Formative Assessment in the Mathematics Classroom

While much attention has been given to summative assessment strategies, the awareness and practice of formative assessment techniques remains largely underemphasized. This course presents a wide range of strategies and rationales for using formative assessment to evaluate student understanding in the mathematics classroom and provides many opportunities for teachers to observe other teachers and reflect on their own practices.

Participants in this course:

• Examine the distinction between testing and assessment, and differentiate between the four different types of assessment
• Identify specific rationales and methods for conducting formative assessment
• Analyze the formative assessment strategies demonstrated by a selected group of teachers
• Explore the importance of writing to assess student thinking in mathematics
• Delve into some of the challenges associated both with assigning a grade to student work and with aggregating individual student performance into a profile of class understanding
• Compare class performance on a collection of given lessons with state and national standards

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