Teacher, Learner, Writer, Reflector. Unravelling (Math) Assessment and Grading. Proud supporter of having kids be part of the assessment conversation.
Niverville, Manitoba
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What if our rubrics were wheels instead of linear progressions that give the impression of learning coming to an end? A colleague brought me this idea and I can’t stop thinking about it.
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I hated math as a student. I love math as an adult — I found out the secret that math is slow and winding and contemplative and creative.
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Let's please stop giving math a 'real world context' or telling our students that they'll need it 'in the real world'. Instead, let's make it meaningful right now, to the learners in our room.
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Gatekeepers in the math world.
1. Fractions.
2. Memorized math facts.
3. Long division.
What else?
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I was in my 30s when I discovered school math was not the same as mathematics. How old were you?
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One of the most harmful assessment practices happening in the math classroom is the grading of practice/homework. If it's for learning, if you just taught it, you shouldn't be grading it.
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This is your friendly reminder that you don’t need to have a fancy door or coordinated bulletin boards to create a classroom of joy, of growth, of learning.
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Can we please stop holding the memorization of math facts as being the end all and be all of mathematics success? K, thanks.
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It’s hard to face the truth that my classroom is more about compliance than I want it to be.
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Grades are about compliance. Full stop. How do we make our classrooms about learning instead?
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Unpopular hot take: we need to stop with percentage grades. Esp on tests. Also, let’s stop with high stakes assessments while we’re at it.
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I’m very intentional about how I start my classes. But I admit, I’m less intentional about how I end them.
What are your most effective end of class routines?
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Learners NEED assessment, but they don’t need grades. Assessment is how we help our students move forward. Grades just stop learning from continuing.
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If we took away “grades”, would your learners take on the challenges you’re giving to them?
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The longer I teach, the more I realize I haven't figured it out yet. This, my friends, is not a bad thing.
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Found this sticky note I’d made into a bookmark. Thoughts? #inquiryclassroom #iteachmath
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Because in some ways, we’ve replaced teaching with this routine of assigning tasks, grading tasks and handing back tasks. This is what teaching has become. It’s time to change this, and embrace what teaching really is: helping the humans in our care flourish.
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Elsewhere here there is conversation about 'rounding' up grades.
Here's the thing -- we are not robots. There is no way your grading is accurate to a tenth of a percentage point.
Just because it's a number doesn't make it objective.
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I experienced a lot of direct, explicit instruction. I was an A student. I memorized the steps, and was paralyzed as a problem-solver. In other words, I did math without understanding math, right into university. It's one of the greatest tragedies of my schooling career.
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We teach growth mindset.
And yet our assessment then focuses on and punishes mistakes.
It’s time for a better way. We can’t teach growth mindset and assess from a deficit mindset.
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Can I hand out stickers that say “I don’t think you’re assessing what you think you are assessing”? Probably not, right?
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On way to school today. My daughter's friend:
"We started a new unit. Adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. You don't have to understand it, you can just do it. "
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We can’t teach “growth mindset” and then assess based on what a learner can’t do.
Assessment must be asset-based.
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It’s time for times table memorization to cease being the gatekeeper into the truth of mathematics.
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My kind of rubric. #assetbasedassessment
🌟 Reframe rubrics to be growth-oriented, describe learning progressions and encourage progress over perfection. Empower a growth mindset by focusing on what students can do. #EdTech 📈 #LeadInclusion 🌱
ALT Chalkboard.
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This year, I want a better answer for the "why does this matter?" question students ask. I mean, let's be honest -- far too often the answer is, "because you'll need it next year."
Not good enough.
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Why do people think that having an inquiry-minded classroom means I just 'let my students discover things for themselves'?
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Our role as educators is not content delivery. It’s to design learning experiences to develop learners.
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Um….just got accepted to present at NCTM Los Angeles. #what
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Sometimes, I feel the weight of all the things my learners are carrying and I wonder -- why does any of this content matter when my students are hurting so much?
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Unpopular opinion: I don't want my students to master tasks. I want my students to master learning.
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Unpopular Opinion: I’m doing away with tests in my math classroom. deanofmath.wordpress.com/202…
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Let’s be clear— it’s not our job to do all the thinking in the classroom. It’s our job to create the conditions for thinking to take place.
