Universal Screeners for Number Sense

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Universal Screeners for Number Sense

Open Source, 2020 Revisions

 

Forefront Education is excited to release and host the K-5 Universal Screeners for Number Sense, which are full revisions of the 2013 versions of the BVSD Universal Math Screeners. This revision process has been undertaken by David Woodward, President of Forefront Education and former Elementary Math Specialist for Boulder Valley School District (BVSD). David led the creation and implementation of the Math Screener Project in BVSD from 2007-2020. These are the first revisions of the Screeners in 7 years and are informed by extensive feedback from many educators in the field.

The math screener data has proven to have a high level of predictive correlation to our state testing, so it is helping us have valuable conversations.

Dr. Jill Rubinstein, Learning and Instruction Specialist, Eagle County Schools

Explore Slides to Conduct Virtual Interviews

The Universal Screeners for Number Sense are designed to:

  • Alert teachers to students who might need additional support in order to engage productively with grade level content and who would benefit from additional supports and/or intervention.
  • Identify students for whom diagnostic assessments would be helpful in order to create a more complete learner profile.
  • Help teachers and teams of teachers respond strategically to target specific needs of students who would benefit from additional supports
    to inform RtI Tiers 1 and 2.
  • Inform district level professional development and planning.
  • Alert districts regarding concentrations of struggling students.

  • Attributes of Screener

    • Quick, efficient measure of student performance
    • Can be administered to all students in English or Spanish
    • Measures critical skills known to be strong indicators that predict student performance
    • Narrows the focus for further diagnostics
    • Demonstrated to be a reliable measure

  • Attributes of Screener Data

    • Initial baselines have been established
    • Identifies students who do not meet grade level expectations
    • Results inform universal (Tier 1) differentiated instruction and targeted (Tier 2) Interventions
    • Inform RtI/MTSS decision making
    • Trend data over time informs and monitors the success of curriculum implementation

Free and open source number sense screeners

 

The entire Screener series remains completely free and open source for the math education community with the intention of providing high quality assessment tools to support RtI/MTSS efforts in ways that are both meaningful and affordable. In this way, we seek to inform instruction, professional learning, research, innovative assessment design, and the overall improvement of math instruction and assessment everywhere.

This project owes thanks to many people and organizations:

US Math Recovery Council for their relentless curiosity about children and how they learn.

All of the members of the Colorado Metropolitan Math Intervention Team (CoMMIT) over the years for their commitment to improving assessment, instruction, and MTSS/RtI systems for all students, but especially those who struggle.

The fantastic educators of Boulder Valley School District for their sharp, critical eyes and thoughtful practice.

United States Freudenthal Institute for the many insights and inspiration their work has provided over the years.

To the many educators of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics who have reached out with ideas, comments, and appreciation.

Math Learning Center for their support and collaboration, and for the awesome apps that are used in the slides that were created for virtual administration of the Screeners.

To Anna Grace and Mary Ann Davis whose sharp eyes, design skills, insights, efforts and support have made this possible.

And to the many educators who have reached out with comments, suggestions, questions, words of support, and who are dedicated to improving equity in math instruction for students everywhere.