Decimal Diagnostic!

Kristen teaches a combined Grade 5/6 class.  They are half way through their first expectation in Number Sense and Numeration.  They have worked through whole numbers and are just about to head into decimals.  Kristen has a wide variety of learners in her classroom and before she started the unit, she wanted to find out what the students already knew about decimals and what were the misconceptions they had about decimals.

Using the newly release Gap Closing materials from the Ministry, (available at www.edugains.ca - Under "gap closing") she turned to the chapter on decimals.  She then used the diagnostic with her whole class to see if there were any struggles or misconceptions.  She recorded how they did on each question and then used the facilitators guide to help determine where to go next.  (You can see how some students have items highlighted - this was what question(s) they struggled with) She went down the list in the facilitators guide that informed her of what to give the students to work on to help clear up their misconceptions.

 She then listed the students that were struggling under the topic they appeared to be struggling with.  For her class she started with the first misconception "tenths" and then went on from there.

As the names were written out, she made sure that the struggles matched the grade group.  For example, both Grade 5 and 6 have been taught tenths, but only the Grade 6s have been taught hundredths (that is the Grade 5 expectation).  Therefore, no Grade 5 students would be expected to work on hundredths.

The next day, Kristen had a computer period with her students.  During this time she had some students work in a small group with her or me on the topic that they were struggling with.  The other students were engaged in playing games involving decimals on the computer.  In the period we were each able to help a group of students clear up the misconceptions that they had.  They rolled their eyes at us when we mentioned that we could see their hamsters working overtime! :)

For the group that we were not able to get to, we made the decision to give them their sheet for homework after explaining what to do. The nice thing with the Gap Closing material is that they have a "Think sheet" which helps to explain the concept that is being taught in simple terms for the student to understand.  This is nice for situations like this when the student has to do work on their own.

Sample Activities From The Gap Closing Materials

What is helpful now is that Kristen can fully start her unit on decimals as she now is aware of not only some of the students who had misconceptions, but also where the strengths of her students are.  This allows her to focus her teaching on the concepts and ideas that they are really struggling with, and hopefully preventing them from getting any more gaps.