Activity Overview
Problems that address the standards tested on the Pennsylvania Grade 8 State Assessment. Problems resepresent most standards addressed in the assessment with a major concentration on the Algebra strand.
Before the Activity
These problems may be used as pre and/or post instructional assessment. The intent is to provide teachers with information regarding their students'abiliy to solve standards based problems. The assessment can be used to help teachers plan instruction.
During the Activity
Students should be advised to use paper, pencil and calculators to document their work so they can re-evaluate any procedures that do not yield a correct answer. They should also be reminded that on the open-ended questions a rationale for the solution procedure selected is just as important as the description/steps of the solution.
After the Activity
After teachers record and identify problems solved correctly and incorrectly, this information can be used to inform future instruction and assessments to achieve attainment of the standards.