OK, so I gave my pre-assessment and analyzed it over the
weekend. None of the 21 children were able to: 1)define
an expression;
2)give an example of an expression (some of them
wrote "Wow!" thinking that was a mathematical "expression"--
CUTE!); 3) define a number sentence.

A few kids were able to 4) write a number sentence and 5)
read a word problem, then write the number sentence to go
with it.

So I was confused by that. None of the children knew the
first three tasks, but some kids knew the last two steps.
Does that mean that I didn't set up my task-analysis/pre-
assessment correctly? Should it have been
hierarchical/foundational in order? Should one skill be
the pre-requisite of the next for a pre-assessment?

So here's what I did today: I taught the definition of an
expression and examples of expressions. This was my
objective on the board: "I will define (tell the meaning
of) a mathematical expression. I will write an example of
a mathematical expression." After my lesson, I did a
formative assessment on their white boards. Those students
who mastered those steps were excused to have "free time"
(which are academic centers in my classroom or computer
time), while I continued to teach all the rest of the
students who didn't get these first two objectives yet.
Several more times I assessed and excused students as they
mastered it. Soon I was able to get down to only 2-3 kids
who still hadn't mastered it and so I called the kids all
back to the group, making mental note of those two children
for the future. This whole process took about 15-20
minutes of teaching and assessing, but I was VERY SURE of
who exactly had mastered it and who was still confused,
which was nice for me.

What I wasn't sure of was how to structure the "free time"
of the students who had attained mastery. Help me here
now. I just excused them for a few minutes with the
instructions that I would be calling them back soon, so
they knew it wasn't a long time that they would be
excused. But I feel like their activity should have been
congruent to the objective and working at a higher level on
the Bloom's taxonomy as you said, Jan. I just wasn't ready
for that yet. I'm still working on the lower levels myself
(!) and could only handle one new learning for myself at a
time today!

I was pleased with the lesson, however, and the better
knowledge of exactly who needed the lesson and who could
move on. I'm just ready for more now. Can you help me
with this next step?

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