Exploring the implementation of early math assessments in kindergarten classrooms: A research-practice collaboration
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mbe.12293
Research in cognitive development has highlighted that early numeracy skills are associated with later math achievement, suggesting that these skills should be targeted in early math education. Here we tested whether tools used by researchers to assess mathematical thinking could be useful in the classroom.
This paper describes a collaborative project between cognitive scientists and school board researchers/educators implementing numeracy screeners with kindergarten students over the course of three school years.
The Give‐N task (Wynn, 1990) was used with first‐year kindergarten students and the Numeracy Screener (Nosworthy, Bugden, Archibald, Evans, & Ansari, 2013) with second‐year kindergarten students.
Results indicated that educators (N = 59) found the tools feasible to implement and helpful for exploring their students’ thinking and targeting instruction. The educators’ feedback also helped inform improvements to the implementation of the tools and future directions for both the schools and the researchers.
We investigated educators’ experiences implementing numeracy assessment tools. Through a 3‐year collaboration between a research lab and school board, we learned that educators found the tools relatively easy to implement and useful for their teaching practice. Educator feedback was helpful for making improvements to the tools’ implementation and future directions for the schools and the researchers. This work highlights the importance of collaboration between researchers and educators to address the gap between research and practice.