0 Unpacking the Standards: Assessments and Teaching Notes for Math and ELA {Aligned to Student Data Tracking Binders}

***Before I start talking about assessments, please know these are for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.

**Also, I now have English Language Arts Assessments for 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grades! Check them out HERE.

Unpacking the standards. If you don't know what this term means, let me break it down for you. Unpacking the standards means that you, as the teacher, are to look at each standard, and think about each standard's sub-objectives. This is important because you need to understand what students need to be able to do in order to master the standard, and what it looks like when they master it. 

This is huge. How will you know what to teach if you're not 100% sure what the standard is saying? How will you know when your class full of 30+ students with different backgrounds and learning styles have actually mastered a standard?

Well, the great news is, I have done the work and unpacked the standards for you. In each grade level’s version of my Math Standards Based Assessments and each grade level’s version of my English Language Arts Assessments and Teaching Notes, I have broken down each individual standard for you in my easy-to-use teaching notes.

First, let's talk math! These math teaching notes seriously excite me due to the fact that I broke them down into three levels of mastery to better understand not only the standards, but also my students’ understanding. The three levels include what students should know and/or be able to do at the conceptual level, procedural level, and representational level.

These teaching notes have completely transformed my teaching. With the standards broken down into what your students need to know at the conceptual, procedural, and representational level, you will have a much better idea of the language of the standards and where your students need to be by test time. Plus, modifying and differentiating your lessons will be so much easier.

Besides the comprehensive teaching notes, these assessments also include a page for students to document the "I can" statements that align to the standards, and space for students to record their pre- and post-assessment scores.

This tiny piece of organization is huge for teachers using my Student Data Tracking Binders or for teachers that may not use my Student Data Tracking Binders but need to stay organized and knowledgeable about their students' progress.

As many of us know, the Common Core requires that our kids have more of a conceptual and representational understanding of this math versus only a procedural understanding of the algorithms. I worked hard to create assessments with a perfect mix of questions designed to test conceptual, representational, and procedural levels of mastery. As you can see from the examples below, many of the questions require students to justify and explain their thinking and represent their answers using visual models. There are also questions that test procedural understanding, because that is important too.

Every individual math standard has an appropriate mix of conceptual, procedural, and representational types of questions that align perfectly with the standards.

I also created detailed answer keys for each question and wrote out sample student responses for each of the writing to explain questions.

Below are all of the Standards Based Assessments and Teaching Notes for both Math and English Language Arts. Click HERE to check each one out and to see a more in-depth preview! 



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Are you using my Student Data Tracking Binders in your classroom? If yes, these assessments are aligned perfectly to use with my tracking system in your classroom. If you are not using my Student Data Tracking Binders, you can still use these assessments easily in your classroom. If you are interested in learning more about my Student Data Tracking Binders and the tremendous growth I have seen in my classroom, click HERE to read up on them!

I use these assessments as pre--assessments before teaching any of the standards, and then again as a post-assessments at the conclusion of my unit or teaching of the standard. Pre-assessments play an important role in your ability to differentiate instruction. You administer pre-assessments in order to understand what students know and are able to do before you begin instruction. Post-assessments are used to evaluate student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of your defined instructional period. Post-assessments also help teachers see which students, if any, may need additional re-teachings and/or interventions of a standard. 

Using these pre- and post-assessments with my Student Data Tracking Binders has been such an incredible experience in my classroom. Never before have I seen such intrinsic motivation from my students about their learning. Their test scores are shooting through the roof, and it has completely transformed both their learning and my teaching. 

Click HERE to learn more about my Student Data Tracking Binders.

Click HERE to check out my Math and English Language Arts Assessments and Teaching Notes for your grade, and download the previews for more information!

Are you using Standards Based Grading in your classroom or school? Check out my entire series of blog posts on standards based grading below!

Click HERE for part 1:

Click HERE for part 2: 

Click HERE for part 3:

Still have questions about implementing My Student Data Tracking Binders and Assessments? Grab my free Frequently Asked Questions Freebie HERE!