Courtney Boettger December 17, 2013 MIAA 330 Cam Wong Reflection on Demonstration of Advance Practice After taking

MIAA 330 on Mathematic Assessment, I can confidently say that I have a new passion for creating deep and meaningful assessments for my students. When creating assessments, it is important to look at the Depth of Knowledge levels and the different types of assessments. After this class, I now have a new challenge to work on changing my closed questions into open-ended questions. The amazing thing about Common Core is that we can now use assessments for what they are intended: students to demonstrate knowledge and teachers to learn about their teaching. Using the Depth of Knowledge information makes it clear to teachers on what kinds of thinking we are asking of our students. The different levels not only helps your students show their depth of knowledge, but also forces the teacher to plan instruction with deeper content. It is important to get a balance between all levels of questioning. The levels help get students to think of the math content in different contexts. As a teacher, we can also gage how far we can push our students cognitive level. One of the biggest issues with transitioning to common core is getting rid of the closed questions that are stuck in our test banks. After learning about the three types of questions: selected response, constructed response, and extended response, my eyes have been opened to the level that we can take assessments to. After

looking at the questions in class, we discovered that sometimes just changing a few simple words can transform a question from closed to open ended. I now have more confidence and am excited to dive in and start changing the way we are testing our students. Finally, I am looking forward to a time in teaching where assessments are used for students to demonstrate knowledge and teachers to learn about their teaching. Often times, especially in the old standards, assessments have been used to just show regurgitation of facts and to crack the system. Today, guessing or eliminating is often the strategy that students choose to use. With the new openended questions where students must construct answers and support their thinking, those strategies will no longer work. Students will be forced to understand the why and not just the how. As teachers, we will be forced to take our lessons to a deeper level and allow time to be spent on topics. Teachers will finally be able to learn about their students thinking from assessment, not just give them a thoughtless score. I am truly motivated and inspired to change my assessments and take my teaching, along with my students brains, to the next level.