General Information

This curriculum provides opportunities and support for a range of assessment techniques. In addition to the more traditional approaches, these include observations, embedded assessment problems, writing, portfolios, self-assessments and group assessments. In addition to support for these opportunities, there are skill quizzes that assess student's knowledge of basic skills in each phase (a group of 3-4 lessons) of a unit.

The assessment opportunities in the units have two purposes: to give information on how well students are understanding the mathematical "big ideas" and specific concepts so that the teacher can make daily adjustments to his or her teaching; and to help the teacher monitor students' individual growth over the course of a unit and evaluate their performance. Teachers may decide to use all of these opportunities, some of these opportunities, or choose their own assessment methods.

Overall Structure of Assessment

* Each unit begins with preassessment suggestions to help teachers gain a better sense of what students understand about the content of that unit.

* Each unit is comprised of either 3 or 4 phases, or sections. The final lesson of each phase is intended as an assessment lesson. It introduces no new material, but instead presents previous material in a slightly different way. Teachers may develop their own rubrics or refer to the rubrics provided for each phase as a tool to evaluate students' work.

* A skill quiz is provided at the end of each phase to evaluate students' facility with certain skills needed for that phase.

* Many, but not all, of the units have a final assessment for the entire unit. It may take the form of a final project, or an investigation that incorporates all the information from the unit.