We think of assessment as a NET that gathers all the math experiences students have as they are working on a project. Once experiences have been gathered, they can be named, formalized, reflected upon, and displayed to the outside world. Experiences that slip through, while still valuable for the student, lose some of their potential as catalysts for further mathematical growth. The process of gathering and building on students' direct mathematical experiences is crucial to making the most of MMAP units.

We use the term assessment broadly to describe a wide variety of activities that teachers do with their students to help them capture, reflect on, and demonstrate their mathematical growth. Some of these assessment activities, like face-to-face conferences with students, seem more like tutoring. Other assessment activities, like setting up peer reviews, seem like managing. Some assessment tasks, such as assigning a piece of reflective writing or a math activity from the unit, seem more like our traditional view of assessment as a test or quiz. All of these activities generate information that helps show students' progress to others.

As the NCTM Assessment Standards suggest, we like to think in terms of assessment systems that make coherent use of tools like student writing, peer review, and teacher conferences. In our work with teachers, we have found it helpful to ask four questions in working out an assessment system: First, what do we want to accomplish with assessment? Second, how can we make the assessments we choose work together synergistically? Third, is our system fair? Does it allow everyone to demonstrate the progress they have made? Finally, the system must pass the practicality test: no matter how well-crafted, the system will fail if it is overly complicated or labor-intensive for teachers or students.

MMAP provides many resources within each unit to help teachers construct their own assessment system within these guidelines. The resources support assessment through writing, classroom observations ("walking around"), peer reviews, and the use of math-learning activities as assessments too. Each Application unit also contains a pre/post test.