Day 35: Dot Placement

Tomorrow will be the next major skill assessment for Math 7 and Pre-Algebra.  We've spent a few weeks going over the material and refining our language and tomorrow will be their chance to demonstrate proficiency.

I am lazy.  I don't like making up my own assignments when someone else already has one I can use.  I don't like making up tests because that takes effort.

Since I've been using Standards-Based Grading, many things have become easier.  I don't grade homework and the classwork that we do isn't for points.  It's been two weeks since a student asked "is this being graded?" because they know that only the skill assessments are worth "points."

The trade off is that I have to spend a TON of more time and effort on my assessments.  I can no longer copy and paste questions from an online book because they don't line up with the skills in a cohesive way.

Rather than tailoring my lessons to the assessment, I need an assessment that is tailored to my lessons.  Since those don't exist, I need to create them.

There are some truly amazing resources online and in the math teacher community to which I belong.  I'm able to pull from those places, but nothing is exactly what I want.  So, grudgingly, I have to create my own assessments.

And I'm LOVING IT!

Not the actual "creation" because I'm still lazy but the level of control that I have is excellent. I'm phrasing things in very specific ways and recreating concepts in the specific fashions

At this point, all teachers reading this are wondering how I managed to go this long without regularly creating my own tests and are rolling their eyes at me.  I get it. I deserve that.

I was pretty pleased with the review on which we worked, since it looked very much like what will be on the test tomorrow.

Put the colored dots on the number line that match the corresponding number 

This was the work that one student did for her warm-up. It's awesome!

Near the end of the day, one of my students had a meltdown and stormed out.  I had a LOOOOONG talk with the rest of the class about their actions and behavior.  We talked about how behavior has consequences, whether or not we see them right away.  This student's meltdown wasn't their fault, but they didn't help.

Kids can be pretty cruel to each other, even when they don't realize it.