TCS Teachers Attend OGAP Training

Paine Elementary math teachers Jenette Cerisano, Gina Lackey, Beth Anne Marshall, Kay Shumate, Donna Walker, Laney Horn, Mary Elaine Williamson, Jana Walls, Sara Wessel, Nancy Camara, and Susan Brandon, along with math coaches Donna Brumlow and Lisa Lothspeich, are attending training with the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) this week.  

The Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) emerged from the work of the Vermont Institutes, founded in the 1992 with the mission of providing research-based professional development to Vermont educators. OGAP is a professional development intervention that trains teachers to use single or multiple math items of high cognitive demand to gather information on student thinking and then analyze that information using frameworks based on research on student thinking in mathematics (Bell, Greer, Grimison et Mangan, 1989; Harel, Behr, Post, & Lesh, 1994; Kouba, 1989; Kouba & Franklin, 1995). This analysis is then intended to guide instruction (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Popham, 2006). OGAP is currently being implemented in elementary schools and middle schools in grades 3-8 in several sites in three core mathematical ideas: (1) multiplicative reasoning; (2) fractions; and (3) proportionality.

The OGAP formative assessment system is based on the belief that teachers make more effective instructional decisions resulting in improved student learning when they: (a) are knowledgeable about how students develop understanding of specific mathematics concepts and about preconceptions and misconceptions that interfere with learning these concepts; (b) have tools and strategies that allow them to systematically monitor their students’ understanding prior to and during instruction; and (c) receive professional development focused on that knowledge, those tools, and those strategies. Four principles about effective instruction and assessment underlie OGAP’s design:

1.Build on students’ pre-existing knowledge. Ignoring students’ initial thinking risks students developing understandings that do not match what the teacher intended (NRC, 2001b).

2.Teach (and assess) for understanding. Because teaching for understanding “improves retention, promotes fluency, and facilitates learning related materials” (NRC, 2001b), OGAP items and tools are designed to elicit conceptual understanding.

3.Use formative assessment intentionally and systematically. Research has shown that learning gains from systematically implementing formative assessment strategies into instruction are larger than gains found for most other educational interventions (NRC, 2001a).

4.Build assessments based on the mathematics education research. A key recommendation from Knowing What Students Know (NRC, 2001a) is that assessments should be built on research on how students learn specific mathematics concepts.