Games Based Assessment: Capturing Evidence of Learning in Play

ideas too. Just watch teachers and students in a math classroom. Professors Martha Alibali and Mitchell Nathan have. They study how and why teachers and students use gestures to communicate mathematical concepts. From their perspective, mathematical knowledge doesn’t just reside in the mind. It’s embodied. Why is it important to know that mathematical knowledge is embodied? Nathan and Alibali say it’s essential for understanding and improving mathematics performance, instruction, assessment, and learning. Yet, at this stage of their research, Cook and Grant suggest that helping students with English language proficiency in technical and general areas across all areas of the curriculum, not just mathematics, helps their mathematics achievement. This holistic approach to language acquisition is important for ELLs’ mathematics achievement. Cook and Grant argue that this language construct may result from at least three conditions: ◾ One, it may be capturing components of academic language proficiency influenced by student characteristics and competencies, the degree of cognitive engagement, instructional supports, the linguistic complexity of tasks, and instructional contexts. ◾ Two, the construct may be capturing more general language characteristics, such as students’ strategic competence or other cognitive strategies that underpin performance on mathematics tests more broadly, or ◾ Three, the construct may be an artifact of the way in which ACCESS for ELLs® and mathematics tests are constructed. Another way of illustrating Cook and Grant’s finding is shown in Figure 2. The two figures highlight the interconnectedness of proficiency in academic languages, social and instructional language, the language domains, and performance on written mathematics tests. Cook and Grant caution that their results apply to one content area—mathematics—in two states and, in one state with students from two years. Care should be taken to not generalize the models to other populations and other curriculum areas. Appreciating the embodied nature of mathematical thinking can help teachers (and researchers) understand why students find certain mathematics problems more difficult than others, identify suitable assessments to measure students’ mathematical knowledge, design more effective learning environments, select appropriate ways to teach mathematics content, and understand why some instructional methods work better than others. Gestures both facilitate speakers’ language production and promote listeners’ comprehension. Alibali and Nathan focus on the gestures that mathematics teachers and learners produce in explanations. That includes teachers’ instructional explanations and learners’ explanations of their thinking. This diagram shows the language construct (right) as the foundation that influences general and technical language skills. These skills include receptive and productive skills, which subsequently influence mathematics achievement.