Rationale Behind My Revised Assessments
As you view my revised assessments, you will notice that the majority of my assessments are objective and formative. I want my quizzes and projects to be used as assessments for learning, instead of assessments of learning, as they previously were. I have come to understand that when my students were assigned a grade on their quizzes they rarely chose to correct their mistakes, focusing solely on the grade, not the understanding. Also, I have had an unusual amount of students struggling over material – some not being challenged enough, some feeling too challenged. Over the course of this semester, I have revised my assessments to a) focus on learning from the quizzes and projects and b) differentiating question difficulty in hopes of addressing the correct ability level of all my students. At the beginning of this project, differentiating formal assessments to help all ability levels was my primary goal. As the semester advanced and my teaching and grading philosophies evolved, this project also started to focus on using quizzes for more than just a grade. By providing feedback only I soon realized how the mentality and work ethic of my students’ had changed for the better.
M&M Exponential Growth Activity
The aim of this lab was for students to model exponential growth (and/or decay) using M&M’s and then write their own model. Last year the lab did not go very well because the directions for finding the percent change were difficult to understand and the students were allowed to pick their own partners. Now knowing that unclear directions are a factor of an invalid assessment, I did not want to exclude this lab from the curriculum because I felt that it had a lot of value and it would help my diverse learners because it reinforced a concept using a real-life example. Therefore, this year I had to change a lot.
First, I chose to include technology; students were asked to find the equation using both percent change and their graphing calculators. Most partners got approximately the same equation and if they did not, they were allowed time to self-reflect and find their own mistake. I also predetermined partners because I wanted to match low/middle students and middle/high students together. I found that this method worked very well because I was then able to differentiate my level of questioning as I walked from group to group. Students were asked to complete the lab for homework and I led a class discussion the following day summing up the labs objective. Students were then given time to correct any remaining mistakes. The lab was graded on completion (15 points). Students were then held accountable for the methods used in the lab on the chapter 8 test, where they were asked to find an exponential growth model using given data.
Quiz 8.1-8.3
Exponents always have been difficult for my students so I decided that because mastering the 8.1-8.3 objectives were essential for student understanding I was going to grade the quiz solely with feedback, a concept suggest by Black in “Working inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom.” Unlike last year, where I graded the quiz for accuracy, this year my students did not earn points until they had corrected each problem. The quiz was worth 20 points and all corrections had to be made before the chapter 8 test; if corrections were not 100% correct before then, they earned 0 points (all students earned the 20 points). The grading procedure was explained to students before and after the quiz. The feedback on the process was positive and my students expressed that it “forced them to actually learn it.”
Quiz 8.4-8.6 (vAB and vBC)
Last years quiz had only one version and no point values were provided. I also felt that some of the test items were inappropriate for outcomes being measured because they were very basic. This old assessment did not require any higher level thinking. I felt that my honors-level students would not learn from this assessment. I chose to make two different versions – AB and BC. Our Algebra 1 book comes with chapter resources and each section has three practices – A, B and C – which increase with difficulty. I decided to differentiate two versions with differing difficulty. In general, students with B’s or below received version AB and students with a high B or higher received version BC. For example an of differentiation, on version AB, question 9 asked students to determine the initial amount from a word problem while version BC asked students to determine both the initial amount and the rate of decay. On this quiz students were assigned a grade because we did not have enough time between the quiz and chapter test for corrections. I also felt that this held students accountable for their grade so they would still find it valuable to study for a quiz.
Chapter 11 Pre-test
Chapter 11 concepts include simplifying radicals, solving radical expressions, Pythagorean theorem, distance formula and midpoint formula. I wanted to give my students a pre-test to assess what they remembered of these concepts. I knew that they had never simplified radicals before but I did know that the Pythagorean theorem, distance formula and midpoint formulas were taught in our district’s pre-algebra curriculum. We insert a portion of chapter 11 just before spring break and I always find myself pressed for time. I created the pre-test with basic questions about the aforementioned concepts we would be covering this chapter. I assigned the pre-test for homework and simply told my students “answer each question to the best of your ability.” My goal was to determine to what extent I would have to start explaining simplifying radicals and to what extent my students remembered using the distance and midpoint formulas. By providing the distance and midpoint formulas, I was hoping that students would remember how to use them but I was clearly wrong. We graded the pre-test in class – right or wrong – and I looked over the students work. I quickly realized that I could not skip any explanations; I would be starting from the beginning explaining each and every topic.
I felt defeated because the pre-test did not help me; I was going to teach the same level of material just as I had done in the previous years. After talking with some of my co-workers about what I could change, I decided to still use the pre-tests as a tool for learning. Two days before the quest I handed the students back their pre-tests and they all exclaimed “This is so easy now!” We spent a few minutes discussing what they have learned this chapter – they were surprised at the amount of new material they had learned in such a short period of time (only one and half weeks).
Quiz 11.2 (vAB and vBC)
The old quiz did not provide any differentiation and it was graded for a score. After the resounding positive feedback from the feedback-only grading method, I chose to still differentiate this quiz but only grade for feedback. By differentiating the quiz, it gave lower-level students the opportunity to master the section objectives and feel confident in their work. My honors-level students were not given an opportunity to be challenged. Both groups of students worked hard to achieve the desired answers but I found it great that both groups of students stayed motivated and used this quiz as a tool for understanding.
