Discussion Announcement

Dear Colleagues,
I hope this email finds you well.I'm pleased to announce the following Guest Discussion, which will begin on Monday of next week:
June 19 – 23, 2006
Topic:  Assessment in Mathematics  
Guest:  Myrna Manly – please see Myrna’s bio below. Myrna will respond to your email posts once per day – feel free to send your post to the Assessment Discussion List, or to me so that I can post it for you (marie.cora@hotspurpartners.com).

Recommended preparations for this discussion Myrna has provided several questions below to get you thinking about math assessment:

• It is known that students and teachers come to value what is assessed.  What is your opinion of the influence that the standardized mathematics assessments (GED, TABE, CASAS) have in your classrooms? Are they assessing the mathematics that is important for the 21^st century? Do you think that they all assess the same mathematics? What do you think is missing from each?

• Computation skills are easy to assess.  How can we assess other important aspects of mathematics like strategic problem solving, conceptual understanding, and reasoning?

• Describe instances where you have seen a student’s “math anxiety” interfere with an accurate assessment of his/her abilities. Do you assess math anxiety in any way? What strategies have you used to reduce it? Any luck with them?

• Which classroom techniques do you recommend for informal, ongoing assessment of a student’s progress in learning mathematics?

In addition to the above questions to stimulate discussion, Myrna has provided these sites for math assessment.  Please take a look at these sites and post your questions and comments to the Discussion:

http://www.literacy.org/products/ncal/pdf/TR9805.pdf Assessing Mathematical Knowledge of Adult Learners: Are We Looking at What Counts? This technical report from NCAL was written by Joy Cumming, Iddo Gal, and Lynda Ginsburg in 1998. It discusses assessment principles and evaluates their implementation in common numeracy assessment tools.

http://www.ncsall.net/?id=573 The Inclusion of Numeracy in Adult Basic Education, Dave Tout and Mary Jane Schmitt, 2002.  This chapter from NCSALL’s annual review contains a section on assessment that includes a description of assessments in adult education from Australia and The Netherlands.

http://www.nctm.org/news/content.aspx?id=614 Will This Be on the Test? This article discusses the importance of including significant mathematics on tests.  It includes a good example of a test item that goes beyond procedural skills.

http://standards.nctm.org/document/chapter2/assess.htm  This document in an overview of NCTM’s assessment principle for K-12 mathematics. 

Large-scale surveys of adult skills:
Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL)
Numeracy Framework (begins on p.137):
http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/downpub/listpub.cgi?catno=89-552-MIE2005013
First results: http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/89-603-XIE/2005001/pdf.htm
Data Tool: http://litdata.ets.org/ialdata/search.asp

National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)
First results: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006470

Hard Copy Resource:
Adult Numeracy Development: Theory, Policy and Practice, Iddo Gal, ed., 2000.  Hampton Press, Inc. This book has a section on numeracy assessment with one article discussing assessment issues and principles using examples from the US and Australia and another article describing the use of “Supermarket Strategy” materials for diagnosing the skills of individual learners in The Netherlands.

Thanks everyone, and I’m looking forward to seeing you all next week to chat about math assessment!

marie.cora@hotspurpartners.com

Discussion Summary

The discussion focused on participants’ sharing resources, tools, strategies and interventions related to teaching math for the GED, working with individuals who have learning disabilities, and working with math anxiety in testing.  In addition to providing a list of questions to consider in preparation for the discussion, the discussion guest, Myrna Manly, provided a series of resources that prompted comments and further sharing from subscribers.  People discussed both print and web resources available for teaching math, as well as described some activities and strategies that they employ in particular situations.

Some of the themes related to math and confidence included an analogy to learning how to (or teaching someone to) swim, and the notions of learned helplessness and learned anxieties. 

Discussion participants suggested strategies including the use of journaling, manipulatives, and realia as methods for building confidence in math and developing activities. 

Myrna asked subscribers what they thought about the national focus on lower level computation skills and number procedures, and participants noted that they felt this was due to both program methodology as well as the math assessments available at this time.

Another participant raised the point that the NCTM Standards (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) were generally accepted by ANN (Adult Numeracy Network) and followed by the EMPower curriculum, but questioned whether we have any tests/assessments that fit with these standards at the ABE level, and if not, what the consequences of this might be.  Myrna responded that there is indeed a paucity of assessments, and those that exist presently narrow the scope of math.