Modeling With Mathematics in the Classroom: Elementary School

Understanding how modeling will be assessed is of great importance to teachers. As PARCC creates additional test items, more sample items and scoring rubrics are being publicly released. You should be aware of these and utilize them in your classroom. Since they are readily available, no extra work is required and students will benefit greatly from their experiences. Below is a link for your review of sample PARCC items. Take a few minutes and work through at least one problem. Experiencing the PARCC assessments as a student will help you as you increase your modeling experiences for your students.

Click on the following link to review sample items. Scroll down the page to Grades 3-5 Item Sets.

PARCC Sample Itemsopens in new window (Source: PARCC)

PARCC has also released Performance Based Assessments (PBA) and End of Year (EOY) practice tests.  Although PARCC will be combining the two tests into one, now is a great time to become familiar with the various types of test items and formats used. Answer keys are also available. The Type III tasks provide illustrations of how PARCC assessments will assess a student’s ability to model with mathematics. Take time to complete the Type III tasks and review the answer keys. The Type III items can be identified by looking at the Answer Key and looking for tasks that are linked to Evidence Statement codes that start with “HS.D.—“. This is also a good time to read the text of the Evidence Statements for each course.

Practice Tests opens in new window (Source: PARCC)

Answer Keys opens in new window (Source: PARCC)

PARCC Evidence Statement Tables and Evidence Statements by Gradeopens in new window (Source: PARCC)

Note: Scroll down to Evidence Statement tables and click on the appropriate grade level.