Using Guided Math Workshop to Master the Standards: Assessment

Master the 5 Keys and you can run a Guided Math Workshop that engages your students and provides each of them a path to mastering the standards.

You can learn about the 5 Keys in any order, but I suggest starting with assessment. When we talk about assessment with Guided Math, we are largely talking about preassessment.

Why assess before teaching?

Preassessment is the key to setting up groups for your guided math workshop. The idea here is to give your students whatever support or challenge they need, so first you need to assess what they know about the unit you plan to teach.

There are lots of ways to do this:

Benchmark assessments

If your school uses a test like the MAP test or a district common assessment to benchmark for math. you might be able to use data from the test. Right now, I teach fifth grade using a curriculum that has one unit for geometry, one for measurement and data, and one for operations and algebraic thinking. The MAP data was really useful for planning groups for those units because it separates student scores by domain.

Data from the Class Report

Pros:

• It's an assessment your students are already taking, so no class time lost.
• You can get really granular data on each student if you need it.
• It can give you an idea of what to teach students who are behind or are ready to exceed standards using the student profile report.

Cons:

• The data might be outdated. Maybe the assessment was done in the first weeks of school and you're planning a unit in November. Students have undoubtedly learned some of what you plan to teach since then.
• The data might be too specific (having to read one by one through student profiles).
• The data might be too general (results by domain rather than skill or standard). Our MAP results were less useful in the Number and Operations domain because so many fifth grade standards (and therefore, so many math skills) are in that domain.

Curriculum-based Assessments

If you have a math curriculum, it probably already has assessments. Where I teach, I'm blessed to have leveled, mirrored assessments in my curriculum. That means that I have three levels of challenge, and I can assess the exact same skills in the exact same way on the preassessment and the postassessment. Other curricula may or may not have this.

Pros:

• Depending on how you use your curriculum, the assessment should be pretty closely tied to what you plan to teach.
• You already own it (if you have a curriculum).

Cons:

• Every curriculum is different. Some come with awesome assessments, others come with terrible ones.
• If the assessments are not leveled or mirrored, you have to do extra work to create leveled and mirrored pre and postassessments. 
• The data might be too general (results by domain rather than skill or standard). Our MAP results were less useful in the Number and Operations domain because so many fifth grade standards (and therefore, so many math skills) are in that domain.

Digital assessments

You could use a tool like Kahoot or Quizizz to assess your students. Another teachers may have already created and shared quizzes based on the standards you plan to teach, or even based on the tests in your curriculum. Otherwise you can easily make them yourself.

Pros:

• Students much prefer this to paper-pencil assessment.
• Everything is scored for you.
• Saves time.
• Students who may not know a skill but are able to pick it up quickly can show that on these assessments. Kahoot shows the correct answer after everyone has locked in their answer, and a few kids usually figure out the skill just from that! These same students may have scored lower on a paper-pencil assessment.

Cons:

• Timing the questions creates pressure and panic in some students. 
• Students focus too much on the competition and rush or try to solve everything mentally. 
• Students with reading difficulties are at a disadvantage (especially with Kahoot, where the whole class works on the same question simultaneously). If some of your students need the questions read aloud, running a Kahoot as your assessment can create logistical issues.
• There's no easy way to level the assessments.
• You probably won't be using these tools to give the postassessment, so mirroring is a challenge.
• If you're using a quiz created by another teacher, you will need to ensure that the quiz assesses the skills and standards that you plan to teach. You'll also have to make sure it's not a hot mess -- some of them are and there is NO quality control.

Standards-based Assessments

These are assessments that are not tied to any one curriculum, but to the standards for that grade level. I love standards-based assessments because at the end of the day, that's what we as teachers are responsible for: teaching the standards. You and I and the teacher two states over might all be using a different curriculum. But if we are all teaching the same grade, we should all be teaching the same standards because that's what all our students are expected to know and be able to do.

Pros:

• Allows you to pinpoint which standards are weak in certain students, groups of students, or your class/classes as a whole.
• Highlights which standards students have already mastered.
• Sets up a blueprint for teaching the standards that enables you to plan enrichment or support for your students when and where they need it.

Cons:

• Probably not included in your curriculum.

Which should you use?

I've used all of these assessments at some point to plan my Guided Math Workshop. Ultimately, they all have their pros and cons, but the one I most wanted and had least access to, was a straightforward standards-based assessment. I wanted something that assessed just the standards for that unit, that was mirrored, and was just the right length to give me good data without exhausting my students. When I couldn't find one, I made one!

I included mirrored pre and postassessments for all the Operations and Algebraic Thinking Standards for fifth grade, plus a template to help you start grouping your students.

If you're ready to start Guided Math Workshop in your classroom, having a great preassessment is a strong start. It's also crucial to find ways to assess your students during the unit. For that I included warm ups and exit tickets tied to each skill on the assessment. If students struggle on a warm up, that's a good indicator that they will need extra support to master that day's lesson. The exit ticket can help you see if they mastered it after that day's instruction.

Click here to get started assessing and planning for your Guided Math Workshop!