TEACHER TIPS help you make the most of OGAP in your classroom this year. If you have comments or suggestions about TEACHER TIPS, please let us know at  ogapmath@gse.upenn.edu.
August 29, 2017
Administering and Using the OGAP Pre-Assessments

Welcome back to a new school year. We hope things are off to a great start!  It was great to see so many of you at OGAP training this summer.
 
A good way to start off the year is to administer an OGAP Pre-assessment to learn about the understandings your students are coming in with. The pre-assessments are designed to elicit developing understandings, pre-conceptions, misconceptions, strategies that students use, and common errors that students make when solving problems. 
 
Use your  OGAP Progressions to look closely at the strategies your students use to solve problems, rather than just whether they got the correct answer. What patterns do you notice? Are students showing any misconceptions or preconceptions that might interfere with learning grade level content this year? How do students' strategies interact with different problem structures or contexts? How does this inform your planning for the year? Add the Pre-assessment to your students' portfolios so you can look back at the end of a unit or at the end of the year to note their progress.
 
For younger students, you may want to spread the assessment out over several days rather than in one class period. 

Action Item
  • Make copies of the Pre-assessments for Grades 1 - 8 found HERE and administer to your class during the first few weeks of school. Be sure to read over the accompanying Tips for Administering the Pre-assessment.
  • Explain to students that this activity will help you learn what they know and can do at the beginning of the year. Encourage them to try their best, and let them know that it's okay if they are unsure of how to answer a problem.  Remind students that the information from their work will help you in your planning, and will not be graded. 
  • Meet with your grade level colleagues to discuss and analyze the evidence in your pre-assessments and use this information to guide the planning of your first math unit. 
Did you know?

You can access the OGAP Item Banks online in two ways: find our new searchable OGAP item bank  here ( bookmark it! ) or view the PDFs at  www.ogapmath.com/item-bank .

Also, you can access past issues of OGAP Teacher Tips by visiting  www.ogapmath.com/ogap-teacher-tips-archive.