The first math unit I teach is Order of Operations and Whole Numbers. I try to be strategic as I jump into any unit, so the first thing I do is pre-assess my students on all of the standards I’m about to teach.
*Our units are grouped by the state of GA and are from the Georgia Standards of Excellence. Unit 1 contains the following standards: 5.OA.1, 5.OA.2, 5.NBT.1, 5.NBT.2, 5.NBT.5, 5.NBT.6
Pre-assessments are a great way to find out what your students already know.
They’re great for:
- determining what skills each student or the class has already mastered
- helping to form small groups based on data
- determining timelines and mapping out how long you may need to teach each skill
- differentiating instruction based on the pre-assessment data
What Does My Pre-test Look Like?
- multiple choice – I use a multiple choice pre-test in order to easily interpret data so I don’t spend weeks having to grade it. I can plan immediately.
- paperless – A few years ago I took all of my math assessments and put them into Google Forms. This has saved me TONS of time with grading
- 20 questions – this is a pretty reasonable number of questions
- standards included – I include the standard with each problem. I do this because when you get the data in Google Forms, it will pop up and show you exactly which standards you need to focus on.
***I only use multiple choice on my unit tests (pre and post). On quizzes, quick checks, and classwork, the questions are open-ended.***Students still work out their problems on paper, but they’re now able to get used to online assessments (our end-of-year state assessment is online) and I’m able to get the data instantly.
Once my students have completed the pre-test, I will take the time to go through the data and responses in order to plan my unit.
Click here to find out what the data can look like and how I use it for planning my unit on Order of Operations and Whole Numbers.
Click here to see all of my paperless math assessments for grades 3-5.
