One of the most important aspects of teaching is creating good and useful ways to assess my students. I do not believe that a student's grade should only be determined by tests and quizzes. I think there are many ways that a child's success can be measured. Some of these ways include projects, group assignments, portfolios, homework, math journals and presentations. The variety of assessment methods allow for different learning styles, and it also provides me with a good knowledge of how each of my students are doing. Along with each of these forms of assessment there needs to be a rubric so my students know what they need to do to be successful. Clear goals and expectations need to be set so my students know on what criteria they will be assessed.

This spring I had both of my precalculus classes do presentations on a mathematician. They were required to give some background information on the person they were researching, some contributions that person made to the field of math, and then they had to teach a small lesson incorporating one of the concepts the mathematician discovered. I assessed the students using the following rubric. It allowed for the students to reflect on their presentations as well as allowing me to assess their performance.

Reflection: I feel that this assessment worked well. The students seemed to enjoy teaching the class, and I think they gained a great deal from doing this assignment. The rubric that I used worked well, because it assessed both the content and the style of the presenters. I could reward those that were good speakers as well as those were quiet but very knowledgeable. If I were to use this assignment again, I would add one item to the rubric. I would definitely make sure that somewhere I was more specific about whether the content requirements were met. The students had received a paper outlining what the project entailed, but I did not incorporate this into the rubric.

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