Arithmetika Diagnostic testing goes Adaptive

HowImDoing gives students and their parents, teachers and tutors, quick and intuitive access to a clear view of what has been achieved in any area of the Australian Mathematics curriculum (7 - 10 and expanding).

Why is HowImDoing diagnostic? The graphics you see here show how you can very quickly identify a student's area of study - and any difficulty or success. As a teacher, tutor or parent you have full access to all effort and results for your students and an ultra-simple way of directing them to any area of study. Click the 'Teacher, tutor, parent join up' button above and create an Arithmetika account!

Why is HowImDoing adaptive? Arithmetika knows how all the Content Descriptions are related to each other. The student can very easily shift to any easier study area or a harder one. Read on for more details!

The tasks in HowImDoing are the same as the tasks in the Sticky Star programme (free to all students everywhere), however the experience is quite different. In the HowImDoing experience, students pick and choose tasks from anywhere in the curriculum. In the Sticky Star programme the tasks are delivered to the students in a graduated sequence, moving through topics in order determined by such factors as difficulty and prior needed knowledge.

Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 tasks are good to go. 10A follows shortly

At any time a teacher, parent or tutor can print off a summary diagnostic report on a student's activity and progress. See here an example report

The Australian Mathematics Curriculum ... and some ...

It would be helpful for all students need to know that there are three broad Strands running right through the Australian Mathematics Curriculum

• Number and Algebra
• Measurement and Geometry
• Statistics and Probability

These three strands run right through from F-10A. Locating an assessment area starts with identifying its strand

To this, Arithmetika has added a fourth

• Basic Number Skills

which runs from Year 5 to Year 8

This is illustrated in the image on the right. The four strands are colour-coded for easy recognition. The dark part of each strand/Year reflects the student's progress. This student has nearly finished all of Year 5 and Year 6 Number Skills and has made a start on the other strands.

If the student (or parent, teacher, tutor) clicks on any strand/Year level the display changes to a break-down of results in all the sub-strands in the selected strand.

A student's teacher, parent or tutor (depending on the type of account) can 'direct' the student to a particular area of study. This will be particularly useful for any student having difficulty following directions for navigating around the curriculum.

When a suitable area of study is found, the teacher/parent/tutor simply presses a button to confirm the selection, and the student is immediately transferred as selected. Simple as that.

The Substrands

Some but not all substrands run all the way through from K to 12. For example,

• Number and place value runs from F to 8
• Real numbers from 7 to 10A
• Using units of meaurement from F-10A

In the illustration on the right the substrands in Year 7, Number and Algebra are shown, with the student's progress indicated in each. As you will see below, each substrand has a number of Content Descriptions (Topics) and there are a number of tasks to complete in each topic.

As you can see our student has made some progress in Number and place value. The student clicks on any subtrand to view its Content Descriptions (Topics).

The Topics

Each substrand has a number of Content Descriptions (Topics). For example, in Year 7 Number and Place value there are four Topics

• ACMNA 149 on index notation
• ACMNA 150 on square roots
• ACMNA 151 on laws to aid computation
• ACMNA 280 on operations with integers

In the illustration on the right the Topics in Year 7, Number and place value are shown, with the student's progress indicated in each.

This student is doing well with the tasks on square roots! Click on any Topic to see the tasks

A block will never be completely filled in until the student has achieved 100% in all the relevant tasks.

The Tasks

Arithmetika HowImDoing suggests these twelve tasks for demonstrating mastery in ACMNA149 on index notation and prime numbers.

Our student has finished five of them and started a sixth.

Adaptive connections

If the student is struggling with a set of tasks it is very easy to pull up an easier set of tasks. By the same token, if the student needs more challenging tasks it is just as easier to pull up harder tasks. Buttons for these shifts are available at this juncture

In the first edition of HowImDoing the links are to tasks in the same substrand in the previous (or next) year. In future editions there will be a wider range of links such as to tasks that are a needed skill but in another substrand.

The task in general

The image on the right shows the kind of questions to expect in the selected task. On the left of the image is a summary of the types of questions in the task and the time allowed to achieve mastery. On the right are three buttons.

• Practice, untimed. The student can open and take the task as many times as she likes and take as long as she likes.
• Timed, result counts. The result earned here is what counts towards darkening the colours!
• Previous attempts. If the student or parent, teacher, tutor wishes, they can see every answer that was given to every question in every attempt. A diagnostic tool!

The actual task

The final image shows the actual task. The student has two minutes to give answers to the 16 questions.

• The questions have different numbers each time the task is selected.
• Arithmetika calculates the solutions on the fly and does all the marking.