Assessment, Learning Styles & Error Patterns
Slide 1
Anne Henderson
University College, Bangor Wales
Dyscalculia
Slide 2
Assessment Tests for Students with SpLD
- Single topics - IEPs
- Observe
- Discuss
- Do not pre-judge
- Identify learning style
Slide 3
Specific Tests
- Reliable test
- Results
- Provides comparison
- Identifies difficulties
- Diagnostic information
Slide 4
Dyscalculia Screener (2002)
- Annual Licence costs £150 (manual +CD)- Licence renewal costs £50.00
Graphical display relating to
- dyscalculia
- learning / teaching difficulty
- problems with symbols
- average maths ability
Slide 5
Formative Assessment
- Helps students to improve
Change in four aspects of work:
- Question and answer dialogue in class
- Marking homework
- Peer and self-assessment
- Involvement of students
Slide 6
Assessment of Written work
- Closed questions marked in class
Decide carefully
- what to assess
- what outcome
- specific purposes
- assess processes
- Open questions
- Marking policy
- Statements of assessment
- Copies of marking policy
Slide 7
Questions
- Better to ask
- Tell an answer
- Variety of questions
- Listen
- Analyze thinking
Slide 8
Different answers
e.g. What numbers add to make 10?
6 + 4 || 9 + 1 || 3 + 7 || 4 + 3 + 3 || 2 + 7 +1 || 2 + 2 + 6 || 2½ + 7½ || 4½ + 5½ || 1½ + 8 ½
- What are you doing?
- Why that way?
- What have you learned so far?
- Can you remember doing this before?
- What do you need to know about that?
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Closed Questions
- Give a precise answer
- e.g. What must I add to 4 to make 10?
- Discover exact knowledge
- e.g. What are two sixes?
Slide 10
Closed question - Open question
Closed Questions | Open Question |
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Slide 11
Learning Styles (Vail 1993)
Available for maths?
- Listen
- Importance of 'talk'
- 2D or 3D material?
- Simultaneous or sequential?
- How does the student learn?
- Eager to make connections?
Slide 12
The Verbal/ Auditory Learner (Inchworm)
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The Visual Learner (Grasshopper)
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Differences in learning
- Successive pictures
- Two modes in competition
- 'Mental zoom'
- Verbal thinkers notice differences
- Visual thinkers notice similarities
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Language, Memory and Sequences
- Verbal rehearsal
- Activation of visual processing
- Grid a visual global frame
{Wilson & Emmorey (97)} - Simultaneous global viewing
- Diagrammatic answers
Slide 16
Grid Reference (La Garanderie 1996)
Visual Learner | Verbal/Auditory Learner | |
Visual Teaching | Perceived easily, (waits until whole picture is complete) | Describes picture with mental comments |
Verbal/Auditory Teaching | Evokes a mental picture which blurs dramatically if there is stress | Perceived easily |
Kinaesthetic Teaching | Evokes a mental picture | Triggers a verbal mental activity |
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Effective Teaching
- Better qualified
- Inset training
- Length of service
Slide 18
Mathematics Teaching
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Slide 19
Types of Teacher Orientations
Different Orientations:
- Discovery
- Transmission
- Connectionist
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Discovery (Student - Mathematics)
- Responsibility of students
- Student's independence
- What is learned
- Lack of readiness
- Natural order for all mathematics
Slide 21
Transmission (Teacher - Mathematics)
- Emphasis on teaching
- Access to maths
- Responsible for learning
- Manipulation of symbols
- Same method
Slide 22
Connectionist (Teacher, Student, Mathematics)
- Teach and learn
- Teacher a learner too
- Listens to student
- Network of connections
- Much discussion
Slide 23
Summary
- If teaching is
- positive, building on strengths,
- multi-sensory
- systematic, structured and sequential,
- not overloaded,
- focused on learning style,
when every individual is valued then it should be successful