My Shot at Creating an Assessment

Today has been a day for sailing on uncharted waters. For the very first time, I have created my very own assessment which (hopefully) covers my entire standard (CC.2.2.2A.2: Work with equal groups of objects to gain foundations for multiplication) and possibly other standards. I unfortunately cannot attach my assessment to this post, but I will give a brief overview of it.


In my assessment, I posed my questions in such a way to veer my students towards using certain strategies for each question.

1. How many circles are below? How do you know?

This question is accompanied by three groups of three circles. My objective with this question was to get the students to recognize the equal groups and use that strategy to skip count by threes instead of counting each circle one by one.

Answer: 9 circles

2. Choose the number sentence that represents the number of cats:

a. 4+4+4+4=16
b. 5+5+5+5=16
c. 4+4+2+2=16
d. 8+8+7+1=16

I presented them with four rows of cats which all contained four cats. My objective with this question was to get the students more acquainted with the idea of using equal groups and be able to see equal groups represented in number form.

Answer: a. 4+4+4+4=16

3.Use repeated addition to create a number sentence that represents the amount of phones above.

The students are shown three rows of phones with five phones in each row. Since they had already been introduced to the idea of created a number sentence based on equal groups, I decided to test their knowledge with an open ended question. This allows them to practice this strategy entirely on their own, so they may make the connection between the physical groups and numbers.

Answer (may vary): 5+5+5=15

4. Kieren wants to get a cake for his class of 32 students. One cake has 8 slices. If two students share one slice of cake, how many cakes would Kieren have to buy? Explain how you got this answer.

This is a very complex question for children at this age level; I do not expect them to do division to solve this problem. A simpler way to solve this problem would be to use the graphic of the cake I provided to skip count around the circle and track how many times they must go around the circle until they reach 32.

Answer: 2 cakes

To my surprise, the process of creating my own personal assessment was not as difficult as I though it would be. Breaking down the standard, reviewing other assessments and lessons, and discussing it with the group certainly helped quite a bit. If I were to create a lesson and teach it before creating this assessment, I think creating this assessment would have helped even more. By that point, I would be so familiar with the standard that it would be secondhand knowledge. With time and practice, I could most definitely start creating assessments with no problem at all.