MYP Maths eAssessment Part 3: Teacher tips

The eAssessments are still fairly new, so it's difficult to have "tried and tested" approaches from many teachers, but here is some initial guidance for how to adapt your teaching.

Start using Desmos classroom activities or assessprep for assessments or learning experiences. These platforms simulate elements of the eAssessment and give students the opportunity to engage with different tools when problem solving. It also gives them opportunities to practice using the equation editor keyboard, navigating between tools (calculator, formula book, bookmarking questions etc.).

Introduce the Desmos calculator and encourage students to start using this instead of their handheld one. This is the calculator attached to the eAssessment and students need to feel comfortable using the different functions, switching between radians and degrees, using their answers for the next calculation etc.

Use command terms from MYP1. This isn’t something to be taught last minute as they are so important! When you say them, use them in context, alongside a synonym or definition. Include a glossary when you have them in the summative assessments. Also remember to use command terms from other subjects occasionally. Full list is here.

Global contexts - include each one across your MYP4/5 units and discuss the selected one for the upcoming assessment after November (or when released). Remember, one of the questions (likely the real life problems in part 2) will be linked to this.

Read past mark schemes to understand where the marks go, how working should be shown, and what formats of answers are/aren't accepted.

Practise with reading time and teach students how to use it! For your summative assessments, start introducing a 5 minute "reading only" rule. Students can use this time to make sure they understand what is being asked of them, make a plan for their time, see how marks are distributed (for practice eAssessments) and choose which topic they feel confident starting with (for mixed topic assessments).

Do and mark the specimen test yourself - 2 hours (ish) well spent! Make note of how your students would respond if faced with the same assessment and use this to guide how you prepare them.

Teach the criteria. The best way to prepare students for the eAssessment is consistent, quality teaching of the MYP. Understanding the criteria definitely does not happen overnight so knowledge of the assessment strands has to be understood by teachers and communicated effectively throughout students' MYP career with guiding feedback and well-informed grading practices.

Develop fluency. It is likely that your unit summative assessments have been focused on the specific content of that unit for MYP1 to MYP5. For the eAssessment, students need to be able to move from volume to functions to averages, sometimes within one question. If your students are not used to recalling knowledge visited beyond 6 weeks prior, they may struggle. In MYP4 and MYP5, start incorporating previous unit questions in your lessons. A great way to do this is through starter questions. Have 2-5 questions to give at the start of the lesson. 5-10 minutes for students to work through them and then a few minutes to have individual students share their methods or you talk through the solutions. You could link these questions to some study/homework guidance - "if you found question 3 challenging, watch this video" or "if you were confident with them all, try these extension problems". This is a good way to provide differentiated and ongoing guidance/feedback. A great source of questions is Corbett maths 5 a day as it comes at 5 levels, there are 5 questions each day and full solutions. Ensure students have covered all the topics within the framework within units. Full list can be found here. Be aware that the new assessments started in 2022 and the topics changed from previous years. If you want to provide your students with mixed topic homework tasks which align with the four crietria, check out these booklets.

Give students physical formula books. Ask them to bring them to each lesson to get them used to navigating through the pages and learning how to identify what formula is needed. This skill will improve if they use them in conjunction with your mixed starters (see tip above). However, note that they will use an onscreen formula booklet in the actual eAssessment.

Develop time management skills. 2 hours for 100 marks could translate to one mark per minute with the remaining 20 minutes being spent watching the videos, interacting with any other media, reading the questions and navigating the extra tools (formula book, calculator etc.).

Assess communication consistently. Criterion C is assessed throughout the assessment with the other three criteria so it is important that students are used to showing their steps, calculations and conclusions. There is a handy feature to insert what is shown on the calculator as working, so make sure students know about this!