chapter 12

Abstract

Well this chapter for the most part as agreed in our groups is all about changing the grading system used through out most of the united states. Here in the United States we use a 100-point grading scale for our school. But this chapter says that this sale is bad because it puts so much emphasis on the grade and the student getting that single grade. The book says that if we move to a four point sale from a 100 point scale there will e less worry about the actual grade. Because as we have been learning the grade is not the most important thing in the classroom. The grade should only be there to satisfy the government. With this four-point scale the book says that we can have that and focus less on the grade and more on the learning of the material, mastery of the material.

Reflection

By all of us in our group this chapter made a lot of sense because it goes right along with what we have all been learning in this class. Non of us like a grading system it seems and if we could I think all of us would get rid of grade. But in the system know we are all struggling to get from a system that is based on the grade and trying to do mastery of material. Everyone in our groups think that a four point grading scale would dbe great for student, because then you always have a rubric telling them what thy need to do, and you can then focus on the learning and not the actual grade.

by matt

Chapter 13

Abstract:
Chapter 13 dealt solely with grade books and how to arrange them to get maximum efficiency. It mentioned that in a differentiated classroom, it is critical to also have a differentiated grade book. The chapter goes on to list several different examples of a differentiated grade book. The chapter also stresses the importance of presenting correct information with an emphasis on accurate evidence of learning. Some topics the chapter mentioned were labeling the assessments either "f" for formative and "s" for summative, how and when to properly weight grades, arranging the grades by topics, and listing assignments by date.

Reflection:
Chelsae thought that this chapter was difficult to read because sentences and paragraphs were constantly being cut off by charts to look at. She thought that it was interesting to look at as she had not given it much thought before reading the chapter. She also thought that some of the formats in the chapter could be very useful and informative. Audra did not particularly care for this chapter. While she thought that it had a lot of good examples, she thought it was a bit overwhelming to someone who has never arranged a grade book. She thought that it would take a few years of trial and error until she would be able to create and maintain a well balanced and accurate grade book.

Chapter 11

Abstract:
This chapter focused on six main questions that one might have about grading in the classroom. Some of the topic's included giving sixty's instead of zero's, how to grade gifted students, weighting grades, automaticity versus concept attainment, grading late work and how to assess special needs students in traditional classroom settings. It goes in depth with each question, referring back to various examples and charts.

Reflection:
Audra, Matt and Chelsae all had questions or reservations about giving a student a sixty instead of a zero. Matt mentioned that a zero does accurately reflect a student's ability and mastery of the information because they didn't do the work. He suggested that instead of giving a sixty to a student to make it more fair, that educators completely rework the entire 100 point grading system. Chelsae had similar thoughts. She realized that zero's could dramatically affect a student's average, but she thought that students would stop doing the work because they could something for doing nothing. Audra realized that not grading late work or accepting with a dramatic loss of points doesn't benefit anyone. She thought that the chapter made a good point when it said that late work is accepted in the real world so it should also be accepted in schools. Erik suggested the possibility of using only A's and I's for work that has been mastered and work that still needs work. He mentioned that in real world scenarios there is no middle ground so this system would prepare students more for the real world.

Chapter 10

Abstract:

This chapter was all about allowing students to redo their work and some guidelines teachers should follow when doing this. Teachers should reserve the right to change their make-up policies when students are taking advantage of the situation. If a student fails a test, then that test should be signed by the parents before the student is allowed to redo the test. This ensures that the parents are aware of the students situation and it helps keep them involved with their child's academic life. When allowing work to be redone it is not fair to average the new grade with the old one as this is not done in real life. If you fail your driving test the first time and go to take it again, they will not average your two grades together. It is an inaccurate way to assess someones knowledge. For the sanity of the teacher, it is recommended that you do not allow make-up work during the last week of grading. This prevents the teacher from being buried under a pile of papers that need to be corrected at the same time they are trying to finish every one's grades.

Reflection:

Our group really liked this chapter and it really put the idea of make-up work into a new perspective for some of us. There was at least one person from our group who before reading this chapter felt that make-up work was unrealistic and set students up for failure in the real world. This person thought that make-up work was just a way to get students grades higher so the teacher would come off looking better. Now, after reading this chapter, it is clear that the reason teachers allow make-up work is because they realize that students learn at different rates, and just because it took one student longer than another does not mean that student should be punished. As one member in our group wrote: "Your goal is to get students to understand the material". It really shouldn't matter when they come to understand it, as long as it happens. We all liked the idea of having parents sign students failing work. We thought this would be a good way to keep parents involved, however it was brought up that this could also cause a lot of stress for the students. No student wants to take a failing paper home and show it to their parents. We all believe that it will be important for us to come up with policies regarding make-up work for our students so that we can get an accurate grasp on what our students know and help them continue in their learning.

