How to Assess Conceptual Learning of Math
- 1). Look at the student's recent tests. If he or she made small mistakes on different steps in the problems, then the learning problem might be arithmetic, not conceptual. If the student misses all of the points on a certain section, take that as an indication that there is a lack of conceptual learning.
- 2). Ask the student how confident he or she feels with the material. Younger students and those in junior high do not generally provide good self-assessment. However, high school and college students often link their confidence with their conceptual understanding.
- 3). Give the student a problem that is worded or presented slightly differently than those in the math book or worksheets. If the student does not know how to tackle the reworded problem, then he or she has not experienced much conceptual learning and is, instead, relying on a set, formulaic way of doing the problems.
- 4). Give the student two or three word problems that are based on the same concepts that he or she should understand. If the student can successfully complete them, or at least set them up, that shows that he or she has developed conceptual understanding.
- 5). Depending on his or her learning style, have the student describe verbally or draw a picture of the concept at hand. Ask him or her to relate it to either a previously learned concept or another related concept. The student should be able to demonstrate either verbally or spatially how they are related.
- 6). Find out whether the student understands his or her errors. A student with conceptual understanding should be able to point out where the solution went off track and explain why the answer is incorrect. Students with an even better conceptual understanding will also be able to do this for finished problems that they did not do themselves.
- 7). Have the student put ideas, skills, symbols and terms into his or her own words. If the student can only repeat exact phrasing from the book or teacher, then more work on conceptual understanding is needed.