Combining Transformations Formative Assessment Lesson Completed
Lesson 14 of 23
Objective: This lesson is intended to help you assess how well students are able to recognize and visualize transformations of 2D shapes. Also assess how well students can translate, reflect, and rotate shapes and combine these transformations.
I have a video of my students completing this whole group wrap up as scripted in the lesson plan on page T6 as part of my reflection on this section.
The formative assessment lesson has a closing whole group activity that I used to consolidate the work students have been working to complete for the past two days. The instructions for the closing discussion are located on page T6 of the lesson guide from the Shell Center Website. The PowerPoint from the website has the slide of directions for the whole group wrap up. All you need to print and copy (on copy for each student – a classroom set is fine) is page S4 and give students tracing paper, rulers, and protractors. The PowerPoint walks students through demonstrating a translations, rotation, and reflection of a single point. I used the PowerPoint to ask students to demonstrate the first three transformations. I then told the class that I noticed most groups left the reflections across the lines y = x and y = -x for the end of the activity on the previous day. I used my IPad to take pictures of correct card matches with the transformation reflect across the line y = x. I pull these pictures up on my Enoboard using my computer and projector then asked the students who matched the cards to come up and speak to the group about how they thought through the matching process.
At the end of the whole group discussion, I would normally discuss the guiding questions I developed through looking over the pre-assessment data, however, I felt the whole group discussions and activity time with the cards really addressed the main misconceptions my students displayed. Therefore, I simply highlighted that transformations was a misconception on the pre-assessment and we further decided how to translate. I also had one student present the translation as a function rule for coordinates and I scripted his discussion on the board – translations of -2 horizontally and +3 vertically is really just (x – 2, y + 3) for each vertex.
Students continued to sit with their assigned partners but the whole group transformation work was performed by students individually. I walked about the room during each transformation formatively assessing learning and asking guiding questions that moved learning forward. I sometimes challenged work and other times asked students to explain why they believe their transformation is correct. I also asked two students to present their thinking to the whole class because they made unique connections as we worked through the transformations from the board. I like to ask students to present unique thinking or multiple approaches to completing a task. One student used his paper to rotate the original paper 180 degrees instead of rotating the tracing paper 180 degrees. Another student saw that if the first three transformations were combined into a compound transformation, the point would eventually move back to its original location of (1, 4).
Students are given time to work alone – no partner conversations and no help from you as the teacher – to complete a clean version of the pre-assessment located on pages S1 and S2 of the lesson plan http://map.mathshell.org/materials/lessons.php?taskid=490&subpage=concept Because many of my students struggled to answer even a few questions on the pre-assessment I did not give them a copy of their pre-assessment to look over as they worked on the post assessment. Instead, I gave them only the clean post assessment copy with the word “Post” copied at the top. I also allowed at least 15 to 20 minutes because time was an issue on the pre-assessment. However, my students worked much faster on the post assessment then they did on the pre-assessment.
I allowed students to use all the tools they wanted such as tracing paper, rulers, and protractors. I put all supplies in the front of the room and allowed them to take as needed. After students completed the assessment I analyzed the results for two main purposes. One purpose was to look for still common misconceptions both class wide and individually. I plan to address commons misconceptions as we keep moving through the last week of the unit. Individual students with a number of misconceptions will be pulled into my intervention class at the end of the day for a few days in a row to relook at the material they have not yet mastered. I also analyzed students for individual growth. I looked at each student’s pre and post assessment to analyze growth across the activity towards meeting mastery over transformations. I will include a spreadsheet used for tracking individual student misconceptions from pre to post assessment if you would like to chart student data. Students may not meet perfect mastery of every question on the post assessment, but improvement should be demonstrated by all students.