Lesson-Level Assessments

The Zearn Math curriculum includes a series of ongoing, formative assessments designed to provide teachers with precise and actionable feedback they can use to inform instruction and respond to the needs of each student.

Zearn Math offers two types of lesson-level assessments: a daily digital assessment and a daily paper assessment.

Daily Digital Assessment

The Tower of Power is a scaffolded assessment, administered automatically at the end of each Independent Digital Lesson. The Tower of Power is focused on the content of a single lesson and allows students to demonstrate their new understanding. If students make a mistake, they receive real-time remediation at the point of misconception, allowing them to correct their understanding and continue through the assessment. All students have a rich learning experience throughout the assessment as they engage with the digital manipulatives and interactive visuals that are part of the Zearn Math software-based student experience.

Each Tower of Power contains two to four stages of problems that increase in complexity and decrease in scaffolding as students progress. The problems in each stage are carefully designed to focus on the big ideas of each lesson, mirroring the progression of learning students have just completed. Students are not permitted to move on to their next Independent Digital lesson without successful completion of the Tower of Power. Since the Tower of Power is software-based, teachers can access a report to determine how well students are progressing through the Tower of Power assessments, enabling them to adjust instruction to support students’ progress.

Daily Paper Assessment

The Exit Ticket is a paper assessment that is also focused on the content of a single lesson, but it is less scaffolded than the Tower of Power. The Exit Ticket is administered at the completion of each Independent Digital Lesson, providing teachers with a second data point in addition to the Tower of Power that they can use to monitor daily learning. As the companion to the Tower of Power, the Exit Ticket uses a single problem (or multiple problems where appropriate) to determine if the student transferred the work from the software-based lesson to a less scaffolded, open-response item that requires students to show their thinking and work by drawing models, writing explanations, or both. Exit Ticket problems are designed to highlight the big mathematical idea of each lesson, or a piece of it, and as such should not be edited for content.

In Kindergarten, most Missions do not include Exit Tickets to allow K students to focus on concrete learning. The last two Missions of the year do include Exit Tickets to help prepare students for 1st grade with Zearn Math.

Learn how to access and print Exit Tickets and other printed materials for your students here.