About MAP
What is the Mathematics Assessment Project?
The Mathematics Assessment Program (MAP) aims to bring to life the Common Core State Standards (CCSSM) in a way that will help teachers and their students turn their aspirations for achieving them into classroom realities. MAP is a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley and the Shell Center team at the University of Nottingham, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The team works with the Silicon Valley Mathematics Initiative and school systems across the US and UK to develop improved assessment.
The materials from this project will exemplify CCSSM in explicit down-to-earth performance terms.
What material is MAP developing?
MAP materials are of two complementary kinds:
- Summative tests or tasks exemplify the performance targets that the standards imply. The tests show the kinds of performance that students in rich math programs will achieve, with the range and balance that the standards describe. The tasks, with the associated guidance, equip teachers to monitor overall progress in their students’ mathematics.
- Classroom Challenges are lessons that support teachers in formative assessment. They both reveal and develop students’ understanding of key mathematical ideas and applications. These lessons enable teachers and students to monitor in more detail their progress towards the targets of the standards. They assay students’ understanding of important concepts and problem solving performance, and help teachers and their students to work effectively together to move each student’s mathematical reasoning forward.
- In addition, because formative assessment involves a wider range of classroom strategies and skills than many traditional curricula, the professional development modules will help teachers with the pedagogical and mathematical challenges that this approach involves. Built around the Classroom Challenges, these modules are designed for use by groups of teachers, working together in a supportive school to improve the effectiveness of their program.
These materials have been developed in classrooms across the US, using the research-based design and development methods that the MARS Shell Center team has advanced over the last three decades. MAP is grateful to the teachers and students who took part in the development process. They, in turn, are helping to lead the way toward preparing students across the nation with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and careers.
The team
Design and development is led by the MARS Shell Center team at the University of Nottingham.
The Classroom Challenges have been designed and developed by Malcolm Swan, Sheila Evans, Nick Clarke, Colin Foster, Marie Joubert and Clare Dawson with Daniel Pead, Hugh Burkhardt and Rita Crust, working with Alan Schoenfeld and Phil Daro at UC Berkeley, and groups of observer-researchers in California, Michigan, Indiana and Rhode Island.
The design of the summative assessment tasks and tests has been led by Rita Crust, with Hugh Burkhardt, Daniel Pead, Alan Schoenfeld, Malcolm Swan and others.
The Mathematics Assessment Project is directed by Hugh Burkhardt, Malcolm Swan, Daniel Pead, Phil Daro and the Principal Investigator, Alan Schoenfeld.
MARS, the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service, is an international collaboration dedicated to the improvement of assessment.
Rationale and methodology
Formative “assessment for learning”, when used as part of day- by-day teaching, has proven one of the most effective ways of enhancing student learning. This approach is very different from testing; it involves qualitative feedback to develop each student’s reasoning.
Equally important, the learning activities in most classrooms closely reflect the range and balance of task types in high-stakes tests, which currently cover only a small part of the range implied by CCSSM – these prototype summative tests are designed to exemplify what is needed.
The team uses its well-established engineering research [PDF,100K] methods involving: input from prior research; design skills to produce draft materials; iterative systematic development through trials in US classrooms, with revision informed by structured feedback data from the observer teams.
![[Shell Center Logo]](http://map.mathshell.org/materials/_map/_map/img/shell_white.png "The Shell Center for Mathematical Education")
![[UCB Logo]](http://map.mathshell.org/materials/_map/_map/img/ucb_white.png "The University of California at Berkeley")
![[Nottingham Logo]](http://map.mathshell.org/materials/_map/_map/img/uon_white.png "The University of Nottingham - Centre for Research in Mathematics Education")