Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Assessment
I have stayed fairly traditional in my assessing of students in developmental math classes. I will most likely continue with this by requiring regular homework, occasional quizzes, 2 or 3 unit tests, along with a final exam. I am however thinking of adding a writing component this fall, in the form of keeping a math journal. Entries might include instances when they have used ideas picked up in class, or perhaps entries about how they are feeling about certain topics covered. My overall goal is to help students develop more confident math attitudes. This additional writing component might be helpful here.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Traditional isn't a bad thing! And I like that you are constantly thinking about real-world application... maybe a writing component, even a simple one, would help. Seeing how math is important in "real life"-- both their own and what they can see through the media, work, etc-- is valuable, but takes a bit of training of how they see the world.
A description of the mystifying study can be found here. I haven't found the real thing online yet!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/science/25math.html
One of our instructors for DEVM 060 added a series of reflection questions to each of her lessons and was very please when she she saw more lessons being submitted and completion rates increase. She's fairly certain that by requiring a self-reflection type exercise that was written was a major factor. Her questions varied between assignments but basicially here things like: 1. What concepts, if any, seemed new to you?
2. What concepts were most difficult in this lesson?
3. Which problems would you have liked to have seen more of?
--Heidi Olson, CDE
Post a Comment