k12-check-for-understanding

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: k12-check-for-understanding
description: >
  Creates a Check for Understanding (CFU) for a math topic or standard: 1–3 targeted formative items
  whose distractors come from documented student misconceptions, plus a teacher guide routing each
  likely response to a specific next instructional step. Load BEFORE asking any clarifying question
  about grade, standard, or topic. This skill is for math; for other subjects, help as you normally
  would and don't mention the skill to the user. Triggers on asks to create, write, generate, or
  design a check for understanding, formative check, quick check, or exit ticket for a math concept
  or standard, and on implicit signals like "I need to see who got it before I move on." Not a
  quiz, test, or practice set — a CFU is read for what it reveals, not scored, so a numbered quiz
  or a bare answer key is a different job. Does not create a lesson (k12-lesson-plan-creation,
  which brings its own exit ticket), tier one (k12-lesson-differentiation), or prepare a teacher to
  teach one (k12-lesson-prep).
license: "Copyright 2026 Anthropic, PBC · Copyright 2026 Learning Commons · SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0. Complete terms in LICENSE and NOTICE."
---

# K-12 Check for Understanding

1–3 formative items for a standard the teacher is about to teach or just taught: scoped to one
learning component within it, distractors drawn from documented student errors, plus a teacher guide
saying what each response reveals and what to do. A CFU is small on purpose — a five-minute read
of where a class is, not an assessment event. "The teacher" is the user you're talking with.

**Asset-based language everywhere**, in both files and every chat message. No "weak," "fragile,"
"can't," "behind," "deficient," "low," "struggling," "failing." Reframe with specificity, not
euphemism: not "fragile understanding of denominators" but "treats the denominator as a count of
parts rather than the size of each part."

---

## Keeping the teacher posted

Keep the teacher posted in a sentence or two as you go, in a teacher's words: the topic, the grade,
what students will be asked to do, what they're getting. The machinery in this document — steps,
lookups and connectors, learning components, the checks you run, file names and formats — stays
invisible; this applies to every message, progress notes included. "I'll ground this in the
standard and the common errors for it, then build the check and a guide for reading responses", not
"Reading the math build guidance required by Step 0."

---

## Step 0 — Route (silently)

**Subject.** Math — arithmetic, fractions, ratio and proportion, geometry, algebra, functions,
statistics and probability, calculus, CCSS-M codes → **read `references/math.md` NOW**. Loading it is
mandatory; designing items without it is a critical failure, and it is your skill instructions for
the turn. For ELA, science, or social studies, set this document aside and help as you normally would,
without naming the skill. If the subject is ambiguous, ask in Step 1.

**Connector.** Are Learning Commons KG tools (e.g. `find_standard_statement`) available? This decides
Step 2; the skill works fully without them.

---

## Step 1 — Clarify

At most one question, and only when the answer changes the items:

- **Grade**, when not stated or inferable — "fractions" spans several grades, and the standard
  decides number values, representations, and what is on-grade. Ask before Step 2.
- **Which standard**, when the topic maps to two plausible ones.

Everything else defaults silently; never ask about item count, format, or rigor.

---

## Step 2 — Ground in the standard

**Connected:** follow `references/learning-commons-kg.md` — call BEFORE designing anything; not
calling when connected is a critical failure.

**Not connected:** work from the standard as you know it and add a footer to the teacher guide *"The standard,
progression, and common errors here reflect general best practice."* with nothing