Favorite No: A Math Assessment Technique

Students may not understand the primary or secondary vocabulary necessary to participate in the discussion. Some students may be hesitant to participate because of a lack of confidence in their ability to comprehend math and discuss it with other students in class.

While these are common barriers, there is clear value to getting discussions going in your classroom. With the right planning and messaging, every student, regardless of their level of understanding, is presented with the opportunity to share thinking (concrete to abstract) and all are highlighted and celebrated.  Students can learn from each other and thus have access to multiple pathways of student thinking which will, no doubt, improve student proficiency with the material.

Given the value, we wanted to share a high-leverage recommendation on how to use ASSISTments data to promote rich discussions with and among students.

Use Common Wrong Answer Data to Discuss a “Favorite Mistake”
One straightforward way to incorporate discussions into your lessons is to use the  “My Favorite No” routine. This routine invites students to do error analysis on one problem or task that the entire class has completed.  The teacher projects one wrong answer and students share what they like about the work before identifying the mistake. The idea is to encourage students to see that even if you get to the right answer, there can still be a lot to learn from how a student approached the problem.With ASSISTments, we make picking a “favorite no” or wrong answer easy by providing common wrong answers. This would be ripe for discussion, as it is an answer that often reflects some correct work, but then an error that reflects a common misconception. See what it looks like in this short video!

Take a look at this short blog to explore other opportunities for facilitating class discussions with ASSISTments.

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