Continual assessment of student understanding is a crucial aspect of teaching. The adoption of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) represents raised expectations for the level and depth of mathematical understanding that is expected of our students. But new standards also mean new tests. What those tests will be like is of…

Writing in mathematics is complex. The purpose of this article is to share how one teacher, Ms. Hill, used peer-review activities involving rubrics to explicitly communicate mathematical resources that students could draw from when justifying a claim. She found that helping students understand which type of statements could be used in…

Assessment is a tool used in the classroom as a way to deepen students' learning and to allow the educator to make informed decisions regarding instruction. In this article, the authors focus on the role of assessment, both in terms of teachers and students, while developing students' understanding of geometry. In particular, the authors are…

For assessment to be useful for students, it must give them feedback that will help them move to the next level of proficiency; in other words, it must be "formative." Many teachers are finding that rubrics are useful as a formative assessment tool. Teachers can use rubrics to analyze student work so that they can plan their instruction and…

When students are asked to write original story problems about fractional amounts, it can illustrate their misunderstandings about fractions. Think about the situations students would describe to model 1/2 + 2/3. Three elements, in particular, challenge students: (1) Which of three models (region, or area; measure; or set) is best suited for a…

Standard classroom tests tend to showcase what students know at that point in time and do not usually reflect real-life mathematics. They are not always accurate indicators of what students understand and how they understand it. Portfolios are tools that allow students a better opportunity to exhibit mathematical growth in understanding and…

This article describes partner quizzes, presents a process for using them in classrooms, and discusses the work of several students on such a quiz. (Contains 7 figures.)