Preparing to Teach Order of Operations and Whole Numbers

The first math unit I teach is Order of Operations and Whole Numbers.  I try to be strategic as I jump into any unit, so the first thing I do is pre-assess my students on all of the standards I'm about to teach. 

*Our units are grouped by the state of GA and are from the Georgia Standards of Excellence.  Unit 1 contains the following standards:  5.OA.1, 5.OA.2, 5.NBT.1, 5.NBT.2, 5.NBT.5, 5.NBT.6

Pre-assessments are a great way to find out what your students already know.  It helps with:

• determining what skills each student or the class has already mastered
• helping to form small groups based on data
• determining timelines and mapping out how long you may need to teach each skill
• differentiating instruction based on the pre-assessment data

What Does My Pre-test Look Like?

• multiple choice - I use a multiple choice pre-test in order to easily interpret data so I don't spend weeks having to grade it.  I can plan immediately.  
• paperless - A few years ago I took all of my math assessments and put them into Google Forms.  This has saved me TONS of time with grading
• 20 questions - this is a pretty reasonable number of questions
• standards included - I include the standard with each problem.  I do this because when you get the data in Google Forms, it will pop up and show you exactly which standards you need to focus on. 

***I only use multiple choice on my unit tests (pre and post).  On quizzes, quick checks, and classwork, the questions are open-ended.***

Students still work out their problems on paper, but they're now able to get used to online assessments (our end-of-year state assessment is online) and I'm able to get the data instantly.

Once my students have completed the pre-test, I will take the time to go through the data and responses in order to plan my unit.

Click here to find out what the data can look like and how I use it for planning.

Click here to see all of my paperless math assessments for grades 3-5.