Diagnostic Assessment Through Game Playing

In my last blog entry, I discussed diagnostic assessment using the online gap closing resources. One thing that I realized about these resources is that they still follow the general layout of a test.  Due to students’ negative views on tests, students may be immediately blinded by the test format of the gap closing resources, and thus not perform to their full potential.  Although I still believe in the effectiveness of the gap closing resources, I still want to discuss other possibilities for diagnostic assessment.  I believe that games can be very effective for diagnostic assessment.  Games have the possibility of letting a teacher know where his/her students are in their learning without the students truly being aware.

http://www.navyleaguealameda.org/
2016/10/01/cool-math-games/

            This past week in my Teaching Mathematics at the Intermediate/Senior Level course, we played two games that I believe would work very well for diagnostic assessment.  The first game was called Hedbanz.  For this game, students had a piece of paper on their forehead that had a quadratic equation on it.  Students were unaware of the equation on their own head and were required to ask yes or no questions to their classmates to try to determine what their equation was.  I believe that this game could be very useful as a diagnostic tool.  Teachers can listen to the type of questions students ask to determine their level of learning in regards to quadratic equations.  For example, if a student asks “Is my equation in vertex form?” the teacher can guess that the student has a general knowledge of what an equation looks like in vertex form.  Teachers can make informed judgements on students’ learning based on the language that a student uses and the questions that he/she asks. 

            A benefit of Hedbanz is that I believe that it can be altered in order to be beneficial in many different topics.  For example, instead of quadratic equations, there could be trigonometric identities on their foreheads.  The important part of this game is for teachers to pay attention to the type of questions the students are asking.

https://teacher.desmos.com/polygraph

            The other game we explored in class was a game called Polygraph.  This game was on desmos.com and also focused on quadratic equations.  However, this game focused on the graphs of parabolas instead of the actual equations.  For this game, students get teamed up with a partner and play a game very similar to Hedbanz.  One student picks a graph and the other student asks yes or no questions to determine which graph their partner picked.  Like Hedbanz, the teacher can assess students’ understanding of the different aspects of a graph based on the different questions they ask.  What is more beneficial about Polygraph versus Hedbanz is that for Polygraph the teacher can watch any of the students’ games from his/her own computer.  The teacher is also able to see a history of the questions that a student asked.  This can be very beneficial for diagnostic assessment.

            What I enjoy about these two games is that students are representing their learning in a fun way, without even necessarily realizing it.  I believe that this way of diagnostic assessment is more beneficial.  Diagnostic assessment is very important in a mathematics classroom.  I plan on incorporating different games within my classroom to make math more fun and engaging for my students.