Author Archives : therouttymathteacher


Summer PD: Part 2- Using Observations as Formative Assessment Tools

Welcome back! Today’s post is part two of my summer blog series focused on formative assessments. Last week, I gave a quick overview of formative assessments, the purpose and the importance of them, how teachers are currently using them in the classroom. Then, I offered a new perspective on how we can use formative assessments in the classroom to inform planning and teaching. This new perspective is one that I formed while reading the book, The Formative 5. (Missed last week’s post? See it here!)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY_Ihr3vpQk]

Don’t see the video? Click here to see the video version of this post!

In this book, the authors introduce five techniques that teachers can use every day to formally assess their students. These five techniques are in many ways simple but very powerful ways to better understand what our students know and understand about the content and skills that we’re teaching. In part one of the series, I described these learning tools as assessments done with intention and in the moment. As we continue through the series, I would like for us to look at the assessment tools with that lens, both with intentionality and in the moment.

The first technique is observations. I know what you’re thinking, you’re saying to yourself, “Why is observation a formative assessment tool?” I personally thought the exact same thing, but as I read the book and delved more into the section about observations, I begin to understand more clearly. We make observations about what our students are doing all the time, but we don’t always formally record the observations and then take that information and do something with it later. We often kind file it in the back of our minds and utilize it later, but more often than not, we take those observations and just file them for use later. In this case, we’re going to take the observations and we’re going to use them and do something with them immediately.

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Summer PD: Part 1- What’s All This talk about Formative Assessments?

I’m so exciting to begin my 2017 Summer PD series with you today! When I attended the NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) annual conference this past April, one of the bestselling books was a new book called The Formative 5 by Skip Fennell, Beth Kobett, and Johnathan Wray, which offers teachers five everyday assessment techniques to inform your planning and instruction. Through the Summer PD series, I will be discussing each of the techniques and offering ways to get started using them in school next August. You can even catch a video summarizing the week’s learning over on Facebook or my YouTube Channel. Ready? Let’s dive right in!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVvGdT_JsHM]

Don’t see the video? Click here to see the video version of this post!

What is a Formative Assessment?

Assessing what our students know and are able to do is part of what we do as educators each and every day; however, the type of assessment we use differs from day to day. Sometimes, we want to assess our students’ understanding of the last unit or set of skills. In this case, we use a summative assessment—a tool that will allow us to assess students’ overall understanding of content and skills. A summative assessment can be a unit or chapter test, district-created benchmark test, high-stakes test, etc. Summative test results are often used to determine classroom or grade-level interventions.

On the other hand, formative assessments tend to be more fluid and vary widely. Formative assessments provide evidence and information that is used as feedback to make changes to the teaching and learning process. A formative assessment, sometimes referred to as assessment for learning, can be anything that will provide the necessary information to inform the instructional practices of teachers.

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8 Things You Can Do Now to Prepare for Next School Year

 

As we prepare for summer vacation, many teachers will spend hours cleaning out file cabinets, going through supplies, disassembling bulletin boards, and preparing their classrooms for summer storage. While most of us are focused on making it to the last day of our contracts so that we can turn-in our keys and start our long-awaited summer vacation, the most resourceful teachers will use this time to get a head start on preparing for next school year. Now, I know what you’re thinking—Shametria, I’m ready to wave goodbye to this school year and watch it fade away in my rearview mirror. I get it. I totally understand, but now is a great time to complete some of the tasks that we never have time for when we return in August—even with the best of intentions. With this in mind, I want to share eight ways you can get a jump start on next school year.

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Getting Ready to Wrap-up the Year: Year-in-Review

Whether you have a few days, weeks, or months left of the 2016-2017 school year, things are definitely winding down. For many of us, May is filled with field trips, field days, awards ceremonies, and other special events and assemblies. It’s an exciting time but can be accompanied by a long, and sometimes stressful, end-of-the-year to-do list. As you begin to plan for the remaining days, I want to share a few fun activity ideas to wrap-up the school year.

Click here to read more and grab a freebie!


5 Best Takeaways from NCTM’s Annual Conference

Welcome Back Friends!

Last month I was so excited to attend this year’s annual NCTM math conference. The best part—it was in San Antonio, Texas (about 100 miles from me)! Now, while some of you are thinking, “What’s so exciting about that,” I’m thinking 1.) It was a mini-vacay in the middle of the spring semester (Raise your hand if you could use one of those!); 2.) I got the chance to spend time with professors and colleagues who I hardly ever see; 3.) I got to share the same space with some of my math idols. Yes, I totally know that I am a math geek, but I thought that’s what you loved most about me!!

All kidding aside, attending this conference is a big deal. It’s an opportunity to learn from math teachers and authors across the country. Sessions are filled with presentations by people like Jo Boaler, Dan Meyer, Graham Fletcher, Kathy Richardson, and many others. It’s also a unique experience and a chance to hear what other teachers are doing to create strong mathematicians from states across the nation. With this in mind, I want to take this opportunity to share five of my biggest take-a-ways with you.

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Surviving the Last Weeks of School

By: Shametria L. Routt, The Routty Math Teacher

 

It’s April!! For me this month means a time for celebration—it’s my birth month. For many Americans though, it’s a most dreaded time of the year because it means that they have to send a very large check to the government for the amount of tax debt they did not pay during the 12 months of 2016. For teachers, it means we are entering the home stretch and the last weeks of the school year. Now, any parents who have happened upon this blog post are saying—why is this a problem. But, as teachers, we all know that:

Last weeks of the school year = Crazy time!

Managing student engagement and behaviors at the end of the school year can be a challenge for even our most experienced teachers. Trust me when I say that keeping them engaged is how to win the battle. The more engaged they are in tasks that are both developmentally appropriate and challenging, the less off-task behavior they will display.

Having been an educator for the past 14 years and experiencing 14 end-of-year crazy times, I would like to share some of my favorite problem solving and critical thinking strategies I used to keep my students engaged during the last weeks of the school year.

Read more here. 


Confessions of a Middle Grades Math Student: What Every Elementary School Teacher Should Know

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Hello Routty Math Teacher Community,

Welcome to my new blog series– Confessions of a Middle Grades Math Student!

While we all look forward to summer as a time for some much needed rest and relaxation, we also spend considerable time preparing for the new school year. With that in mind, I will be providing purposeful professional development to support your summer learning as we prepare for the new school year. 

Over the course of the summer, I will be providing insight into the rules, tips, and strategies that students bring into the middle grades mathematics classroom from earlier grades that do not support the development of more advanced skills. 

I will introduce a new topic each week, drawing the majority of the topics from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) article titled, “13 Rules that Expire” by Karen S. Karp, Sarah B. Bush, and Barbara J. Dougherty (2014). You can download a copy of the article here. In this article, the authors describe rules that “expire” and are no longer valid at a certain point in a student’s mathematics career.

Through this blog series, I will explore these rules and offer suggestions on ways to better support our students’ growth and understanding of the mathematical content and skills underlying them. The information will be presented from the student’s perspective so that we might gain some insight on how our students internalize what we say. 

It is my hope to generate some discussion and get feedback on these ideas. Please feel free to comment on my blog The Routty Math Teacher Blog or on The Routty Math Teacher Facebook Page.

Happy Reading!

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