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Can’t stop thinking of ways I want my math classes to be different, better, more inquiry based, authentic assessment. Send help.
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Every time I hear one of my kids say they hate math, I die a little inside. They don’t know yet that they don’t hate math, they hate how it has made them feel.
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Unpopular opinion 1: Kids don’t need to memorize their multiplication facts. deanofmath.wordpress.com/202…
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Our assessment tools need to reflect the nuance and spiral layers of the learning process. #edchat #assessment #mtbos
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Totally ditched my lesson midway when I realized students were not ready for where I was trying to go.
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If the assessment doesn't inform your teaching practice or inform your student's learning, there is no point in giving it. I said it.
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Can someone please explain this wave of “Science of….”? Science of reading? Science of math? Science of learning?
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Kids don't start out needing a grade for motivation. We teach them that. Somewhere along the line, this is what the system tells them: don't do it if you don't get something for it.
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An assessment should be an opportunity for a learner to get feedback on what they can do, not a punishment.
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Dear world, “Discovery learning” is not a thing. Using inquiry or PBL does not mean that students are just left to their own devices. It’s a highly intentional approach that involves a great deal of
planning, assessing and growing.
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"If I don't grade it, they won't do it."
What if, and hear me out here, the problem is with the task the students are being asked to do, and not with the students?
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If you were going to teach a hs level course about the history of mathematics and mathematical thinking, what would you include?
(For reals, I'm planning on pitching this as a course next year at the high school I work at as a combined math and ELA credit.)
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What if we focused our assessments on what students can do, where they need to go next, and then created a plan to get there?
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Let’s let go of school. Let’s bring back storytelling and curiosity and wonder. #codebreaker #unravelschool
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Learning happened today.
We didn't sit in desks.
No one took notes.
There is no homework.
I didn't mark anything.
But there was collaboration, creativity, risk taking and problem-solving. There was self-assessment and peer feedback. Sounds like my dream.
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What if.....our classrooms were known as studios? How does changing the name change what happens in the space?
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Had a student tell me that they don't like my class because I "make them think about stuff and that isn't what math is about.". #directquote
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Hot take: The point of math education should be about developing curious, critical thinkers.
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Working on my presentation for the Virtual Math Conference organized by @howie_hua this weekend. It’s a stellar line up. And it’s free. Join us!
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In my inquiry based math classroom, students are not just thrown into the pool and expected to swim. Rather, they are presented with intentionally designed and scaffold learning tasks that ask them to engage with their prior knowledge as they seek to build new knowledge.
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Math class shouldn’t be about copying teacher thinking. That’s hands on but minds off.
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Unpopular opinion: Learning should be challenging.
If they can already do what I’m asking them to do, I’m not doing my job.
It shouldn’t always be easy.
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I used to tell my students that 'everything they did was part of their grade.' But now my classroom is about dialogue and feedback and developing learning. Everything is not about the grade. Everything is not PART of the grade. The Grade is not the point.
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There is no reason why high school math can’t be as creative as elementary and middle years math.
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It's time to start teaching for the long view of learning, and not the short view of achievement.
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What would happen if, instead of this forced curriculum, students came to school to learn about learning, and then we let them guide their own learning, weaving in and out of ideas and subjects as they needed?
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Have we equated rigour in math class to mean hard, and boring? What does rigour actually look like? Feel like?
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The math that matters is not about real life, it’s about wonder, joy, creativity and connection. It’s about story.
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Inquiry in my math classroom doesn't mean students just blindly wander around hoping to "discover" something. It's an intentional wondering and noticing, exploring, and learning with teaching woven in at the right moment.
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My daughter used to be a risk taker. When did she stop? When she started school. School, as a system, is set up to reinforce rewarding what you’re “good at”. Rewards, points, grades. They’re all the same.
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Further signs we need change:
S: "why am I doing all this work if people who are doing no work are getting the same result (grade) as me?"
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A 'grade' must represent what a student knows. If they haven't handed anything in, it's not a 0. You don't actually know what they know.
If we accept the premise that grades must represent 💡student learning💡, we must question the common use of ZEROS to address behaviors such as
🔴cheating
🔴missing work
🔴late work
These behaviors are NOT ok. But they can't be addressed w/ grades IF grades 🟰 learning.
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