FLASHNERJOURNAL3

Maggie Flashner EDC 452 - Dr. Adamy 2/9/09

Today teacher gave her students a formative math assessment. They are in the middle of multiplication and she wanted to see how the class was doing. The test included a variety of questions. Some questions included pictures to help students solve the problem. Other questioned asked the students to write their own word problems. However the question was worded, all answers were to include work. By having students show all their work, my teacher can get a sense of how students are arriving at an answer, whether it is correct or not. This type of assessment is formative because it is going to be used to help my teacher guide future lessons. The results will tell her if the class as a whole is grasping the concept of multiplication or if perhaps she is moving too quickly. It will also pinpoint those students who may need more help, and those students who may need more challenging problems. Overall, I think this is a good form of assessment. I like how the test includes a multitude of questions. Using different types of questions really allows the teacher to assess what her class knows. If she had only used on type of question such as straight multiplication facts, it would only show that students can solve a simple math problem. By asking students to solve word problems, it shows the teacher they can apply multiplication to real world questions. Also, these types of questions allow my teacher to assess how her students solve the problems. Because students are required to show their work, my teacher can see what approached her students take to answer the questions.

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