EDUC 659 Methods of Teaching Middle School Math Tom Gebbie

Module 5 - Act 3 - Personal Reflection - Assessment 11/13/2018

When teachers and students think about assessments, they usually think of tests and quizzes. Usually, a

student takes a test and it is graded by the teacher, then it is returned with points taken off without comment.

This is probably the reality in many classrooms. Students have virtually no role in the evaluation of their work.

Getting students involved in the evaluation can take on many forms. Below, I will outline some ideas for

student-peer and self-reflection that I hope to implement and become common practice in my classroom.

Bay-Williams, Karp and Van de Walle give many reasons for students to look at worked examples from peers.

They reference many studies that state that this practice will help “improve student procedural and conceptual

knowledge” and “can bring to light alternative solutions [and] common errors/misconceptions” (p 68). This is a

way to get the students involved in the evaluation of mathematics. There are many ways to address this need

and some ideas that I have read about or seen in action are My Favorite No (MFN) and Desmos Activity

Builder. These are formal systems or technologies that help foster peer mathematics conversation.

Secondly, the evaluation of work can also include self-reflection. Bay-Williams, Karp and Van de Walle state

that when “students analyze their own mistakes” their “understanding moves from a performance orientation to

a mastery orientation” (p 98). Students could be given time in class to use rubrics to self-assess their work.

It is my hope that I can blend MFN (student-peer critique) and a rubric (self-reflection) in my classroom. This

might start with students working on a “low-floor high-ceiling” task. They would be given time to work on the

problem on their own. The teacher would select one anonymous student's solution from the class and have the

class examine it using a rubric with their team (a group of three). The class would then share what they thought

worked well and areas for improvement. Then students would be asked to analyze their own work using the

same rubric. I imagine that this would all take some time depending on the complexity of the task.
Having more student-peer and self-reflection is best practice in today's classroom. This, along with

problem-based curriculum tasks, would help foster the skills to help students “survive our complex economy

and our changing environment” (Bay-Williams, p. 2), where students need to be more equipped to troubleshoot

and problem solve.

References

Bay-Williams J, Karp K, Van de Walle J. (2019) Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching

Developmentally (10th Edition): Pearson.

“My Favorite No: Learning From Mistakes”. ​Teaching Channel​. 20 November 2018,

https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/class-warm-up-routine

“Explore Math with Desmos.” Desmos Graphing Calculator, www.desmos.com/.