Assessing Understanding through Reasoning Books - Article

In today's society, people are taught that there is usually one correct answer and that this answer should be a yes or no response. This is what children of all ages are thinking, so they do not want to think and challenge themselves to what a teacher could be asking for. In this article, it was talked about that teachers are assuming that their students know what he/she is talking about and that they will remember everything they are taught over a short amount of time. But this is far from the truth; many students do not know what the teacher is talking about without many examples and follow up questions. Many students are more focused on getting an answer and do not know how or why that answer was chosen. The students needed an answer and wrote one down without have a justification for the answer they chose.

When teachers are trying to assess what the students have taken away from a lesson, they need to be able to have the students explain what they have done. Students need to be able to create an argument and justify why they worked out a problem the way they did. The teacher needs to help the students with this process and help the students develop the deeper thinking skills needed to communicate the mathematical terms and procedures correctly.

The reasoning books that were used by the teacher were filled with all sorts of mathematical problems; all of the problems needed to be justified and communicated in a way that would be understood by the teacher. Some of the problems presented didn't have a lot of information, but the students had to be able explain without help how they came up with the different answers.

Roberts, S. K. & Tayeh, C. (2010). Assessing understanding through reasoning books. Math teaching in middle school 15 (7), 406-414.