Aritz Cardenas

January 2014

Determine What Children Know: Dynamic vs. Static Assessment
by Judy Storeygard, Janan Hamm, and Catherine Twomey Fosney (2010),

Chapter 4 Notes: Determining what children know: dynamic versus static
assessment.

1. How does uncovering student thinking provide equity in mathematics?

Dynamic vs. Static assessments. Judging what a student can do versus
determining what a student cannot. For struggling students, l istening to
students strengths and skills and trying ways to intervene and help close
achievement gap on a certain unit or concept. (pg45)

An interesting tidbit was when students are doing group/pair work, to listen
carefully and observing them work (versus interrupting and asking students
where they are). Because by doing so, you as the teacher can observe how
students are thinking and interacting to the text. (pg50)

Being smart when grouping students (have goals in mind. Make sure they are
both productive). (pg 55)

Conferring one on one with students to better understand what they know.
They can often speak about what they are doing to solve a problem that is
puzzling



2. How can you capture where a child is on the landscape of learning and
make small shifts in your instructional practice?

One of the first things that was stated on the reading was to listen in the
moment where a student is at when they are completing an assessment. One
small shift is trying to make sure students arent answering based on what
you wanted to hear. For example, the teacher on the reading reflected that
he tries to respond the same way after students contribute or share an
answer (whether the answer was correct or not). (46-47)

Asking thought provoking questions can lead to thinking from students who
typically perform poorly on traditional assessments. Example Teacher Greg
and Malik. (pg 54)

Figuring out which fundamentals a students is either lacking or is confused
about. For example, the teacher Lauren was helping Heather solve a set of
problems. Heather was using incorrect formulats to help her solve problems.
Without telling her how to do it, Lauren helped her by guiding her with
questions on how to solve the questions. Lauren ultimately was able to figure
out where Heather was on the landscape which can help guide her future
instruction/assessments. (58-61)

Having assessments that are more relatable to student learning (their
realities). For example, the problem on The Elevator. Problems that are real
or able to be imagined by students. (pg 67)