NCLB Assessment Quality

The following problem is a released test item for fifth grade students, assessing their fourth grade achievement. It is from the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) Student Practice Test Booklet for Grade 5 Mathematics. Can you find the problem that I have with it? I used this problem with my fifth grade class today for their review. Testing begins next week. What are the standards for testing validity for high stakes tests?

Technorati tags: NECAP mathematics validity
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Resisting the TI: JD2718

Resisting the TI: JD2718

We got a whole bunch of TIs a few years ago. I never knew why. I still don't know why. They cost a bunch of money, I know that. The district seemed to feel we needed them.

I mostly use them to demonstrate how to use them.

I have used them (today, in fact) to save time demonstrating patterns. But I only do that maybe once a year because patterns can be found easily enough. This pattern today was a bit more complicated. Our periods are short. And the kids needed the calculator practice for the upcoming NECAPs (New England Common Assessment Program).

I have always had a sneaky suspicion that TI has a huge PR thing going on to convince us that we need these things.

The comments of this post are interesting. When I took calculus I had a graphing calculator but found it a hindrance to learning what happens in a graph. I spent my time monkeying with the calculator instead of analyzing what was happening in the graph. I certainly couldn't use the calculator results in an exam because I was never as sure of the results as I was when I did it manually.

I am very interested in student, parent and instructor feelings about graphing calculators.

Technorati tags: TI graphing+calculator NECAP

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