The Formative 5: Everyday Assessment Techniques for Every Math Classroom

by Francis M. Fennell, Beth McCord Kobett, Jonathan A. Wray

"This highly practical and readable book gets right down into the detail of what good formative assessment looks like in math classrooms, and shows how teachers can make this a part of their regular planning and instruction." —Dylan Wiliam, Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment, University College Imagine how it would feel to not worry about how to plan, teach, and check for student mathematical understandings and related proficiencies. Imagine if this important process felt like a natural, every day, part of your lesson preparation instead of an extra thing to do. This must-have resource shows the way.  NCTM Past President, Francis "Skip" Fennell, and nationally-recognized mathematics educators Beth McCord Kobett and Jonathan (Jon) Wray, offer five of the most impactful, proven assessment techniques—Observations, Interviews, "Show Me," Hinge Questions, and Exit Tasks— you can implement, every day. Tried and tested by teachers just like you, you’ll find that this palette of classroom-based techniques will truly assess learning and inform teaching. Research and classroom practice indicates that formative assessment is poorly understood. This book gives you a concise, research-based, classroom-dedicated plan with lots of tools, activities, classroom vignettes, and student work to guide your daily use of these techniques – The Formative 5. Both within and between lessons, K-8 teachers of mathematics will learn to

Think and go beyond assessment of learning, focusing on assessment for learning Directly connect assessment to planning and teaching Engineer effective classroom questioning, discussions, and learning tasks Provide success criteria and feedback that moves students forward Integrate the Standards for Mathematical Practice Activate student self-assessors who take ownership of their learning  Includes a book study guide, tools and templates, and a companion website with downloadables and multi-media examples of student discussion in the classroom. The Formative 5 will help you build your mathematics-related formative assessment capacity through daily use of these five key techniques, leading to regularly monitored and improved learning opportunities for your students. Now The On-Your-Feet Guide to The Formative 5

198 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 15, 2016

Reviews

[Annie Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as math professional books go, this was a good one. The writing wasn’t too dry, they gave real classroom examples from real teachers, and I have some take-aways to try. I’ll take it!

[Danielle Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not find this book useful at all, which is a bummer because I was looking forward to reading it. I found it very redundant and poorly written. On top of it, the examples just seemed silly. In the observation chapter, they gave example notations made from observations that included things like "the student was distracted." How does that help your planning? If anything, twas a waste of time writing that down. What would be helpful is to figure out why the student was distracted. Was the student bored because they knew how to do it already? Was the student missing pre-requisite knowledge to allow them to access the topic? Overall, I do not recommend.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of info jammed into one book. Looking forward to a book study discussion group where we can talk about how to implement the ideas into my classroom.