FLASHNERJOURNAL5

Maggie Flashner EDC 452 - Dr. Adamy 2/23/09

Today my teacher drilled students on their division facts. She has turned it into a game, where students respond individually while moving to predetermined spots around the room. If a student can get all the way around the room without missing any division problems then they get their name displayed on a list and receive a deck of division flash cards. While I understand the students should know division facts, I don’t think this is the best way to assess what your students know. Students participate individually in front of the whole class. I do not think she intended to humiliate students, however I feel that if a student misses a problem in front of the whole class they might feel embarrassed. I know if I was learning something new, I would not want to be orally quizzed on it in front of the whole class. Additionally, because names get displayed on a list that everyone can see, it causes unnecessary competition among students. This assessment is also not a form of authentic assessment. It is simply assessing if students can recite their division facts. But there is no application to the real world. Instead of using this form of assessment, my cooperating teacher could have her students apply division to real world scenarios, similar to questions she had on her math assessment. For example, she could have her class use division to divide a recipe in half.

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