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  • Viability of a Grade Level in Math

    Viability of a Grade Level in Math

    When I am asked to consult or evaluate a student, often the student is years behind in math. As a result, I am often asked to determine the grade level of the student’s achievement. Regressing the math achievement to a single number is not viable. This post provides an explanation. Common Scenario Here is a…

  • Problems with Determining Math Grade Level for a Student

    A common scenario involves a school official reporting out the grade level in math for a student. For example, a 7th grade student I was helping had tested at a 4th grade level. As a result, the student spent much of her 7th grade year working on 4th grade math. There are a couple problems…

  • Levels of Learning

    Levels of Learning

    Learning is not a singular threshold to be met. There are different levels of learning – a continuum (see photo below taken from the book Teaching Mathematics Meaningfully). A student demonstrating proficiency (fluency) is far different from a student simply showing some level of understanding (acquisition). I remember learning to drive a car with a…

  • Making Sense of Testing

    Making Sense of Testing

    Testing (results shown on the Present Levels of Performance page shown below) is often confusing for parents, especially in regards to math. The results are often reported in broad terms, e.g. computation or IQ. Here is an analogy for the testing (in terms usefulness for determining instruction, performance and achievement). We go to the DMV…

  • Performance vs Ability

    Performance vs Ability

    In the effort to assess student ability performance factors are likely present. It is incumbent upon the educators to mitigate the performance issues to assess true ability. For example, I conducted an evaluation on a student in middle school who has ADHD. All of her testing records indicated that she would lose focus during the…

  • Documents for Task Analysis Presentation – DADD 2017 Conference

    Here is a link to a Dropbox folder with the documents I will address in my presentation. (Note: documents will not be uploaded until Jan 19, 2017.)

  • Documents for Webinars on Supporting Students with Autism in Math

    Link to Drop Box folder for webinar on Task Analysis Link to Drop Box folder for webinar on Making Math Meaningful (note: the folder is not populated with handouts with excerpts shown on the video. These documents will be available in the folder by Oct 16.

  • Assessing the Concept of Addition

    Teaching students to add appears to be a very linear, skill driven endeavor. Hidden in this is the concept of what it means to add and how to assess this conceptual understanding. Here is an approach to address and assess the concept of adding. In the photo above a student is prompted to pull both…

  • Targeting Gaps in a Math Topic

    A key to intervention for math is to drill down into a topic to see which step is causing a student problems. This is a big reason why ongoing progress monitoring is vital to intervention. In this case a student in a previous session had occasionally added the percent to the dollar amounts – the…

  • Assessment of a Math Objective

    Assessment of a Math Objective

    List all the steps for the objective. Use this table (above) as a pretest to identify gaps. Provide instruction on the gaps. In the photo below I used color coding to show what to multiply and scaffolding to align the digits in ONES and TENS place. NOTE: I provide the problems with some steps already…