After rejuvenating during the summer, what instructional practice are you excited to introduce to your mathematics classroom this year?”

Please take a moment to send your response on the question of the month to kdemath@education.ky.gov.

Renee Watkins of South Warren High School (Warren County) shared her response to July’s question: “How do you incorporate formative assessment strategies to improve student achievement and what guidance do you have for your colleagues regarding effective use of the formative assessment strategies?”

“I think formative assessment is simply trying to figure out how students are thinking about a problem or situation. It’s icing on the cake when students can evaluate for themselves how they are thinking about a problem.

“One of the best and simplest formative assessment ideas I had last year was to ask students at the end of class to determine what they thought was the most challenging problem with which they had success during that class and to write it down showing their thinking. It could have come from our lesson, partner work, or guided practice.

“They shared and we discussed their successes and I was able to determine where they were in their learning and where each still needed some work. It was a positive way to learn what they did not know and much more interesting than an end-of-class quiz with several things marked incorrectly to pass back the next day.”