Intervention and Assessment

Once again (and I hate to keep bringing this up), I felt that these three chapters did not apply much to what I want to teach, middle school math. Although I did think the text offered great help and examples of intervention and assessment for reading and English teachers, I could not relate to it. So instead I decided to take these concepts and apply them to my future classroom and techniques.

In Graves, chapter four focuses on assessment. I think that assessment is valued so highly today in schools and it is very important. But I agree with Graves in the fact that sometimes assessment is focused too much on grades and "teaching to the test" that students are not being taught how to apply concepts to the outside world, which is what truly matters. For assessing a math class, it is harder to come up with creative ways to use assessment. In reading classes, the teacher can use projects, tests, papers, etc. For math, it is typically homework, quizzes, and tests. It would be interesting to see if there are other ways to assess math other than the basics and to communicate with other teachers about their different/creative assessments for math.

One strategy for assessment that I really enjoy is the "before and after" assessment. Last semester, my physics professor had us do this. At the beginning of the semester on the very first day, we took a preliminary test over all the concepts we were going to learn about throughout the semester. Of course, it is usually very hard because we have not actually learned anything yet. But at the end of the semester, we are once again given the exact same test. The second time I enjoy taking the test. I could really see how much I truly learned during my time in the course and that made me feel accomplished. Depending on the grade level, I would love to use an assessment method such as this one for my students. It not only shows the teacher how much knowledge their students gained, but it also gives the students a sense of accomplishment as well.

As for as chapter four in "Adolescents", I tried to apply intervention skills to students in math. This subject is a little trickier than reading because there are not many ways to change the problem. There is typically only one solution in math. Yet we as teachers need to find a way to help our students. One way for specific problems is to show multiple ways to get the same solution. Each student has a different thought process and this technique can really help reach out to a  number of different students. I also liked how the books talked about small groups and one-on-one instruction. I believe that group discussion is very beneficial when solving math problems because you can work out the problem together. I also think that teachers should be available before/after school for students who seek tutoring and learn better during one-on-one teaching.