Performance Based Assessment in Math Class
Comments(3) I think it is really important for math teachers to include performance based methods of assessment in their math class in order to show students a different side of math than what I think many people are used to. Using these types of assessment techniques are often great for showing students how math can relate to the real world and also allows them to have some fun when using math.
While on my short practicum, I did an activity with my Math 8 class where they were given a menu from a restaurant that I had created and were asked to choose one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert and then calculate the tax and tip on the items as a part of their assessment for the calculating percents unit. My SA does a similar activity with his classes where he brings in Best Buy flyers and the students are given a certain amount of money to spend but they must add PST and GST into their calculations. Given more time, I think that a project like this could be further expanded to have the students have to calculate what a restaurant should charge for each dish if they were given the cost of the ingredients and told that they should make a certain percent profit for each dish.
Activities like these are often fun and help students remember the concepts and procedures a lot better by helping to cement them in their minds. However, I think that it is important to recognize that certain types of questions on a typically formatted math test can also help to evaluate students’ understandings of concepts at a deeper level. When many people think of math, and the textbook alludes to this as well, they think of the rigid, black or white, one answer only type of question that have frequented math tests and texts. I believe that it is important for teachers to include open ended questions that require students to think at a deeper level and show a complex understanding of concepts in their assessments in order to properly assess learning. This is an idea that I think is becoming very popular in math classes nowadays and I think can help evaluate students in the same way as the performance based assessments because they require a very similar form of thinking.
As a teacher, I am to use plenty of performance based assessments and open ended questioning to try to help my students to the greatest of my ability.
I think your post highlights an excellent idea to include in math classes. Through using real-life applications such as purchasing items and calculating the appropriate surcharges, students not only learn financial skills but also learn the corresponding language. Students can learn specific terminology (GST, PST, tips, environmental handling fee, etc.), as well as the conventions around them (how much each surcharge may cost). This kind of knowledge can be considered a form of cultural capital that is especially important for ELLs who may come from a different background.
Another benefit of this kind of activity is that it allows students to work in pairs or groups and talk about the decisions they make and the problem solving steps they take. Furthermore, listening to students verbally work out which items they want to purchase and how much the total cost will be can be an easier way to formatively assess whether students are understanding the material, in comparison to marking textbook equations or word problems. Overall, I think this is an effective activity for assessment and a good way to engage students in what may typically be thought of as a boring subject.
I like your project idea and I want to use it for my long practicum since I will be teaching two classes of Grade 8. I agree that this kind of class activity makes students understand better because it is related to real-life applications. I tutored a student in Grade 8, who was confused with the concept of the calculating percent unit. Even a simple question like “10% of 150 is how much?,” she was struggling. Surprisingly, as I explained how to calculate tips, she understood better since she knew how to pay tips at restaurants. Also, I totally agree with you that “it is important for teachers to include open ended questions that require students to think at a deeper level and show a complex understanding of concepts in their assessments in order to properly assess learning.” During my short practicum, I found an interesting fact: most students solved the given equations right when they followed the steps a teacher had shown. However, when they were given the same problem in a word form instead of equations, they mostly failed to solve the problems since they didn’t know how to derive an equation from the information that was given in the question. Moreover, students tended to avoid answering open-ended questions like “why” and “how” when they solved the questions from the text book. Even though they can often get good enough marks by just solving equations, I believe they hadn’t really understood the concepts they were taught if they don’t know how to solve related word problems and answer open-ended questions.
Whoop, math party up in here!
As future math teachers, I think we can all agree that many math classrooms put too much emphasis on the answer. While it’s true that math is a more objective subject because there are definite answers, there are many many different ways to approach and solve problems and I think we should foster that idea in our students. Last Tuesday, I visited my placement and taught for a bit. While trying to go through the steps, one student presented a correct approach that completely took not just me, but my SA by surprise! I was actually really happy when this happened haha.
I think if we put more emphasis on performance based assessment, students would recognize this and then focus on their performance and not just on finding the answer through magic formulas that simply work. We’ve all experienced or seen somebody, who was fairly solid in following steps, get completely demolished by a question only because it was slightly different to which they were accustomed.