needs to know what the students know to create next steps.

According to Laney and others, assessment:

•   Informs teaching decisions;
• Assesses students strengths and knowledge;
• Finds out what students can do independently and with teacher support;
• Documents progress;
• Summarizes achievement.

I think it’s important that students know what their learning goal is,and what they need to do to be successful (i.e. success criteria).

I personally use Learning Goals and Success Criteria in language, but I don’t use them as much in mathematics. Which obviously doesn’t make sense, since they are so successfully used in language. Why am I not using them in math more often?  

There are a variety of ways to record assessment data with check lists, rubrics, anecdotal comments, sticky notes.

Recording assessment is the area in which I need the most improvement. I find that I get so busy during the math block that I’ll realize at the end of the day I haven’t written anything down!

This is how I record on a checklist. Instead of “Met” or “Not Met”. I write the goal or success criteria at the top of the checklist and then I use the following symbols.

If they really get it I will colour in the triangle. I find that recording what I’m seeing this way makes it very clear what my next steps are, without having write a lot of notes.

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