*Posted by Chelsae

chapter 8

Abstract
This chapter is important to this issue of, are grade good or are they just a distraction. In this chapter its all about grading and how accurate they really are, they say in this chapter that grade are not suppose to be learn or work for the grades, but are suppose to be used to show learning. The class should not focused around the grade, unlike most education systems in the US where all we do is work for the grade. However this chapter outlines why we need grades, or should I say why teachers around the world are saying why we need grades. The say grading is suppose to document progress, give us feedback, and is also use to motivate and punish students. This chapter also goes into what should be graded, what should make up the majority of the grade. One of the big issues that this chapter looks at is grading participation in, they say that doing this is not bad but we cannot use it as a formal assessment because you cannot grade that formally.

Reflection
In this chapter all of us really did agree that we with each other that this chapter was really good for us. It gave us all a bit of insight into the grading process, how to grade fair, and also what we should and should not grade in our classrooms. But one thing that caught my eye and another persons eye in our groups was the small part about laziness in the classroom and how it is not really. How there is always a reason for students not wanting to do their work. However Audra and I agree that some students do have this, but that the fact of the matter is that students seem to have just a general disregard for homework and school in general and that this seems to me a trend that is just getting worse in our country. I know that this is just two people opinions in our group buti think this is an important issue, and I would think that chelase and gordo would also agree with us on this matter.

posted by matt

Chapter 7

Abstract:
This chapter was about inconsistencies in grading systems some ideas to solve these problems. This chapter brings up the point that if you were to have different teachers grade the same paper you would end up with a multitude of different grades. With this happening, how do you really know what a letter grade means? Are they important? This chapter talks about schools that do not have grades, the idea of instead of giving zeros giving incompletes, and the fact that to much emphasis may be being put on letter grades and class rank. The emphasis should not be on grades, but rather on what students actually know and whether or not they have really mastered the material and met the standards set for the class.

Reflection:
Our group agreed that he book made some valid points about the grading system. It is very inconsistent and what could be considered an A in one class could easily be considered a C in another. We think that teachers need to have more communication with each other about this topic in order to set clearer standards and prevent this high level of inconsistency. Some members of our group liked the section about taking students backgrounds into consideration when grading. It was brought up that this idea is important because taking some students backgrounds into consideration is important while for other students it would be completely inappropriate. We think the difficult part is knowing when grades should be adjusted for background reasons, and when they should not. It was also brought up in our group that while some students would do extremely well in a system without grades, others would probably struggle. Some students thrive on competition from grades, while others see grades as stressful and are therefore held back by them. The grading system is a very controversial subject and there are many ideas for making it better, but it is hard to find an idea that will account for all the different students because of all the diversity in schools.
*posted by Chelsae

Chapter 6

Abstract


This chapter six covers how to adminsiter fair and effective test questions. It provided some really good examples and explained them all in detail. Some sections includd how to make tests easier and faster to grade. This chapter also emphasized varied test questions, both traditional and non-traditional. This chapter also reccommend providing two answer sheets so you can provide feedback as soon as possible. This chapter also stated that tests should be clear and cover the knowledge that is necessary. The author also stated that just because you are not trying to trick students does not mean you are always being fair to them.


Reflection

It is important to note that we as a group remember bad tests. We all gave feed back stating that we remember either being confused by double negatives, or misreading a "little twist" in a question. There are alot of things that can hurt us as students when taking tests. Tests need to be straightforward, covering the big ideas, and to the point. We as students come in to take a test with our game faces on. We are usually well prepared and ready to take the test as fast as possible. Tests are not that stressful to a teacher, but many students cannot function elsewhere until that is out of the way. Audra felt that she was always worried about the time remaining during her tests. And its true. We feel an overload of anxiety over tests. teachers need to make them as fair and fast as possible. Do not give use more questions than there are minutes in the period. We could use a little more information on tiering questions as well.

Chapter 5

Abstract:
This chapter talked about the use of tiering in the classroom. When you test your students knowledge you are inevitably going to find that some students are at different levels then others. It is important to make sure your plans for assessments are flexible enough to take care of these differences because making sure that all students are learning the main ideas and expanding their knowledge is the most important thing. We need to take our assessments and break them down into different levels in order to accommodate for the needs of everyone. To help with tiering this chapter offered suggestions such as Tic Tac Toe boards, using the RAFT format, the summarization pyramid,learning contracts, cubing, and William's Taxonomy. These provide ways to adjust to students' different levels by allowing them choices of assessments. This is one way to help get the students interested. Another helper provided in this chapter for getting a students attention is a list of verbs that can make assignments seem more interesting and attention grabbing.

