Resource Blog #3

As a first-year teacher, I believe an abundance of on-hand resources providing assistance in preparing lesson plans, as well as generating the best formative assessments possible, will be critical. Formative assessments are very important in the classroom; they are short activities that will provide a greater understanding of where students are in their learning processes and can also portray to the teacher things that may need to be altered in the future lessons to fit the needs of the students. The math education resource that I have found is called The Math Assessment Project  (MARS). This website is a FREE resource that provides teachers with FULL lesson plans as well as several forms of formative assessment that could be used in a math class. The Common Core Standards insist that students should be able to think mathematically and apply this type of thought process to real-world situations. This resource has developed several lessons that will supplement traditional classroom practices with ones that support the Common Core Standards. Teachers can choose the grade level they teach, and from there browse through all of the standards and choose which they are working on. The lessons provide the list of materials, lesson goals, formative assessments, the time needed, and outside resources to help with your lesson.  One of my favorite parts of each lesson is that they give you a list of common misconceptions and questions that students may have. This could help you get ahead of your students and address these issues beforehand. In addition to formative assessments, MARS also provides a summative assessment that could be an additional resource for when making tests to fit the standards.

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