Set up your video camera and secure permission before recording students as they participate in all activities. Typically, a school district will have a media release form for parents and children to sign when taking pictures or video during school hours. It is very important to secure this permission if the video is your source of visual documentation. If you cannot secure permission, another option is to conduct the assessments in front of an administrator who can verify the accuracy of the results.
Instruct each participant in the rules of a memory game. Typically you or the student will lay all of the cards out face down. Ask the student to make pairs of matching pictures or symbols by flipping the cards and replacing any cards that do not make a matching pair. Record how many times each child has to flip cards before making a matching pair. The exercise tests memorization, prioritization and planning skills simultaneously.
Read to students or have them read an age-appropriate short story. Give them a short series of comprehension questions afterward. Make sure the answers are directly within the story and do not require inferring skills. If you ask the questions individually, record the names of each student and how many questions each student answers correctly. If you ask the questions of the whole group, record the names of those who are ready to answer the questions first demonstrating rapid problem solving ability and word recognition.
Give students calculators, paper, and pencils, then write a word problem for them to solve. Give them all the same amount of time to solve the word problem. Ask questions that break the word problem into stages before anyone gives their solution aloud. Identify and record the names of those who correctly broke the problem down into analysis, task and problem solving. Though children work out the answer in different ways, the methods they used will reveal information about their cognitive problem solving, planning, and prioritization skills.