Welsh

1
Ted Welsh
Prof. Keeley and Prof. Leo
Education 302/303
14 November 2016
Assessment Plan

Throughout the unit plan, I utilize pre-assessment, formative assessment for learning,

formative assessment as learning, and summative assessment. Each of the four is not present in
every unit, but I made sure to have a good balance across the lessons.

Each day, except the review day Lesson 5, there is pre-assessment. The pre-assessment

is a time for students and the instructor to think about and talk about what they know about
decimals, why decimals are useful, and where they see decimals being used in the world. This is
an important part of class because it gives students a chance to connect the unit and the
lessons to things that are going on in their lives. The instructor encourages students to think
about why decimals are useful to them, and it the students are struggling to come up with
things, the instructor suggests ideas.

Formative assessment for learning takes place in each lesson. In Lesson 1, students learn

about adding and subtracting decimals through a video and through notes. In Lesson 2, there is
homework correction that is informative for the instructor because the instructor can monitor
the students progress. Like Lesson 1, there is a note-taking time where students are introduced
to multiplying single-digit decimals and have the opportunity to engage with that new material.
Lessons 3 and 4 would include notes as well, but I did not craft lesson plans for those days. The
formative assessment for learning portion of Lesson 5 consists of a Kahoot quiz and tic-tac-toe
game where the instructor can assess the students learning. Susan Gay and Lisa Burbridge
recommend using the Kahoot game as a review activity so thats what I decided to do in
Lesson 5 (p. 312). East Grand Rapids Middle School is a bring your own device school, and they
recommend Kahoot quizzes for schools with that resource. During the tic-tac-toe game
students develop working with a partner and working together. Teamwork and the ability to
give constructive feedback are valuable real-world skills. In Lessons 7 and 8, the students have a
note-taking time where the instructor teaching them about multiplying and dividing multi-digit

Welsh 2
decimals respectively. Overall, these assessments need to be note based, because that is the
best way for me to teach my students. I show them how to do problems and explain why, and
then they have the notes for later if they need them.

The formative assessments as learning have a little bit more variety than the ones for

learning. For Lesson 1, I use a partner activity where students can hone their adding and
subtracting skills by working through problems and finding mistakes in their works or their
partners. Being able to correct someone elses work and help them understand their mistake is
a very valuable real-world skill to possess. I hope that as students work together on this activity
they can develop this skill. As the students participate in this activity, the instructor can assess
their understanding. In Lesson 2, the students do a station activity where they walk around the
room doing problems while, again, the instructor observes and assesses understanding. In
Lesson 5, the students will be able to assess their own understanding as they play a tic-tac-toe
game. Like in Lesson 1, they will work with a partner and have the opportunity to find flaws in
their work or their partners. As the students do this activity, the instructor will grade them
using a rubric. The rubric has four categories: Working with Others, Quality of Work, Focus on
the task/Participation, and Attitude. The activity is worth 10 points total. During Lesson 7,
students will create problems for a partner to try and solve. The two will work independently
on the problems the both of them come up with and then together if they get different answer.
The instructor will assess their understanding and their ability to create helpful problems.
Finally, in Lesson 8, students will play a treasure hunt board game with the other students at
their table. They will be able to assess their own understanding of dividing multi-digit decimals
as well as their table mates understanding as they play the game. The instructor will assess all
of their understandings as they play as well.

The summative assessments in this unit are worksheets that are usually meant to be

finished in class, but sometimes become homework. The worksheets are assigned roughly every
other day. There are worksheets assigned in lessons 1, 3, 6, 7, and 9. These worksheets are
testing their understanding of decimal computation so far and give both the student and the
instructor an idea of how well a student is doing. Students grade their own worksheets with the
instructor and class, and the instructor collects them all to see how well students did. At the

Welsh 3
end of the unit, there is an exit slip that covers all of the material. This assessment will help
monitor a students progress because it provides ways for both the student and the instructor
to constantly assess how the student is doing.
Through the pre-assessment, the instructor can see how well the students are applying
the things they are learning to their lives. As the students take notes, participate in activities,
and do independent work in class, the instructor is always walking around the room observing
students and answering their questions. What the instructor misses during formative
assessment, the instructor can see in summative assessment. The worksheets are all collected
by the instructor and then the instructor can glean more information about the progress or his
or her students. Throughout the entirety of the unit plan, the instructor does not spend a lot of
time up in front of the class lecturing. I designed it this way on purpose so that the instructor
can immerse him or herself in the classroom and observe each student closely as they work.

Cited Sources
A. Susan Gay, & Lisa Burbridge. (2016). Bring Your Own Device for Formative Assessment. The

Mathematics Teacher, 110(4), 310-313. doi:10.5951/mathteacher.110.4.0310