1. Kingston Numeracy Network Early Years Assessment
Nadia Walker
2 June 2010

2. A quick task … 37 16
Lucky dip!
Choose two numbers from the lucky dip box and tell your partner the difference between them.
How many ways can you record your thinking? 44 11 59 9 66 33

3. Discussion points:
How could this be used as assessment?
What information can I get out of this task?
What misconceptions might be uncovered in this task?
How could I make this easier/ harder? How could I differentiate this assessment?

4. Overview of workshop … Maths Online Interview Common Misunderstandings
Informal assessment tasks

5. How can I exceed people’s expectations, if nobody ever expects anything of me?
Discussion point:
What does it mean to have “high
expectations of all learners”?

6. … within an online environment …
Learner at the centre
Maths Online Interview
Maths Developmental
Continuum
Other Maths
domain page
resources
Common
Misunderstandings
Scaffolding Numeracy
in the Middle Years
Fractions and Decimals
Online Interview
… within an online environment …

7. http://www. education. vic. gov

8. Assessment for learning helps teachers place the learner at the centre

9. 9

10. What is the Maths Online Interview?
One-on-one interview away from the regular classroom
Mainly hands-on tasks incorporating concrete materials
Focus is on mental computation
Responses focus on strategies that the students use … not only the correct answer
61 questions and sub-questions
Questions ranging from Level 1 – 4 (VELS)
Should take minutes 10

11. 2009 data: Schools using the Maths Online Interview
No. of schools: 865 schools
67% approx. of all Vic Gov. Primary schools
No. of students interviewed in 2009:
Spread of student enrolments:
P - 10

12. Areas assessed by the Interview
Counting
Place value
Strategies for addition & subtraction
Strategies for multiplication & division
Time
Length
Mass
Properties of shape
Visualisation 12

13. Maths Online Interview links with the VELS13

14. Who is the Interview appropriate for?
Powerful for all students in Levels 1 – 3 (Prep – Year 4)
The ‘high ceiling’ provides scope for questions up to Level 4 in some areas
Potential for use with ‘at risk’ students in Year 5 and beyond. 14

15. Why use the Interview? Assessment FOR learning
Understand individual students’ needs
Find out how students ‘think’ and ‘feel’ while doing Mathematical tasks
Insight into student thought process in action
Generate detailed profiles showing students’ achievement in relation to points of growth
Track student growth over time
Inform planning for focused teaching at the point of need 15

16. Further resources… Mathematics Online Interview Booklet (PDF)
Teaching strategies linked to the Mathematics Online Interview
Mathematics Online Interview links with the Victorian Essential Learning Standards
Starting Points
Observation Notes 16

17. Discussion points: Unpacking the Group Profile:
Using samples for Counting & Place Value
Discussion points:
What recommendations for grouping might you make based on these data?
What recommendations for teaching might you make based on these data?
What would be your next step?

18. Enables students to showcase their skills and understandings due to individualised pathways through the Interview.
Discussion:
Why is the individual nature such a powerful feature of the Interview?
How will you communicate the strengths of this assessment tool to a teacher unfamiliar with it? 18

19. Assessment for Common Misunderstandings
Multiplication makes larger, division makes smaller
The larger the numerator or denominator, the larger the fraction
When dividing you don’t need to record 0 as it means nothing (eg, 6540 divided by 5 = 138) 19

20. About the tools… they expose critical aspects of student thinking
they provide targeted teaching responses to the ‘common misunderstandings’
they are particularly useful in identifying the learning needs of students who teachers believe are ‘at risk’
they have been designed to be administered individually and generally take between 5 and 10 minutes 20

21. About the tools…
The tools at each Level have been chosen to address key ideas at that Level which, if not understood, will seriously undermine students’ capacity to engage meaningfully with core aspects of the Number Strand in subsequent years.
It is hoped that the tools will prove a useful resource in addressing the needs of all learners but particularly those that fall behind.

22. The key ideas addressed at each level are listed below
LEVEL 1 – Trusting the Count, developing flexible mental objects for the numbers 0 to 10
LEVEL 2 – Place-value, the importance of moving beyond counting by 1s, the structure of the base 10 system
LEVEL 3 – Multiplicative thinking, the key to understanding rational number and developing efficient mental and written computation strategies in later years
LEVEL 4 – Partitioning, the missing link in building common fraction and decimal knowledge and confidence
LEVEL 5 – Proportional reasoning, extending what is known about multiplication and division beyond rule-based procedures to solve problems involving fractions, decimals, percent, ratio, rate and proportion
LEVEL 6 – Generalising, skills and strategies to support equivalence, recognition of number properties and patterns, and the use of algebraic text without which it is impossible to engage with broader curricula expectations at this level

23. Level 1: Trusting the Count
a failure to understand that counting is a strategy to determine ‘how many’ and/or that the last number counted says how many;
a mismatch between the oral words and the objects counted (eg, matches objects to syllables, omits certain number names);
a failure to organise the count to avoid counting objects already counted; and/or
a superficial understanding of numbers 0 to 10 (ie, limited to simple counts and recognising, reading and writing number names and numerals).

24. Level 2: Place Value
inadequate part-part-whole knowledge for the numbers 0 to 10 and/or an inability to trust the count (see Level 1);
an inability to recognise 2, 5 and 10 as composite or countable units (often indicated by an inability to count large collections efficiently);
little or no sense of numbers beyond 10 (eg, fourteen is 10 and 4 more); and/or
a failure to recognise the structural basis for recording 2 digit numbers (eg, sees and reads 64 as “sixty-four”, but thinks of this as 60 and 4 without recognising the significance of the 6 as a count of tens, even though they may be able to say how many tens in the tens place)

25. Assessment for learning helps teachers place the learner at the centre

26. Summary
Assessment communicates to students what is important
Explicit feedback related directly to a task improves student achievement
Assessment for learning helps teachers put the learner at the centre, meeting their collective and individual needs
Teachers gain insight into students’ needs by carefully observing written work, listening, noticing, probing and questioning, and looking for patterns in student responses