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Assessing Projects: Checking Understanding
Questions for Assessing Thinking

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Monitoring Student Thinking
Use this Assessment Checklist to monitor and guide student thinking as students work in teams to classify items into categories.

Create Categories

Questioning Strategies

  1. What kind of an item is this?
  2. What is the relationship between ________ and ________?
  3. How is ________ like ________?
  4. How are ________ and ________ different?
  5. Can you distinguish between ________ and __________?
  6. Can you separate the ________ from the ________?
  7. Which one doesn't belong in this group?
  8. Why are you grouping the items that way?
  9. Can you separate these items into more distinct categories?
  10. Why are you putting ________ and _________ together?
  11. Can you think of descriptive names for the categories you’ve created?

Assessment Checklist

Circle the letter of the skill or strategy that is apparent in each group’s discussion. 

  1. Students can identify common features and compare and contrast items.
  2. Students can differentiate between general categories and specific items.
  3. Students can generate reasonable categories and explain their reasoning.
  4. Students can create appropriate names for categories.

Comments

 

Team 1         1      2     3     4

Team 2         1      2     3     4

Team 3         1      2     3     4

Team 4         1      2     3     4

Team 5         1      2     3     4

Team 6         1      2     3     4


Refine Categories
    1. Are you sure you want to categorize the items that way?
    2. Are there ways that items in the same category are different? Are these important differences? Would this make a difference in your categories?
    3. Take two items that could create a new category and put them together and ask them in what new category they might belong.
    4. Try re-categorizing the items into different groups. Do these groups more accurately reflect the characteristics?
    1. Students can see flaws in their reasoning.
    2. Students can see multiple ways of categorizing.
    3. Students can evaluate the best categories and explain their reasoning.                                          

    Comments

    Team 1         1      2     3 
       
    Team 2         1      2     3  
      
    Team 3         1      2     3 
       
    Team 4         1      2     3  
      
    Team 5         1      2     3  
      
    Team 6         1      2     3


    Finalize Categories
      1. What is the overall theme of this category?
      2. What generalization can you make from this information?
      3. Think of good names for your categories.
      • Are they short with just a few words?
      • Do they accurately describe the items in them?

      1. Do all of the items fit in the category or do you need to move some to other categories or create new ones?
      2. Can think of any additional items that would fit in the category?
      3. Are some of your items more important to the category than others?
      4. Are your categories as refined as they can be?

      1. Students can generalize categories that include multiple items.
      2. Students can prioritize items based on the degree to which their features relate to the category description.
      3. Students can finalize their category descriptions to include all appropriate items and exclude all irrelevant ones.
      4. Students can elaborate the categories by generating additional appropriate items and describing those items in more detail.

      Comments

       

      Team 1         1      2     3     4

      Team 2         1      2     3     4

      Team 3         1      2     3     4

      Team 4         1      2     3     4

      Team 5         1      2     3     4

      Team 6         1      2     3     4

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