Maths Discussion Forum (Assessment)

 Marie Hirst discussed the purpose of each assessment: 

JAM - Multi-strand - Non-standardised

GLOSS - Mental number strategies - results are subjective, but it creates lots of opportunities to talk to the students and hear what they are thinking. It was not designed as an end of year test. Non-standardised

IKAN - Timed test - trying to see if students know the facts or whether they are using strategy. Valuable as a formative assessment. You could scribe for students. Non-standardised

Lomas Test - Non-standardised

ARBS - Non-standardised

e-AsTTle - Standardised

PAT - Standardised

Additional information: 

GLOSS: Problems needs to be solved mentally, you could ask, can you do it in another way? You need to give the students time. If in doubt, continue with the interview to see if the students can cope. 

What if the strategy is right, but the answer is wrong? The expectation is that the answer should be right, you could give another example.  When students solve with an algorithm, ask them to solve it in a different way, or ask them to explain the algorithm. 

Do not use pen and paper accept if they got the answer right but struggles to explain how they got to the answer. ELL students might need a different test. 

Students need to practice Basic Facts. 

Modelling books could be digital. 

Number Talk (Jo Boaler) silent strategy practice. 

What stood out for me? 

It was really helpful to get an understanding of the purpose of each test and how to apply them. 

Next step: Developing using Number Talk in my class, looking into Jo Bouler's strategies. FIne tuning how I use the GLOSS as an assessment tool. Using ARBS as an assessment tool especially for strand.