Chelsie Lambert

Student Assessment

Background:
For this assignment I chose a student named Charlotte. She is in my fourth
grade class at Laie Elementary. Charlotte has a strong desire to learn all subjects,
she has high grades in both reading and math. She seems to really enjoy math in
particular. She was absent for the first week or so of school, and I was instructed to
get her up to speed when she first arrived. Charlotte grasped each lesson quickly. I
would consider her one of the best at computing mental math problems in our class.
I chose her because she is willing to put forth the work when she comes to problems
that she doesnt know right off the bat. Another reason I picked her was because
she feels comfortable around me that I knew she wouldnt feel embarrassed if I
asked her to explain her reasoning or what she had done. Charlotte, in my opinion,
views these questions as just a question designed to have her talk it out. There are
others in the class that if I were to ask them to explain their reasoning they would
say they didnt know what they did and act shy, as if they had done it wrong and I
was trying to rudely point it out, which obviously is not true. I thought because of
this, charlotte would be a good student that would willingly do her best and be
confident when sharing.
Assessment Description:
I conducted this assessment in the back of the classroom at the group
table. We did it before math had officially started in hopes she wouldnt miss the
start of the lesson. I asked her if I could do a quick math assessment for one of my
classes and that it is just practice for me to see what she knew and how giving a
performance assessment works. Charlotte agreed and we sat down to begin. She
gave no signs of being nervous in anyway and was very focused on the math.
I gave her all problem solving questions. The first question was 600 divided
by X = 300, solve for X, this was a good question to use because they have been
practicing multiplication and division with three digit numbers, however not with a
letter. The second question was solving for a blank, the question was 12x ___= 60.
The third question was a word problem that said There are 168 lunches to be
shared equally among 3 fourth grade classes. How many lunches will go to each
class? The last question said If 4 x 10 = 40, and 40 x 5 = 200, then which of the
following is true? and there were multiple choice answers.
Analysis:
I actually learned quiet a lot from doing this assignment. She got four of the
five questions correct, and on one of the questions I asked her to explain what she
did and she discovered she was wrong and made the correction. With the question
600 divided by X = 300, she told me I covered up the zeros and did 6 divided by 3
which is 2 and then added the zeros back in. This was interesting because if you

were to add the zeros back in the answer would be 3 instead of 300. I saw that she
had a generalization of how to solve big numbers by taking off the zeros, but
putting them back on doesnt work like this in division problems.
She also got the 12x ___ = 60 quicker than I had thought. She told me that
She said it cant be 6 because 6 x 10 is 60 and the answer is already 60 so it isnt
that. I then did 4 x 10 = 40 and then 4 x 2 = 8 so thats 48 and thats too small of a
number. And 7 would be too high so it has to be 5. I thought this thinking process
was great for a process of elimination that came with having multiple choice
answers. I do think she would have found the correct answer anyway knowing that
she started with 6x10 and it was too high.
The problem solving question about lunches was great she got easy and
explained the process exactly how I would have done it, and also how they learned
it in class, so there was no surprise she solved the problem solving question
correctly. She even drew a picture to represent it, which was great for her to
visualize what the question was asking.
The last question was If 4 x 10 = 40, and 40 x 5 = 200, then which of the
following is true? A. 14 x 45 = 200, B. 4 x 10 x 5 = 200, C. 4 x 10 x 40 = 200, D. 40
x 10 x 5 = 200 for this question, she had thought long and hard and then she
circled C. I asked her if she could explain what she did, and how she got that
answer. Charlotte said, Because, I did 4x 10= 40, because thats what you gave
me, and then I know that 40x40 I will cover the zeros and 4x4=... Then she
stopped and said actually it isnt C, its B. I again asked her to explain how she got
the new answer and she said, Because 4x10= 40 and 40x 5= 200. I loved this
problem because as she was thinking and processing the problem again to explain
to me how she got the answer, she discovered she had been wrong. She quickly
knew which one it had to have been and I really liked seeing her go through that
processes of changing answers and explaining again.
Application:
Based on the assessment that I did with Charlotte, I believe she does a great
job of thinking and really processing how to solve the problems. I think I could have
challenged her more. Even the last question that she corrected herself on, that
wasnt the hardest question I could have given her, but I think it really proved to me
that thinking aloud and explaining how they went about solving a problem is a great
skill for students to develop. I think that she was clear in her explanations of each
problem that I asked also, she never gave me an answer that was a guess or
showed lack of effort. I think she may need support in other problems, however in
the ones I had given I felt she did very well at the questions I had given her.
Final Thoughts:
My thoughts about doing this assessment is that I think it needs to be done
more often. I havent seen any one-on-one in math in my O&P classroom once. I
learned a lot about Charlotte during this assessment and I believe that a lot could
be learned from every student in the class. I think I would have done some harder

problems or at least a variety of problems. Looking back my problems were not as

challenging as I could have made them, and if there were too challenging for her to
do them, I would still be able to have her explain what she thinks she could do. By
doing this, I could see where her mind is at any given problem to really guide me in
how I teach it. I will be able to see exactly where she struggles or where the
disconnects may be from the lesson and practice. I think overall, this was a great
assessment to do for me to feel how it works, and think about how it could be used
in my future classroom. The only thing I would have done differently with this
assessment would be to have done it with a student who I believe has a great
understanding of math, such as Charlotte, and a student who I know struggles in
math. This would allow me to see the difference in how they verbalize their thinking
and reasoning with the questions. I would also be able to see where the problem
may be so I can address that.