I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about this one. In my Twitterverse, different educators are saying different things about assessment during this time of remote learning. As Dr. Mitzmacher mentioned in his last Weekly Parent Update email, we are in the process of discussing what report cards will look like for us at OJCS. After reading the different opinions online, and beginning to have conversations with my colleagues, here is where (I think) I have landed.

We began learning from home 9 weeks ago. We have been in “class” together for 7 weeks (we were on Passover break for 2 weeks) We have been learning A LOT during those 7 weeks. Have we gone a bit slower than we would have if we were in school? Yes. Have I been doing my best to check in with everyone to get a sense of what each child understands and where they may still need support? Yes. Would I be giving a cumulative assessment if we were still in school and had done all the work we’ve done? Yes. So why not at least try to do something for students to show what they know?

I can’t pretend we’re in school and that everything is the same, so there will have to be certain adjustments made to this assessment. I’m researching and brainstorming with my colleagues on how this can look so that the assessment is personalized and fair, and delivered in a way that meets the needs of all students in our class. We’ll try it out, and like everything else, we’ll learn from how it goes.

Our quiz will be on two-digit by two-digit multiplication, long division (3 digit divided by 1 digit) and checking your quotient with multiplication. Here are some videos reviewing the various strategies. Students can use whichever strategy they are most comfortable with. 

There are some things you can do to make the reviewing and studying portion of this experience a little more engaging and fun (even if the students won’t agree) that will also take you away from the screen:

1. Make an obstacle course with different ‘pit stops’. At each stop, students need to solve a multiplication or division problem before they’re allowed to move on to the next obstacle.
2. Take chalk outside and solve equations on the sidewalk. Leave a few for your neighbours and then check their work to see if they’re correct!
3. Challenge yourself to make real-world word problems that use multiplication and division. Write them down, record them, or call up a friend and see if they can solve them.
4. Knowing our multiplication facts will undoubtedly help with this assessment. Take a skipping rope and practice your facts (try not to just skip count *pun intended* but say the whole fact equation out loud. For example: “three times five is fifteen”) If skipping isn’t your thing, take a basketball and dribble, or a tennis racket and bounce against the wall.

If you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments! The best ideas come from collaboration. After all, we learn better together.

And if you would still like some paper and pencil examples to practice, there are many to choose from here.