A Journey with Self-Assessment

            as a Compass

                        © 1995, 1998, 2001, 2016, A. Azzolino

CONTINUE TO ASSESS YOUR POSITION AND DESTINATION SO YOUR DIRECTION MAY BE MODIFIED.

      Once a direction is determined, the instructor's choice of verbs directs student activity and sends a loud message to students about what skills are important.

      The challenge is to determine the most appropriate direction and choice of verbs.

• If you desire flexibility in thought on the part of your students, increase the variety of ways in which you ask them to think, increase the variety of verbs.
• If you desire students to master higher order thinking skills, experiment with the use of higher order verbs.
  • Take an old test and rewrite parts of it by replacing a lower order skill with a higher order skill.
  • In lecture, pose thought provoking questions and demonstrate how one might go about answering them.
• If you feel students should be communicating more, provide more opportunities for this to occur:
  • ask students to pair up so they always have a designated individual with whom to discuss work;
  • ask them to compare answers after each problem;
  • ask one student to explain work to another student, to a small group, or to the entire class (either from the seat or in front of the room).
• If you feel students should write more:
  • ask them to read and then summarize a page in the text;
  • ask them to write and solve a word problem;
  • ask them to write a cheat sheet;
  • ask them to write a set of lecture notes about a topic.

      IF YOU ARE UNDECIDED ABOUT WHICH DIRECTION TO TAKE, MOVE IN THE DIRECTIONS WHICH ARE DESIRABLE. Choose verbs which "head you in the 'right' direction." Keep them visible when you write a test or assignment as a reminder of where you've been and where you're going.

      Continue to assess your position and destination so your direction may be modified.

Azzolino, Agnes, "Writing as a Tool for Teaching Mathematics: The Silent Revolution," Teaching & Learning Mathematics in the 1990s, © 1990, NCTM, Reston, VA., p. 99-100.

Azzolino, Agnes, "Assessment Inventory," © 1992, inservice handout.

Azzolino, Agnes, "Graphing with Manipulatives," © 1992, ICME-7, Quebec, Canada.

Kibler, Robert J., Baker, Larry L., Miles, David T., Behavioral Objectives and Instruction, © 1970 by Allyn and Bacon, Boston, p. 180-184.

Wilson, Linda Dager, "What Gets Graded Is What Gets Valued," NCRMSE Research Review, Volume 2, Number 3, Fall 1993, NCRMSE, Madison, Wisconsin, pp. 4 - 8.

---

---

© 2016   www.mathnstuff.com/papers/ai/ai9.htm