Basic Computation Skills

Basic Computation Skills

The following pages are print outs from MS Excel spreadsheets I have developed. These spreadsheets are used to assess a student’s ability to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. During this explanation, you may want to glance at one of the pages. Numbers are entered into the top of each spreadsheet and then the Recalculate button is pressed. (Excel does not show programmable buttons when it prints a spreadsheet so it is necessary that you trust me that the user can see the Recalculate button.) The spreadsheet then automatically generates a random set of problems that contain only values within the range specified. For middle school and high school students the range for the initial assessment would probably be Top Number 0 to 10 and Bottom Number 0 to 10. The assessment can be timed. If timed, the preferred method of timing is to see how many problems are correctly answered within one or two minutes. During self-assessment, the student may record how long it takes to finish all of the problems.

After the initial assessment, the pages can be used to individually target each student’s needs when improving these math skills. If the student can add 0, 1, 2, and 10 to other numbers then the range entered will be: Top Number 3 to 9 and Bottom Number 3 to 9. Each practice session to improve the skills can also be used as ongoing assessment. Once the student is trained to enter values into the page, the student can make use of this tool without any time required of the teacher. This is done by pressing two other (invisible when you print) buttons: HA and SA. The HA button is used to hide the answers and the SA button is used to show the answers. For the student perform an ongoing assessment:

1.  The student enters his own range of values in the four places provided and then clicks on the Recalculate button to generate a new set of problems.

2.  The student prints the sheet without answers.

3.  The student then clicks the SA button to show the answers.

4.  The student prints the sheet with answers.

5.  The student does the assessment (takes the test).

6.  The student uses the answer key to check their work.

7.  If the student meets teacher specified criteria (they have demonstrated that they have improved at adding), then the student’s range of numbers will narrow and the student will only be given problems with larger numbers when using this tool in the future.

Each skill (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) has two spreadsheets. One spreadsheet has 25 questions and the other has 100 questions. If a student is intimidated by the 100 question assessment then the 25 question assessment can be used.

This tool can be used for assessing multiple digit problems.