Chapter 11 Quest
This quest (only 55 points) was my formal, criterion-referenced assessment which asked my students to demonstrate their knowledge of sections 11.2-11.4. Hoping that my students reflected and corrected their mistakes on their pre-test, I added questions from the pre-test – some identical, some similar. I used the same directions from the pre-test and quizzes in hopes of creating a valid assessment. To decrease the ambiguity of directions and check for inadequate time, I asked a co-worker to take the quest along with me. I made a few minor clarifications from this. As I’ve expressed before, I found that students often spend too much time on the multiple choice. I adjusted the multiple choice to be a quicker problem and #6 on the quest was the most commonly missed question on the 11.2 quiz.
M&M Exponential Growth Activity
The aim of this lab was for students to model exponential growth (and/or decay) using M&M’s and then write their own model. Last year the lab did not go very well because the directions for finding the percent change were difficult to understand and the students were allowed to pick their own partners. Now knowing that unclear directions are a factor of an invalid assessment, I did not want to exclude this lab from the curriculum because I felt that it had a lot of value and it would help my diverse learners because it reinforced a concept using a real-life example. Therefore, this year I had to change a lot.
First, I chose to include technology; students were asked to find the equation using both percent change and their graphing calculators. Most partners got approximately the same equation and if they did not, they were allowed time to self-reflect and find their own mistake. I also predetermined partners because I wanted to match low/middle students and middle/high students together. I found that this method worked very well because I was then able to differentiate my level of questioning as I walked from group to group. Students were asked to complete the lab for homework and I led a class discussion the following day summing up the labs objective. Students were then given time to correct any remaining mistakes. The lab was graded on completion (15 points). Students were then held accountable for the methods used in the lab on the chapter 8 test, where they were asked to find an exponential growth model using given data.
Quiz 8.1-8.3
Exponents always have been difficult for my students so I decided that because mastering the 8.1-8.3 objectives were essential for student understanding I was going to grade the quiz solely with feedback, a concept suggest by Black in “Working inside the Black Box: Assessment for Learning in the Classroom.” Unlike last year, where I graded the quiz for accuracy, this year my students did not earn points until they had corrected each problem. The quiz was worth 20 points and all corrections had to be made before the chapter 8 test; if corrections were not 100% correct before then, they earned 0 points (all students earned the 20 points). The grading procedure was explained to students before and after the quiz. The feedback on the process was positive and my students expressed that it “forced them to actually learn it.”
Quiz 8.4-8.6 (vAB and vBC)
Last years quiz had only one version and no point values were provided. I also felt that some of the test items were inappropriate for outcomes being measured because they were very basic. This old assessment did not require any higher level thinking. I felt that my honors-level students would not learn from this assessment. I chose to make two different versions – AB and BC. Our Algebra 1 book comes with chapter resources and each section has three practices – A, B and C – which increase with difficulty. I decided to differentiate two versions with differing difficulty. In general, students with B’s or below received version AB and students with a high B or higher received version BC. For example an of differentiation, on version AB, question 9 asked students to determine the initial amount from a word problem while version BC asked students to determine both the initial amount and the rate of decay. On this quiz students were assigned a grade because we did not have enough time between the quiz and chapter test for corrections. I also felt that this held students accountable for their grade so they would still find it valuable to study for a quiz.
Chapter 11 Pre-test
Chapter 11 concepts include simplifying radicals, solving radical expressions, Pythagorean theorem, distance formula and midpoint formula. I wanted to give my students a pre-test to assess what they remembered of these concepts. I knew that they had never simplified radicals before but I did know that the Pythagorean theorem, distance formula and midpoint formulas were taught in our district’s pre-algebra curriculum. We insert a portion of chapter 11 just before spring break and I always find myself pressed for time. I created the pre-test with basic questions about the aforementioned concepts we would be covering this chapter. I assigned the pre-test for homework and simply told my students “answer each question to the best of your ability.” My goal was to determine to what extent I would have to start explaining simplifying radicals and to what extent my students remembered using the distance and midpoint formulas. By providing the distance and midpoint formulas, I was hoping that students would remember how to use them but I was clearly wrong. We graded the pre-test in class – right or wrong – and I looked over the students work. I quickly realized that I could not skip any explanations; I would be starting from the beginning explaining each and every topic.
I felt defeated because the pre-test did not help me; I was going to teach the same level of material just as I had done in the previous years. After talking with some of my co-workers about what I could change, I decided to still use the pre-tests as a tool for learning. Two days before the quest I handed the students back their pre-tests and they all exclaimed “This is so easy now!” We spent a few minutes discussing what they have learned this chapter – they were surprised at the amount of new material they had learned in such a short period of time (only one and half weeks).
Quiz 11.2 (vAB and vBC)
The old quiz did not provide any differentiation and it was graded for a score. After the resounding positive feedback from the feedback-only grading method, I chose to still differentiate this quiz but only grade for feedback. By differentiating the quiz, it gave lower-level students the opportunity to master the section objectives and feel confident in their work. My honors-level students were not given an opportunity to be challenged. Both groups of students worked hard to achieve the desired answers but I found it great that both groups of students stayed motivated and used this quiz as a tool for understanding.
Chapter 11 Quest
This quest (only 55 points) was my formal, criterion-referenced assessment which asked my students to demonstrate their knowledge of sections 11.2-11.4. Hoping that my students reflected and corrected their mistakes on their pre-test, I added questions from the pre-test – some identical, some similar. I used the same directions from the pre-test and quizzes in hopes of creating a valid assessment. To decrease the ambiguity of directions and check for inadequate time, I asked a co-worker to take the quest along with me. I made a few minor clarifications from this. As I’ve expressed before, I found that students often spend too much time on the multiple choice. I adjusted the multiple choice to be a quicker problem and #6 on the quest was the most commonly missed question on the 11.2 quiz.
