Thursday, August 23, 2012

What an Assessment Looks Like for SBG

We are on week two of the math blogger initiative and one of the prompts this week is to share one worksheet/assessment/etc.  Since my last post was on how we grade using a rubric, and I referenced how we format our assessments I thought this would be a good time to share one.  Obviously I don't want to post an exact assessment as my students may read this!  Instead I have posted a review worksheet, which is virtually the same as the exam.  The level 2 and 3 questions will simply have different numbers/values.  I tell my students that level 4 can be anything related to the outcome, so these two questions are simply sample level 4 questions. 

N9.1A Reassessment Binder Review


You will notice that we include the rubric on the assessment.  We feel this is important as the students are then asked to reflect on their learning when the assessment is returned.    The rubric will help them to see what they know and what they still need to work on. 

We have also decided to be transparent in the level of each question.  What this does is ease the student into the assessment.  If you put a difficult question at the start (which I have done in the past!) you may increase the anxiety of students and some may not be able to continue even though there will be questions they know.  Some people might worry that students will only answer the level 2 and then quit.  This happens very rarely in my experience.  Because we focus on learning and improving, most want to do as well as they can and they realize there is no punishment in simply trying.  This format also makes it really easy to score!  We are currently working on re-formatting all of our assessments this way.

1 comment:

  1. Carey,
    This post is timed perfectly! I had decided to sort my test questions similar to how you are doing. I also like the reminder to ease the students into the level 4 questions, rather than slamming them by putting those questions at the beginning of the test. Thanks for the ideas and reminders!!

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