ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with formative assessment for learning mathematics. The challenge is particularly acute for mathematics since, in the US and around the world, teaching has typically addressed a narrow range of learning goals, largely confined to technical skills taught as procedures through show-and-practice, so change is decidedly a challenge. A fundamental issue, then, is how to enable mathematics teachers to acquire the new and challenging pedagogical and mathematical skills needed to implement formative assessment successfully in their classrooms. A mathematical task may be enriched, for example, by having students view the task using a range of representations and compare the insights gained by using different representations. A fundamental element in formative assessment is the surfacing of each student’s understandings and misconceptions. A basic misapprehension about formative assessment is that the teacher is responsible for setting all the students straight.
