My 6th grade students were preparing to sit an internal assessment to determine their Math placement for next year. One student, full of determination, asked to come in for extra help during her break time. I was impressed by her attitude and tutored her on some topics I expected to be on the test. She didn't do well, and I realized I had failed her by focusing on the test material, and not her learning.
Much of our teaching strategies have changed over the last 30 years, but our assessments remain the same. Steve Leinwand, http://steveleinwand.com/ at the Mathematics Assessment Institute held at the American School of Warsaw, outlined how there is a need for change in the way we assess students in Mathematics, and how we prepare them for these assessments.
Erma Anderson, also speaking at the Math Assessment workshop, described assessment as a practice of listening to what the student has to offer, and observing what they can do. A traditional test where there is only one answer to a problem do not begin to show the true abilities of a student.
Within my role of classroom teacher, or math teacher, I have often been involved in assessing students' readiness for acceleration or advanced courses. This has always proved difficult, especially taking into consideration the student's age, gender, socio-economical background, and attitude. Parents, also, want to see their child perform to their highest potential. In one international school, the department decided to advance all and any students according to parents choice. We only tested students who wanted to be even further advanced, two grades above their peers. In yet another school, the department found that entry tests were meaningless if given before the student had entered the program. This was because most testing gave appropriate and meaningful data to the teacher who was currently teaching the student.
One role I played was in assessing students whose teacher was seeking support in properly evaluating their true level. I found the main reason why this was proving difficult was because most of the assessments we use in classrooms are generated to test a specific set of skills at a specific level. I was able to take away that constraint by offering the student some open ended problem solving situations and investigative activities. One first grade student was generating fourth grade level questions when asked what he was interested in working on.
The link below was introduced to me by Steve Leinwand, and provides a very dynamic way of introducing algebraic concepts, and assessing how ready students are for this abstract math.
https://teacher.desmos.com/centralpark
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