Assessment Design Checklist 2.0

I have add two new questions with evidence to my checklist. Check it out using the link below!

Assessment Design Checklist 2.0

Assessment Genre Critical Review

Identify an assessment genre. Discussion Assignment.

Explain the assessment genre. The assessment genre that I will be reviewing are called Discussion Assignments. Discussions are included in each math course that I teach, and depending on the course there are Discussion assignments approximately every other Unit. Discussion assignments can fall towards the beginning or middle of a unit. On average a course will have 3 discussion assignments per semester.

Discussion assignments include a discussion board where students will post their response to a question, and also respond to two other classmate’s posts. These assignments give students a chance to interact with each other while also giving students the opportunity to explain their understanding of math concepts and apply what they are learning to real world situations. Discussions allow myself to see into students thinking about certain math concepts and inform my teaching based on their understanding, and also provide students with feedback.

To give you a better picture of this assessment genre, here is an example of an Algebra 2 discussion question is “How do variables help you model real-world situations? Give an example of a model that uses variables and explain how it helps people make predictions.” Students will answer this question and then comment on two of their classmate’s posts.

Evaluate the assessment genre. Discussion assignments are really beneficial in a couple of ways. First, as I mentioned in my ADC 1.0, feedback is an important part of an assessment. Students not only receive feedback from myself on these discussion assignments, they also receive feedback from other students which I believe is just as valuable. Students will receive my feedback within 24 hours of posting their response, and they will receive feedback from their classmates at different times throughout the course as other student’s progress to the discussion assignment.

Discussion assignments are useful to inform my teaching because unlike a quiz or a test where I can see if students can solve problems correctly, discussions give me insight into how my students think about math concepts, what they understand and where there are misconceptions. I am able to gain this information from student’s answers to discussion questions, and also from student’s responses to each other. This is a great tool to inform my teaching because it truly provides me with insight about my student’s progress in the unit, and I can modify my instruction based on this understanding.

Discussion assignments are also formative because rather than falling at the end of a unit, they are towards the beginning or middle or a unit. They are not meant to sum up what a students has learned throughout the unit, they are meant to inform myself of where students are at with their learning in the unit. They are a progress check point to check students understanding and misconceptions as they are learning new material.

Provide a recommendation. 

I think it would be great if discussions happened more often throughout a course, for example once a unit. The types of questions that are asked on these assignments encourage students to think about their understanding of a concept and write it down in their own words. It is also great for students to be able to interact with their classmates on these assessments, and I believe that this should happen more often throughout the course.

Once a student posts a response to the discussion board, it is there for other students to see. This can sometimes create an issue because instead of students answering the question themselves, they check what other students have posted and use their classmate’s response to come up with their own. I think that it would be great if there was a way for the discussion board to be designed so that students are unable to see other student’s posts in the discussion board until they post their response. Once they submit their answer, access to the rest of the discussion board should be granted, and students can look at other student’s responses and make comments. I think that this would be helpful for students so that they can truly think about the question and come up with their answer without being influenced by what other students have already said.

Another recommendation I have for these assignments is to notify students when their classmates comment on their post. Once a student completes a discussion by submitting their answer and responding to their classmates, they have to remember to come back to the discussion board and check for their classmates responses. I often see that students move on and don’t remember to come back, and I think if students received a notification when something was added to their post it would be really helpful. Students seeing their classmate’s comments is beneficial for their learning, and a small reminder when this happens would go a long way in students being able to use discussion assignments to promote understanding.

Consider digital contexts. As an online teacher, these assignments are designed in a digital context. It is really neat to see students who live in different areas of the country and who have never met each other interact virtually through these discussion boards. Discussion assessments are designed with good intent, and I think that they could be even more beneficial if the features I mentioned in my recommendations could be added to their design.

Assessment Design Checklist 1.0

Use the link below to view the first two questions on my Assessment Design Checklist. When designing new assessments, it is important to ask myself these two questions, and also to reflect on the evidence of understanding to ensure that my assessments are formative and instructive to my teaching and student learning.

Assessment Design Checklist 1.0

Formative Assessment Design 1.0

Consider an assessment you could use in your professional context. For this assignment, I would like to revise a portfolio assignment that is used as part of the curriculum in Math 6 courses. The instructions on this portfolio can be confusing for students, and I often receive questions from students about what to do for this portfolio and how to complete it. I would like to revise this portfolio in order to make it easier for students to understand while still assessing them on the concepts discussed below.

Identify the purpose of your assessment. There are a couple of objectives for this assignment. First, it will assess whether students are able to calculate the area of a circle given the length of the diameter, and if students are able to calculate the area of rectangles and squares. Students will have to use critical thinking in order to create dimensions for a rectangle or square so that it has an area that meets the requirements of this assignment. Students ability to divide will also be assessed in this portfolio. This portfolio will be assigned to students during the review lesson before the Unit Test on Geometry and Measurement.

Name and describe the assessment you have in mind. This portfolio will be called "Create a Pizza Portfolio". Students will be given an example of a circular pizza with its dimensions that is sold at a pizza store, and also the dimensions of the box that it fits in. Students will have to create their own pizza that is a different shape, and show that it is approximately the same area as the given circular pizza, show that it will fit in the given box, and lastly show that it can be cut into 8-12 equal-sized pieces. This assessment will give students the opportunity be apply their skills to a real world situation to encourage higher order thinking.

Write instructions for this assessment. Below are the instructions I have created for students for this assignment. They may change as I continue to build and create this portfolio.

Directions: A large pizza at Tony's Pizzeria is a circle with a 14-inch diameter. Its box is a rectangular prism that is 14 1/8 inches long, 14 1/8 inches wide, and 1 3/4 inches tall. Your job is to design a new shape for a large pizza. For this portfolio you will:

1) Create a representation of your design that includes measurements.
2) Prove mathematically, using appropriate formulas, that your design is approximately the same area as Tony's large pizza.
3) Show that your pizza will fit in the box.
4) Prove that your pizza can be cut into 8-12 equal-sized pieces.

Annotated Assessment Exemplar

Algebra 2 Solving Equations Quick Check

1. How would you describe the design of this assessment? This assignment is called a Quick Check, it is a 5 point multiple choice assessment presented at the end of a lesson on solving equations.
2. What is the purpose of the assessment? The purpose of this assessment is to gather information about the skills that students have learned during this lesson and how well they are able to apply those skills to solve problems.
3. What assumptions have you made about this assessment? This assessment is appropriate for learning whether students are able to work through a problem from start to finish correctly and are able to get the right answer. This assessment is not appropriate for gathering information about the steps students take to solve a problem, and specifically what they did correctly and where mistakes were made.
4. Compare the assessment to the "three things you believe." I do believe that this assessment is compatible with my belief that assessments should be done frequently, because this is a short assignment to assess students math skills after a single lesson. Although this assessment doesn't offer much in terms of interacting with students, seeing their work and getting a good idea of their understanding, it is an asynchronous tool that can be very informative for a teacher to see where their students are at after a lesson.
5. Compare the assessment to the Module 1 material. To answer this question, the following statement in the Learn section of this module under social constructivism came to mind: "Well, if learning is an active and social process of meaning making that is influenced by a range of contextual and affective variables, it would seem that our approach to assessing what has been learned should be much more complex and multifaceted than a single test." I do think that this quick check is a great assessment tool, however I also believe that it needs to be combined with other methods for assessing student knowledge in order to truly learn what math skills students possess.