Adding Up Our Math Work!

November 21, 2013 | Posted in: Class Updates

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The boys and girls in room 209 have been working so hard on a variety of math skills.  We recently finished up the first math unit of the year, which started with place value and rounding skills and transitioned into multi-digit multiplication and long division with one-digit divisors.  To review for the assessment, we played a terrific Jeopardy game that Laura McDonnell (Gr. 4 at RBS) developed and shared with the district-wide gr. 4 team.  The kids had a fun time competing in a friendly game that prepared them for the lengthy assessment.

In class today, we reviewed the completed and graded assessments.  Students corrected their mistakes.  One common area in which students seemed to struggle was rounding numbers to a given place value.  (On the test, that’s items 15-18.) This is a common area in which students may have difficulty, and we will continue to work on these skills in class. Interpreting diagrams (item 22) was also a challenge for many students.

You will find that there is no percentage grade on the assessment.  I do this intentionally because I find that, on this particular kind of assessment, percentages give less information than section scores.  Consider the following example:

Imagine a class takes a 16 item assessment that is divided into four sections, each with four items.  If “Mary” gave one incorrect answer in each section, she would have a score of 12/16, or 75%.  Because Mary correctly solved most of the problems in each section, I would consider her to be making “good progress,” despite 75% being a traditionally lack-luster score.  If another student, “Bobby”  also scored 12/16 (75%), but had all four of his incorrect answers in a single section, it would indicate that there was one area in which he needed more intensive review and support.  Both kids received the same score of 75%, but their assessments yielded very different results.

Instead, I score each section (rows of problems) individually.  Your child can tell you how many points were possible for each item.  I will send home review packets for students who struggled in a variety of sections.

Please take a moment this evening to review your child’s math assessment before signing and returning it to me.  It is important that you return the math assessments to me so that I can keep them on-hand to review with you at the upcoming parent conferences and so I can use them as teaching tools down the road.

Starting last week, we began our second unit, which is a study of factors and multiples.  It’s hard to believe that we’re almost done with this unit!  We will finish the lessons next week and will review and test the week following Thanksgiving!