My Dynamic Assessment activity

The activity guide describes the purpose of this activity.  I just want to mention that one of my main hopes for the dynamic assessment was that students would approach the math test with a much lower affective filter, and that seems to have happened.  The examinees were generally positive about the experience.  The other hope was that the students in the class would get a more realistic understanding of the way that Dynamic Assessment can work, and the feedback I got, especially from Michael, suggests that the activity was helpful to my colleagues in understanding the process of DA.


My Activity guide:

I will be having students practice dynamic assessment. There seem to be two styles of DA, one of which is more scripted, and one of which is more interactive. I will break the class into groups of 3, with one assessor, one assessee, and one observer. That should be 4 groups. Two of the groups will do a scripted assessment, and two will do an interactive assessment. I have prepared a script for the scripted assessors, which I’ll include.

The assessor will give the assessee a problem of adding fractions. The assessee will do their best to add the fractions, and the assessor will decide how to react to the assessee. In the scripted assessment, they will follow the script I’ve prepared. In the interactive assessment, the assessor and the assessee will negotiate how the assessment will progress. I’ve prepared Sarah for being an interactive assessor, by talking through several possible things that could happen, and how she might react to it. I’ll try to talk someone else through the process.

The observer will be looking for several things, including

· Does this process make the student less apprehensive of math tests?

· How much preparation does the tester have, and how much should he/she have?

· Does the process reveal more about what the student knows than a standard math test would?

After the test, we will have a brief discussion about what went well and what didn’t work well, and how we could make it better. The observers will lead off the discussion, but everyone can chime in.

The rationale is to get the teachers some experience with Dynamic Assessment, so that they can get some idea about how it is different from a standard math test. The affective dimension of this test is a huge part of the reason for doing it, and the teachers will have an experience to ground their understanding of the feelings.

The discussion afterwards will explore the advantages and disadvantages of the two styles of DA, and will also give the teachers a chance to process their feelings, and make it all more real.

The interventionist version of the Dynamic Assessment: