Changes

A Big Change in Attitude:

Perhaps, one of the biggest changes for me, besides teaching in a whole new way, is in how I will go about assessing and evaluating students’ achievement of the outcomes being taught. I believe that in a problem based approach, the traditional procedural, skill oriented testing approach does not match, as these types of assessment do not really give us a true indication of what children know or have learned. Therefore, I have decided to not assess my students using assignments, (procedural based) or tests. Van de Walle and Lovin (2006) suggests that” the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000) stress that the line between assessment and instruction should be blurred” (p.30). Teaching math through problems, in my mind, does just that. I will use other more holistic methods of assessing, such as observations, interviews, portfolios, journal writing and student work. Each day, I will collect anecdotal evidence of achievement in the form of a chart that identifies the student, date and observations. This information will be used to guide future instruction as well as achievement of outcomes. I will, when needed, sit with students, one-on-one and have informal interviews asking students to talk to me about what they are learning, noticing, and to explain how they have come to know something. Their portfolios and student work will be written evidence of their achievement. I will also periodically use self-assessment to see where students, themselves, think they are with their understanding of math and the approach. This self assessment may come in the form of journal writing where I will assess student understanding and how well students are handling the approach itself. This, for me, will be very important.