Balanced Assessment Project Review

Last week, the group and I reviewed lessons from the balanced assessment project that met our respective standards in our domains. After breaking down the assessments more thoroughly, I realized how applicable these assessments were to a number of our standards. They don't seem to be very complex problems when you initially look at them, but a lot of these problems use a variety of skills from a variety of domains in the standards. For that reason, I will be reviewing a few more assessments that meet the standard in my domain and determining what other standards in other domains (as well as mine) apply to this assessment as well.

As a reminder, my standard is: CC.2.2.2A.2: Work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication.

Birthday Cupcakes

The prompt for this assessment is: Mr. Ramon wants to buy cupcakes for his son Jaime's birthday party at school. The cupcakes are sold in boxes each box has either 6 chocolate cupcakes or 6 vanilla cupcakes. There are 27 students in Jaime's class.

Throughout this assessment, the questions prompt the students to do some form of multiplication whether that be skip counting or using equal groups along with some addition. Due to the way the prompt and questions were written, the students are almost forced to use equal groups to determine the answer for two of the questions. For that reason, this assessment met my standard: work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication.

As for the other standards, there were a few that this assessment met. One question required the students to subtract a two-digit number from another two-digit number. This problem could be solved mentally or on paper, so it could fulfill standards CC.2.1.2.B.3: Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract within 1000, CC.2.2.2.A.1: Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction within 100, and CC.2.2.2.A.2: Use mental strategies to add and subtract within 20. It did not however fit into the domains of geometry and measurement, data, and probability.

Postal Puzzles

The prompt for this assessment is: In the imaginary country of Philalia, the only kinds of stamps are ones that cost 3 tekos and ones that cost exactly 4 stamps on it.

In the questions that follow, the students must use multiplication strategies to answer. These problems in particular encourage students to use equal group and try a combination as well which allows them to work on their addition and possibly multiplication skills. For that reason, this assessment fulfills my standard: work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication.

In this assessment, the only standards being fulfilled are the standards in the domain, Algebraic Concepts. This assessment doesn't focus on place value concept at all, so it cannot fulfill any of the standards in Numbers and Operations, nor does it cover any standards in the Geometry domain or Measurement, Data, and Probability. Although the problem does encourage students to use a currency, the questions do not require the students to make change, so it cannot fulfill the standard: Solve problems and make change using coins and paper currency with appropriate symbols.  As for Algebraic Concepts, it does fulfill the standards: Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction within 100 and CC.2.2.2.A.2: Use mental strategies to add and subtract within 20.