Multiple Measures: Connecting Assessment to the Classroom

1. Multiple Measures:Connecting Assessment tothe Classroom Nita Schmidt Whole Language Umbrella St. Louis, July, 2004

2. Setting the Context • Rural elementary school in NW Iowa • We were in our third year of using English-language arts portfolios for assessment • We were still tweaking it to satisfy ourselves, our parents, and our students. • Could we create an assessment that met House File 2272, but also met our own needs?

3. What did we do? • We met on Saturday mornings to brainstorm and strategize ways to assess our students. • We contacted our AEA math and language arts consultants and gathered other professional resources about performance assessment. • We embraced Leland and Harste’s (1994) work on multiple sign systems and believed work with multiple sign systems could give us a plethora of information in any assessment situation.

4. Our Goals • Assess students in ways that will show meaning making across several sign systems. • Meet the requirements of House File 2272 but fulfill our own assessment needs first. • Address the curricular areas of reading, writing, math, and art. • Pay attention to parental interests in counting money and teacher interests in geometry.

5. Our Plan • Use performance assessments to enrich already established portfolios. • Build scaffolds to provide structured practice before assessments. • Develop a grading rubric for the tasks.

6. We began to practice.

7. And practice

8. Billy Goes ShoppingScaffold-Practice • Billy wants to buy some new school supplies. He has $.90 to spend. He needs to save $.25 for the bus. Look at the price list and choose some things for Billy to buy. Find three different ways for Billy to spend his money. If Billy has change, show how much change he would have left from $.90. • Remember. Billy needs $.25 for the bus each time. • Price List: Eraser $.10, Rulers $.29, Pencils $.25, Pens $.39, Book covers $.20 • First Way Second Way Third Way

9. And practice.

10. The Assessment Tasks • Geometry Assessment Project • Fourth Grade Shopping Spree

11. Geometry Assessment Project • Design a quilt square that includes at least 4 of the following characteristics: • Use at least 2 but no more than 3 geometric shapes • Have a line of symmetry • Show a flip, slide, or turn of the basic component • Have a repeating pattern • Show congruence or similarity of a shape • Show ¼ of the total design with only 1 geometric shape • Completed squares must be accompanied by a detailed explanation of your quilt design and the mathematical ideas it shows.

14. Fourth Grade Shopping Spree • Create a picture that describes your feelings about math. You have $10 to buy whatever supplies you can afford to accomplish this task. • You must spend at least $8. • Pipe Cleaner 3 for $1.50 • Buttons 4 for $1.00 • Pinch of Sequins $.10 • Construction Paper 4 for $2.00 • Tissue Paper 4 for $3.00 • Yarn $1.25 • Shake of Glitter $.59

15. Chart your purchases and show us how your money was spent.

16. Explain how much money you have left after your purchase. • Create a picture about math with your purchases. • Write about your picture. It may be a description, a story, or an essay about math.

17. That will be $1.56. In math we have been dealing with money. Yesterday we wrout some things that we could buy like yarn, pipe cleners, and sequins and that kind of stuff. In the middle do you see the red flower and the heart? I’ve dune this flower like this because I’ve never seen a flower with a heart on top. The blue pipe cleaner to the bottom left is the entrence to a place you’ve never seen before. The trail of sequins to the bottom below the spikes leads you the laze bed that has sequins on the side. The gold glitter in the lower right is a pool of gold glitter that will drain all your wores. Have you ever been to a place like that!!

18. Bong! Did you feel the coler hit you? Look in the top left corner see that green patch? With all those colers, shaps and glitter called sequins. The swans, flowers and shelles just makes my jow drop from beauty! I choose red for the swans because red makes me think of joy. Four buttens in the center represent my four names Jason Allan Shurely Jones. See in the top right corner the yellew constructun paper and the red snowflake? That snowflake represents winter and the colers in the patch are the colers I usely see on cristmas. Every thing on the bottom are just colerful deceratouns. That’s the coler of my math progect.

19. Rubric • CD – All parts of the task are answered accurately and completely. All directions are followed. • D – Answer deals correctly with most aspects of the task, but something is missing. May deal with all aspects but have minor errors. • ND – Does not address the task or only addresses the task minimally.

20. What does this show about math, art, and writing? • Writing really does help kids think about ideas in other content areas like math. • Even though mathematics is typically communicated through the manipulation of symbols, words can express math ideas. • Construction was a motivational and important part of these assessment tasks.

21. Writing is a way to work yourself into a subject and make it your own. William Zinsser (1988) Writing to Learn

22. Conclusions Allowing students to construct and write interpretations of mathematical concepts encourages the communication of meanings that would not be made public if writing was the sole sign system used. We demanded risk taking, but we got sensitivity!