To compare students' initial knowledge of a particular unit with the knowledge they have gained at the end, then the KWL Chart is a great tool. It gives you pre-assessment and summative assessment as well as an opportunity to summarize the whole class' range of knowledge. The KWHL Charts even give students an opportunity to plan how they will gain more knowledge.

However, during planning of our recent UOI, I became stuck. We wanted to learn more about our students' attitudes and skills than merely their knowledge. As knowledge of a skill and use of skill are two distinct things, a KWL wasn't going to cut it.

I created a CWA for skills and thought that while I was at it I may as well create an ABC for attitudes. Both of these charts allows us to learn more about students' prior skill and prior attitudes, allowing us to plan for these alongside their knowledge.

Formative Assessment
Although my students understood the concept of area and could accurately work out the answer to simple problems, I had observed them using a variety of approaches to finding the area of a square, rectangle or shape made up of their combination. Also, I wanted each student to become aware of the variety of approaches available amongst their peers so as to adopt the more efficient strategies that made sense to them. So it was time to design a formative assessment.

Reflection
I gave each small group one problem at a time to solve. As each group explained to the whole class how they solved their problem, I wrote their strategy next to the given problem. We used two types of problems: shapes on 1cm squared graphing paper and similar shapes on blank paper. Students were free to collect and use tools as they needed such as rulers or more graph paper.

Evaluation
As students listened to their peers, there were those lovely penny-dropping moments. When finished, we discovered that we were ALL accurate but not as quick. We agreed on a simple key to evaluate each strategy by using "energy efficiency stars" like they do on electrical appliances.

Students were not only able to learn from one another, but they now have an anchor chart to choose, try or remember efficient strategies when finding the area of these shapes.