Assessment

One of the biggest challenges for me was getting my head around assessment. If I were to implement this Problem Solving approach in my class, how was I to assess student learning? I found from the last two years organization and thinking ahead are two essential ingredients to getting assessment done right. I found that I needed a way to track student achievement of individual outcomes as each student was at a different place at different times. I needed someway to monitor their progress as they worked through concepts and I needed some way to communicate all this to home.

The first year I collected every piece of work students completed and assessed each and every one. At that time I was still in a unit base mind set where I would have students solve problems based on a set unit of work. For example, students may for a month work on problems concentrating on measurement or fraction. I would then list all the outcomes completed in chart form and report on each one individually and identify what level of achievement the student accomplished. This was very time consuming and I found I was reporting on a lot of the same outcomes more than was needed. I also found that I was not communicating with home very often as it was taking a over a month, if not more to complete the unit of work.

Last year, I tried a similar approach but decided to not collect every piece of work. Instead, I gave students specific questions and tasks that would assess their understanding of the work they were completing. I used these one page tasks for their assessment of the unit work and found it less time consuming. However, I still had to complete the chart of outcomes and report on each one individually. During this year, I found by keeping on top of this work and reporting on the outcomes when I was sure a student had achieved instead of waiting for the unit of work to be completed, saved me a lot of time and torment. I like the chart form which lists the outcomes as it gives me and the parents an in-depth look at where their child is in terms of the curriculum. More importantly, it lets me see without a doubt where a child's needs are and guides me to providing them with the help they need.

This year, I am doing it differently again!