Assessment is essential to education both in its formative and summative forms, assessment informs decision making about student learning. Large scale assessments provide important data about student learning at the individual, school, district and provincial levels. Large scale assessments can take many forms from high stakes standardized assessments like the Foundation Skills Assessment in BC or provincial assessments in secondary schools to lower stakes such as the Fountas and Pinnell reading assessments used in elementary classrooms to monitor student progress in literacy. While this number sense assessment can be used as a large-scale assessment for entire grade groups or schools it is not intended to be high stakes or summative. The Number Agility assessment is a formative tool to allow teachers to determine student’s competency with number sense and implement instructional strategies and activities to address gaps and build upon strengths. While the assessment is an assessment tool that can inform teacher judgement regarding students’ progress in math it is not intended to be a reporting tool and should never be the only tool used when reporting on student achievement. Formative assessments are among the most powerful intervention tools in a classroom, drawing attention to student needs and allowing for timely supports to be put in place (Varier, et al., 2024). At the same time using the Number Agility assessment across a grade level or school allows for standardization which, “allows stakeholders to compare performance across individuals, classes, schools and school systems.” (Varier, et al., 2024) The results from this assessment can be examined at the classroom and school level to plan for learning as well as to put support in place for students who need them. Caution should be exercised when using the Number Agility assessment as a standalone decision-making tool as the data captures a snapshot of student learning at a single moment in time.
Why Was This Assessment Created?
Assessing number sense is key due to the foundational nature of number sense in the mathematics curriculum, teaching students to do operations, solve problems or apply math to the world beyond the classroom in meaningless if students do not know what numbers mean. Number sense is as foundational to math as phonics is to language arts. This assessment was created to address gaps in the available resources in the both the Langley School District and the province of British Columbia. While a number of resources exist to assess numeracy in general there is nothing available that corresponds with the British Columbia curriculum to specifically assess number sense. This assessment aims to assess number sense on its own to determine what skills students have and where there is room for growth. In creating the assessment, the guiding questions in Classroom Assessment Standards for PreK – 12 Teachers (Klinger, et al., 2015) were followed. The first five questions and their answers below helped to frame the assessment:
Who will be assessed?
This assessment is designed for elementary and middle school students. There are four unique bands to the assessment breaking it into 2-4 year blocks allowing for the assessment to be tailored to student’s relative age and grade level. This assessment is designed to be completed by the entire class.
What is being assessed?
This assessment will assess students number sense as a standalone concept separate from other areas of the mathematics curriculum. The five strands of number sense will be assessed in isolation where possible. The number sense skills that students are being assessed on are linked both to research and the British Columbia curriculum. By connecting the Number Agility levels to the BC Curriculum teachers in BC have an accurate picture of their students number sense skills relative to their grade level
How do the results support learning?
The results of the assessment support learning in multiple ways. The assessment acts first as a diagnostic tool determining where students have gaps in their number sense and allowing teachers to target instruction to students needs. The assessment can also be used as a screening tool to determine which students would benefit from more intervention from non-enrolling staff such as pull out or push in learning assistance. By having the number agility levels connected to the BC curriculum it also aids teachers in selecting class activities that meet the needs of their students, by being able to see the grade level that the student’s number sense corresponds with and selecting activities from those grade levels to build skills and confidence. By using the assessment results to select activities that meet students where they are at teachers are able to build confidence and self-efficacy alongside the number sense skills. Finally, the assessment can be used on a school or grade level to determine needs across a larger group of students allowing teachers to focus their collaboration time or professional learning communities time on creating targeted lessons on the topics students require additional practice or extension with.
When Will the assessment be given?
The assessment can be given up to four times in a school year, at the beginning of the year to have a base line of where students are at as well as at the end of each reporting period to monitor growth. By assessing the students at the start of the year teachers have a baseline from which to begin their instruction or form small groups for number sense practice and targeted instruction. By conducting the assessment at the end of each reporting period, not only can growth be measured and shared with caregivers, classroom instruction can be adapted and students who are not making sufficient progress can be referred for additional support or screening.
What can be done to ensure all students benefit from the assessment?
Ensuring that all students can benefit from the assessment means first ensuring that all students have access to the assessment in a way that is meaningful. Utilizing universal design for learning strategies will allow for all students to first access the assessment then to benefit from the outcome. “Scaffolding an exam does not reduce the academic standards. It simply makes the instructions more comprehensible and helps students produce more accurate responses.” (Huynh, 2023) this assessment can be scaffolded to allow students to access it and ensure that their number sense skills are what is being addressed by reducing the language load of the assessment. This assessment is measuring number sense skills, not reading comprehension or writing skills as such the language used in the assessment should be kept to a minimum and the questions should be worded in the simplest way possible. Another way to ensure that all students benefit from the assessment is to adapt which assessment form is being used, some students that have additional learning needs, or have demonstrated weak math skills may benefit from being assessed with the primary assessment even though their age and grade level suggests they should complete the intermediate assessment as the primary assessment matches their skills better and help the teacher and non-enrolling team to better address the learner’s needs. As this assessment is designed to be a diagnostic assessment it sets students up for success by establishing where they have both strengths and areas for growth. This allows teachers to tailor instruction to the needs of the class or a particular student depending on the activity.