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Education Department Update: Algebra Readiness & High School Fundamental Skills Assessments

As previously announced [1] on Mathnasium Matters, the Education Department is about to release an update to the current Core/Original Level 8 Assessment.  This Assessment will be called Algebra Readiness (AR) and will be released in partnership with a high school complement to the Computation Assessment which will be called High School Fundamental Skills (HSFS).  The curriculum associated with these new Assessments will be a combination of new and existing (3000 level) curriculum.

Why Algebra Readiness?  As all of you know, we have traditionally numbered our Assessments by the grade level skills that they contain, but sometime around middle school, that convention starts to fall apart.  Assessments that address high school course content will be named more in line with their target audience.  The planned sequence is Algebra Readiness, Algebra, Geometry Readiness, Geometry, Algebra II, and Higher Math Material (HMM).  The primary audience for Algebra Readiness is a student who is getting ready for (or in the early stages of) a true Algebra I course—the Assessment targets skills critical for a full and complete understanding and mastery of Algebra concepts as they are presented.  A secondary audience for this Assessment is any struggling high school student we believe lacks basic Pre-Algebra skills.

As most of us know all too well, many high school students come to our centers lacking basic skills that reach back to 5th or 6th grade topics. High School Fundamental Skills was designed as a separate Assessment to catch those missing skills without bogging down the Algebra Readiness Assessment for existing students. HSFS should be administered as an add-on Assessment for new students—existing students that come up through Assessment 7 typically would not take this Assessment.

We completed a very successful franchisee test of these new Assessments in which AR was given over 150 times and HSFS was given over 100 times.  The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, but as with any good test, there was some strong constructive criticism that we’re currently taking into account as we make revisions.  Action items include fine tuning legacy curriculum to better serve a high school audience, examining some topic strands for the reach into Algebra, and a reordering/reexamination of Assessment questions with a specific eye toward length of initial Assessments.

We are excited to share these two new Assessments with the system, and are hard at work fine tuning all the details—we anticipate release by the end of March. Keep watching Mathnasium Matters for more!

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10 Comments To "Education Department Update: Algebra Readiness & High School Fundamental Skills Assessments"

#1 Comment By Salma Taher On March 8, 2016 @ 1:11 pm

This is exciting, can’t wait! I have several new students right now who could benefit from this, but I am giving them Core 8 instead. Should I reassess them with these Assessments in a month?

#2 Comment By Joyce Ng On March 8, 2016 @ 1:44 pm

Yeah!! That is great! I can’t wait to use them. Please teach us how to use these assessments for Integrated Math I, II and III students too. Thanks!

#3 Comment By Barry Fausnaugh On March 8, 2016 @ 2:00 pm

All I have to say about this is, WOOHOO!!!

#4 Comment By Jerry DePasquale On March 8, 2016 @ 2:09 pm

Fantastic!

#5 Comment By Tammy Stanard On March 8, 2016 @ 2:21 pm

In an effort to market Mathnasium’s ability to assess algebra readiness and prepare students for algebra to parents, perhaps some creative could be developed with a message along the lines of…Wondering if your child is really prepared for Algebra? Mathnasium can provide some insight….This could be a good way to get some older students in before they start to struggle with Algebra.

#6 Comment By Heather Larrabee On March 8, 2016 @ 2:35 pm

I am also very excited about these new assessments. However, like Joyce, I am also interested to know how they fit in with regard to the Common Core courses of Integrated Math I, II and III which no longer include a “true Algebra I course,” but rather a blend of Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II across the three Int Math courses.

#7 Comment By Scott Rubin On March 8, 2016 @ 6:54 pm

Great news!

#8 Comment By Amber Foos On March 9, 2016 @ 11:22 am

I am so happy that we are getting new assessments, but also echo the sentiment of wanting to know how these can be used for the Integrated Math courses. Right now, at our centers, we have pieced together different parts of Mathnasium curriculum to line up with the Integrated Math but have stayed away from doing any sort of assessments because there would always be too much or too little covered on an assessment to be able to help them – for example, in IM1 the algebra 1 covered topics does not include anything related to quadratics at all, so giving a level 9 assessment to a student who completed that course would just mean giving them an assessment where they haven’t even seen half of the information yet. And it is too overwhelming to give them multiple assessments, since they would also have done about 1/3 of Geometry in that first year too. As these new assessments come out, it’d be great if there was some sort of plan about how to apply them to these new courses.

#9 Comment By Mathnasium Education Department On March 9, 2016 @ 2:28 pm

Thanks everyone for your interest, enthusiasm, and kind words! Salma, regarding your question about reassessing Core 8 students, it depends. Factors to consider include what their Core 8 Learning Plan looks like, how long it has left, and the student’s specific learning goals. The AR and HSFS Assessments will all point to new (3000 level) curriculum, while the Core 8 Learning Plans are mapped to legacy curriculum, so reassessment may be worth it for many students. Do keep in mind though that we don’t want to overassess students if we can help it.

Heather, Amber, and Joyce, rest assured that we did take integrated math into consideration when planning out the scope of these new Assessments. The AR Assessment primarily addresses skills that would set a student up for success in either Algebra I or Integrated I. Going forward, one of our goals is to create specific Assessments more tailored for a student who is on an integrated track as well as one for students in a more traditional high school sequence.

As for marketing Mathnasium’s ability to assess Algebra Readiness, that’s a great suggestion! Who knows what sorts of surprises we may have in our production pipeline… stay tuned! 🙂

#10 Comment By Salma Taher On March 24, 2016 @ 1:05 pm

Any news on the release of these Assessments? I would love to use them on the new students.