Mathematical Practice #1 in Action (for teachers)

Mathematical Practice #1 is: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. This time of year, PUHSD teachers across the district and multiple content areas have the opportunity to model this practice...it is scanning time!  As you begin to scan those precious district assessments, here are some tips for "perseverance" while under the gun to finalize your grade books and ensure that the data is in D2SC. 

Mathematically proficient "teachers" start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution.

• Are the bubble sheets printed with page scaling NONE? 
• Are the bubble sheets clean of stray marks and excess eraser gunk? 

 They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals.

• Is the score I gave the student(s) reflective of the score that the assessment tool says?  Why or why not? 

They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt.

• Did the students bubble in dark enough? 
• Did the student number get bubbled in correctly? 
• Did I use the correct FORM ID for the pre-slugged documents? 

They consider analogous problems and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution.

• Did I scan just one of them to see the similarities or differences in the results?  Trevor Browne found that if a student did not bubble in dark enough, the scanner did not pick up the mark- Way to go!

They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary.  Mathematically proficient "teachers" check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?” They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.

Here are some other tips for scanning:

1. If you do not see the test in the assessment tool, most likely you need to release the test to your students.  Be sure to release the test, prior to scanning.
2. When you go to scan, alphabetize the scan sheets and also alphabetize the students on the assessment tool screen.  When scanning, you can easily see which students forms were missed, and you can easily grab them from the pile and rescan. 
3. If at first you do not succeed, try, try again!!! 

I know that this is a busy time of year so if you need any assistance, just let me know.  :)