Bresciani+Journal+3

Each week at the classroom I visit, the students complete their “morning work”. Part of their morning work is completing a set of 5 math problems. The math problems usually reflect the type of math that they are learning at a particular time. This week, the students were learning about the different ways to add up particular coins/dollars to make a certain amount. The teacher writes the problems on a worksheet, and the students must fill in the blank with the correct answer. The students get graded out of 100%. Therefore, if they get one question wrong they receive an 80, and if they get two questions wrong they receive a 60 and so on. When grading, the teacher not only checks to see if their answers are right, but she also makes sure that their math “punition” is right. Therefore if the student does not put a dollar sign next to the answer, they get the problem wrong. Lastly, their morning work is usually corrected before lunch. Whatever problems the student gets wrong; they review the problems with the teacher and must fix for homework, and resubmit their worksheet the next day.

Like their handwriting sheets, I consider this type of work to be performance assessment/fill in the blanks. I believe that this type of assessment is valid for the following reasons. First, I believe that only having five problems to complete for morning work is a substantial amount. It is not too much work for the students to complete, however, it helps reinforce and assess whether or not the student is following along with the current math lesson they are learning. I also believe that this assessment is valid because although the students are graded on their initial performance, they are able to redo their work, and understand their mistakes.

At times, the teacher will say “I don’t think John understands the math lesson we are learning because he is consistently getting 40’s on his morning math reviews” At this time, she then sends the student to “morning math help”. Morning math help is when a parent volunteers to meet with particular children (selected by the teacher) and reviews their concepts of morning math/current math lessons. Therefore, the morning math work is not busy work. Instead it is a way for the students to briefly practice their current math concepts. It also provides a way for the teacher to assess whether or not the student is following along with the lessons, and if not, allows her to take further action to help them better understand.