Formative Assessment Lessons are intended to support teachers in formative assessment. They both reveal and develop students’ understanding of key mathematical ideas and applications. These lessons enable teachers and students to monitor in more detail their progress towards the targets of the standards. They assess students’ understanding of important concepts and problem solving performance, and help teachers and their students to work effectively together to move each student’s mathematical reasoning forward.
Five Strategies of Formative Assessment
1. Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success
2. Engineering effective discussion, questions, activities, and tasks that elicit evidence of learning
3. Providing feedback that moves students forward
4. Activating students as instructional resources for one another
5. Activating students as owners of their own learning
Marnie Thompson and Dylan Wiliam
Two Types of Formative Assessment Lessons
There are two types of Formative Assessment Lessons. Both are anchored in the content described in the standards, focusing on the mathematical practices that are the major new challenge in the CCSSM. The two complementary types are:
Concept Development Lessons which help students and teachers realize the CCSSM requirement that “Proficient students expect mathematics to make sense.” These lessons are designed to reveal and develop students’ conceptions, and misconceptions, of significant mathematical ideas and how these connect to their other knowledge.
Problem Solving Lessons which help students and teachers also realize the CCSSM requirement that “They take an active stance in solving mathematical problems.” These lessons are designed to assess and develop students’ capacity to apply their mathematics flexibly to non-routine unstructured problems, both from the real world and within pure mathematics.
Thus, the concept development lessons focus on assessing and developing conceptual understanding, while the problem solving lessons will focus on the application of previously learned mathematics to non-routine problems. The lessons are built around rich tasks that assess how far students can “think with mathematics”. Both sets of lessons will help teachers to reveal, examine and then consolidate their students’ often-fragile learning, and thus to advance their performance in mathematics.
Five Strategies of Formative Assessment
1. Clarifying and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success
2. Engineering effective discussion, questions, activities, and tasks that elicit evidence of learning
3. Providing feedback that moves students forward
4. Activating students as instructional resources for one another
5. Activating students as owners of their own learning
Marnie Thompson and Dylan Wiliam
Two Types of Formative Assessment Lessons
There are two types of Formative Assessment Lessons. Both are anchored in the content described in the standards, focusing on the mathematical practices that are the major new challenge in the CCSSM. The two complementary types are:
Concept Development Lessons which help students and teachers realize the CCSSM requirement that “Proficient students expect mathematics to make sense.” These lessons are designed to reveal and develop students’ conceptions, and misconceptions, of significant mathematical ideas and how these connect to their other knowledge.
Problem Solving Lessons which help students and teachers also realize the CCSSM requirement that “They take an active stance in solving mathematical problems.” These lessons are designed to assess and develop students’ capacity to apply their mathematics flexibly to non-routine unstructured problems, both from the real world and within pure mathematics.
Thus, the concept development lessons focus on assessing and developing conceptual understanding, while the problem solving lessons will focus on the application of previously learned mathematics to non-routine problems. The lessons are built around rich tasks that assess how far students can “think with mathematics”. Both sets of lessons will help teachers to reveal, examine and then consolidate their students’ often-fragile learning, and thus to advance their performance in mathematics.