Many of today’s math classrooms are facing a perfect storm: declining scores, widening learning gaps, and growing pressure on teachers to deliver solutions. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, students are experiencing the steepest drop in math scores since 1990. EdWeek Research Center reports that a persistent gap between educational theory and day-to-day practice is putting added stress on teachers, often leaving them to navigate complex pedagogical demands without adequate support.
So how can we provide both students and teachers with the tools they need to succeed? How can math assessments and math intervention programs provide real help and drive student progress—without piling on more work?
One promising answer lies in rethinking how we assess what students know.
Rethinking the role of math assessments
Traditional assessments tend to focus on correctness alone. Did the student get it right or wrong? How many points did they earn?
But this binary approach misses a lot. A skipped question could mean a tech hiccup or a moment of confusion—not a lack of understanding. A wrong answer might come at the end of otherwise solid problem-solving.
An asset-based assessment approach shifts the focus from mistakes to meaning. It looks beyond outcomes to understanding how students think—their strategies, reasoning, and partial understandings. And when teachers can see that thinking, they gain far more useful data to guide instruction and inform their math intervention program.
This approach doesn’t lower expectations—it raises the quality of insight and gives struggling students (and really all students) a better shot at meeting standards with instruction that’s tailored to their actual needs.
Honoring students’ thinking and teachers’ time
Every student thinks differently. Asset-based assessments help reveal individual thinking, often through short-answer or open-response formats that ask students to explain how they solved a problem.
But this shift isn’t just for students. Teachers can benefit enormously when assessments are designed to surface trends in student thinking. If 30% of a class misinterprets the same concept, that result reveals a teaching opportunity. Rather than reteach an entire unit, teachers can adjust with focused, targeted support. That means less time spent diagnosing, and more time actually helping.
And when technology in the math classroom makes this data easy to collect, analyze, and act on, teachers get a level of consistent insight that is not only helpful, but actionable.
From student performance to student performance + thinking
The ultimate goal of asset-based assessments isn’t to replace performance data—it’s to enhance it. Knowing how a student got to an answer (or why they didn’t) can make all the difference in determining what to do next.
Here’s an example involving a division problem:
When real students were given this problem, they responded with answers like:
- 33/4 = 8.25, round up to 9 so all kids can sit!
- 33/4 = 8 with a remainder of 1. She needs 8 tables.
- 8 x 4 = 32, but 9 x 4 = 36. I don’t know if we can leave one student sitting lonely on the floor, though.
Traditional grading might stop at “correct” or “incorrect” for these responses. But when students are asked to explain their thinking, teachers can uncover a range of reasoning—from successful multiplication strategies to misunderstandings about remainders.
These glimpses into student thinking aren’t just informative—they’re transformative. They can illuminate the performance of students in a deeper, more actionable way. They can help teachers take smarter next steps, and they can help students feel understood, capable, and more like “math people” every day.
More to explore
- Download our ebook Asset-Based Assessment: What It Is and Why It’s Needed in K–12 Classrooms.
- Amplify is investing in assessment and intervention tools that make this kind of insight possible. Our latest suite was designed with asset-based thinking at its core. You can learn more here:
