Assessment Two
Students began class with a self-assessment as their warm-up. Students were given 5 minutes to complete the activity. Students wrote the total number of problems they got correct in the top right corner.
The self-assessments were used to determine which assessment students were going to be given. Students who got less than 4 problems correct were grouped together. These students were given some extra guided practice before being given an assessment requiring them to simplify exponential expressions. Students who got 4 or all 5 questions correct were given an error analysis assessment. My hope was that the majority of students would take the error analysis assessment. Only three out of eighteen students in my period 1 class needed the extra guided practice.
Both Brian and Jeff took the error analysis assessment.
Error Analysis Assessment
The error analysis assessment required students to look at Mr. Fuddle's exponents test, find the four problems he did incorrectly (circled in red), correctly simplify the expression and explain what Mr. Fuddle's mistake was.
This challenged students who had already shown a mastery of simplifying exponential expressions. Students now had to apply their knowledge of exponents and their properties to identify common mistakes made by students and explain why these common mistakes were being made. In order to do this successfully, students needed a strong understanding of simplifying exponential expressions
Brian's Assessment
- Identified all four incorrect problems and correctly simplified each problem
- Rewrote each expression as repeated multiplication in order to simplify the expressions correctly
- Accurate explanations of most of Mr. Fuddle's mistakes but lacked good use of vocabulary
- Struggled explaining Mr. Fuddles mistake in #9 as he did not realize Mr. Fuddle had squared r to the fourth power when he wasn't supposed to.
- Procedural understanding of exponents
- Better conceptual understanding of exponents from the beginning of the unit, but still lacks the ability to communicate his knowledge
Jeff's Assessment
- Identified all four incorrect problems and correctly simplified each problem
- Wrote out almost all of the expressions as repeated multiplication in order to simplify the expressions correctly
- Accurate explanations of Mr. Fuddle's mistakes although lacked good use of vocabulary
- Able to communicate his knowledge of exponents to explain Mr. Fuddle's mistakes
- Stronger conceptual understanding of exponents than he had at the beginning of the unit