How Do You Mark This?

In Nancy's Grade 4/5 class they have been working on different strategies to multiply and divide.  We gave them the following problem to work on in pairs:

After having them read the problem, we addressed any words that they were unsure about.  In this case, smoothie and assuming were new to them.  After completing a KWC chart the students set to work solving the problem.

As we walked around the room (and using the A4L tool) we noticed that there was perhaps too much in the problem, but the students were doing a really good job of using different strategies to solve the problem.  Then we came to one group.  This is what their paper looked like:

 
At first we both kind of stopped and stared in silence for a few moments.  Then the question came into our heads of "How do we mark this?"  Clearly, some of the feedback that we would give to the students would be that they need to work on organization!  But what about the work?  When we started to look at the achievement chart, we noticed that there really were a lot of positives happening in the work.  The students have a strong knowledge of adding and are able to apply their knowledge of fractions and reasoning to the problem.  They are also able to see that the quickest way to solve the problem is find out the total number of students and divide by two to give the amount of each type of smoothie.  We can see their thinking - although this area is a little bit weaker as their organization is not clear, and we can't see how they jump from idea to idea.  In terms of communication, they are able to get their ideas across, but it is not that clear to follow. 

When we consolidated with the students, we had them come and talk about what they think they did well on, and where they needed to improve.  Because we had used a Bansho to organize the work they were then able to clearly see where they needed to improve.  To capitalize on this, we then had the class write on a post - it note what they will do differently the next time they solve a problem.