Area

Strand: Shape and Space (Measurement)
Outcome: 3

Step 5: Follow-up on Assessment

Guiding Questions

What conclusions can be made from assessment information?
How effective have instructional approaches been?
What are the next steps in instruction?

A. Addressing Gaps in Learning

To improve estimating skills, have the students always estimate before measuring and then compare their measurements to the original estimate. As they become more familiar with the units used in area measurements, the students will have a better sense of estimating the area in the required units. Remind the student to use referents and/or chunking when estimating area. Have the students share their estimates and strategies for estimating. Begin by having the students estimate by comparing the areas of two different shapes. Then have them estimate the area of shapes. Accept a range of estimates and narrow the range as the students' estimating skills improve.

Conservation of area develops as the students mature. Continue to provide opportunities for the students to compare the areas of different shapes and have them communicate why they think as they do. Provide shapes that are easily rearranged so that one can be superimposed on the other. Encourage the students to cut the shapes and rearrange them as needed.

The students who have difficulty repeating the same unit when measuring area should have ample opportunity to explore using manipulatives such as tiles, pattern blocks and geoboards. Encourage the students to manipulate the concrete materials and draw on the diagrams to show the unit that is repeated in finding the area.

If the students have difficulty constructing different rectangles for a given area, use smaller numbers in the problem initially; i.e., do a simpler problem. Encourage the student to use tiles to represent the number as an array. See the prompts in the one-on-one assessment in the previous section.

B. Reinforcing and Extending Learning

The students who have achieved or exceeded the outcomes will benefit from ongoing opportunities to apply and extend their learning. These activities should support the students in developing a deeper understanding of the concept and should not progress to the outcomes in subsequent grades.

Strategies for Reinforcing and Extending Learning