I would like to address how my pre-assessment aligns with the Oregon core standards. The curriculum used at Falls City Elementary for 8^th grade math is actually an Oregon curriculum. Each lesson of the book is already aligned with an Oregon core standard, but the assessments that come with the curriculum are not labeled in this way. I used a pre-designed assessment for my pre-assessment, but I edited it to make it shorter. I also changed some of the number in a few questions to make them easier to work with for my students, and I labeled each question with the standards it aligns with.  The first seven questions align with Oregon core standard 8.1.3 which states: Identify and interpret the properties (i.e. slope, intercepts, continuity, and discreteness) of linear relationships as they are shown in the different representations and recognize proportional relationships ( y/x = k or y = kx ) as a special case. My unit addressed most of this standard, although my cooperating teacher mentioned to me that the special case of direct variation (or y=kx) would be addressed later in the curriculum so I did not need to include that in my assessments.

            Question one asks the student to graph and equation that is in slope-intercept form. In order to draw a graph the student must identify the slope and y-intercept in the equation and interpret how to translate this to graphical form.

            Questions two and three ask the student to write an equation from a given graph. Again the student must identify slope and y-intercept on the graph and interpret how to translate that information into an equation form.

            Questions 4,5, and 6 ask students to write a linear equation from key information. These questions begin with the slope and y-intercept as given and then get progressively more difficult. This again addresses properties of slope and y-intercepts as well as different representations of linear relationships.

            Question 7 asks students to convert an equation in standard form to slope-intercept form. Students must identify that the equation is not in slope intercept form, and they must interpret how to convert this equation.

            The other Oregon core standard that I addressed in my pre-assessment was 8.1.4 which states: Use linear functions and equations to represent, analyze and solve problems, and to make predictions and inferences.

            Question number 8 on my pre-assessment aligns with this standard as it asks students to represent a story problem using a linear equation and then to further use this equation to solve for and make predictions based on the information given in the question.   

            The overall objectives for my unit were as follows:

1.) Students will be able to draw a graph from a linear equation on graph paper.(Cognitive, Applying)

2.) Students will be able to translate an equation in writing from standard form to slope intercept form. (Cognitive, Understanding)

3.) Students will be able to write a linear equation from key information (slope, y-intercept, etc.) (Cognitive, Applying)

4.) Students will be able to solve for a missing part of a linear equation using key information. (Cognitive, Applying)

5.) Students will be able to write their own linear equations to solve problems based on real world scenarios. (Cognitive, Creating)

            Question 1 on the pre-assessment relates to my objective number 1. A large part of using linear equations and understanding linear relationships is being able to represent this concept in graphical form.

            Question 7 addresses objective number 2. Students should be able to identify an equation that is not in slope-intercept form and translate it to slope-intercept form (this is so they will eventually be able to graph the equation more easily).

            Question 2 and 3 relate to objective 3 in that students must identify the key information in the graph and use it to write an equation. Questions 4,5, and 6 also address this objective as the key information is given and students must use it to write a linear equation.

            Questions 5 and 6 also address objective number 4 as the information given to write a linear equation is incomplete and students must use it to solve for the missing part and then write the equation.

            Question 8 addresses objective number 5. This is a story problem loosely based on a real world scenario and students must interpret the information and write their own linear equation to represent what is happening in the problem.

            I chose this test from the many different versions in the textbook supplements because it is a tiered test. The questions are presented in the same order that the material will be taught in because some of the latter questions make use of the skills used in the first questions. As a tiered test, the questions are supposedly in order from simple to difficult, although what is simple and what is difficult may be different for each individual student. Some of my students missed parts of the first few questions, but successfully answered some of the latter “more difficult” questions. I chose a test as an assessment because the students I had in my class were familiar with taking tests since my cooperating teacher gives them one every couple of weeks. Because they were used to taking tests I decided that this would be a good method to determine whether or not they were familiar with this material. This test in its original form included 12 multiple-choice questions, and two open-ended free response questions. I did not want students to be able to guess on the multiple choice questions so I removed them, and if the students could not figure out how to do the short answer questions, then they would not be able to do the longer free response questions. I also deleted some of the short answer questions from the original test because I did not want the test to take the entire class time as it is just a pre-assessment to give me a snapshot idea of where my students are at in relation to the standards I am covering.

            When I gave my pre-assessment to my class I told them that they would not be graded down for missing questions. The important part was to attempt every question, and if you know how to solve part of a question you should solve that part. It does not matter if you cannot figure out the entire problem; just solve the parts you know how to solve. I asked them to please show all of their work and to raise their hands when they were finished and I would come collect the test. There are also brief instructions for each set of problems on the test itself and I made sure that they knew that they needed to read all of the directions before attempting to solve the problems.

         One common theme that I found when grading the pre-assessment was that most of the students did better on the graphing questions. This makes sense because the units they just covered involved graphing and ploting points on a graph is actually a pre-requisite skill for this unit. It was really postive to see that they were solid in these skills on the pre-assessment.