Reflection
I think that overall our group decided we would really like to have more information about tiering before we make a final decision on how we feel about it. Some of us really like the idea of giving students options on how to be assessed because we feel like that would definitely help to get the students more involved and interested. We all think that tiering is important but we are also all slightly confused about how it would work. We know that students are at different levels and so they may require different assignments and none of us think it is fair to allow a student to fall behind and fail simply because we didn't give them the type of work they needed. However, when we were discussing this chapter in class, the main point we talked about was how to you balance it. Personally I would be very afraid of making students feel singled out or stupid, and through our discussions in class I found that many other people thought this could be an issue as well. We spent a long time talking about how the students who were considered more advanced would realize that their work was harder than others and that they would be all to willing to point out this information. Once this happened the less advanced students would start wondering why they were getting easier work and may come to the conclusion that the teacher thinks they are stupid. If a student thinks the teacher thinks they are stupid then they will be much more inclined to think that themselves. So, when using tiering how do you make sure that this doesn't happen? We all agreed that this could be an issue and the chapter never got into any explanation of how to avoid this issue. For this reason, while we all see the definite advantages and importance of tiering, we are skeptical about using it ourselves. Another point was brought up in class discussions, and that was about what classes can use tiering. Some people think that subjects such as history would be hard to tier because they are completely based on facts and if you don't know the facts then you just don't know them. I mean if you don't know what year Columbus sailed to America how can you use tiering to solve the problem? However, I think that while the factual part may be hard to tier, there would probably be other assignments where it would be possible. For example, if you were having them write an essay on a historical event then you could use a method such as the Tic Tac Toe method in order to provide multiple options for the essay. Then again, if you were to do that, we started to wonder: Well, what is to stop the advanced students from picking the easy way out? If you tell them they can't pick certain topics then we get back into the questions about singling students out. Overall I would have to say, and after reading this you would probably agree, that this chapter brought forth a lot of question within the class. Personally, I think this was excellent because it really got us thinking and asking important questions. Hopefully those questions will be answered throughout this course.

*Posted by Chelsae

Chapter 4

Abstract:

This chapter discussed three different forms of assessment: portfolios, rubrics and student self-assessment. As the chapter mentioned, portfolios are good to use because they are composed of many items and are taken over a long amount of time. The next type of assessment was the rubric. Chapter 4 mentioned two types of this assessment, analytic and holistic. Rubrics account for such things as content, clarity and practicality. When using rubrics, it is important to not put too much emphasis on the less important ideas. The final type of assessment was student self-assessment. This could be done through checklists or reflections on what the student has learned or has yet to learn.

Reflection:

We all agreed that this chapter would be useful to us in the classroom. Chelsae and Erik both really liked the section on portfolios. Erik thought that he would use them in his classroom and liked the idea of letting the students put all of the pieces into it while Chelsae thought that this information would be helpful when putting together her own portfolio. Audra really liked the section on rubrics and remembered that one of her high school teachers had used rubrics and it had really motivated her to produce better work. However, the section on rubrics was a little unclear as Chelsae had a hard time figuring out the difference between holistic and analytic rubrics. Chelsae and Audra both liked the idea of student self assessment because they are versatile and help the students and teachers learn more about one another. Audra will be interested to see if they work in the classroom as well as the chapter suggests.

chapter 1

Abstract

Chapter one gave us more information on the differentiated instructing, in this chapter the book explains that it is doing what is fair for students, it goes into a lot of information about differentiated instruction and asks if there could be any downsides to it being used in the modern classroom. It also explains to teachers what we must be able to do in our classrooms with our students to be successful in using the differentiated theory of teaching. Some of these things we must do is recognize who our learners are, what could hinder them from leaning, what their abilities are, and also being able to be flexible to accommodate for our students.

Reflection

We all felt that we could understand this chapter really well because of the overlapping of the material to our other books. Being able to read this chapter and really bring together both the Mi theory information and the other information from DI, and be able to apply both to the classroom at the same time really helped consolidate the information. We all also thought that the most important part of this chapter is when it tells teachers to take responsibility for the information and their student’s performances in the classroom. We all thought that this has been lost on many teachers, and that the differentiated theory of learning could help bring that back and revitalize the classroom setting for many teachers.

Posted by matt colby

chapter 3

Abstract

In this chapter the book discuses how we as teachers can have good assessments in our classrooms. This chapter talks about pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. All have one thing is common, we as teachers should have our end goal in mind when formulating or doing anyone of these strategies. This chapter also deals with student readiness in learning the material, how to design students assessments, and how to carry out assessments of students. This chapter also suggests that teachers give students the opportunity to redo assignments, and know the answers and questions on the test in advance of the test.

Reflection

We all thought that this book made sense when it came to student having the opportunity to redo work because none of us always are 100 percent all the time. We all also agree that the avoidance of Fluff assignments is key in our classrooms we as students hated the fluff when we were in high school, why would we want to give it to our kids. We also agree that students should be able to know specifically what is going to be covered on the test. Because it is not fair to just tell students to study three months worth of information in one week, for one test. And we all agree that students should be able to show their knowledge on multiple forms of assessment, not just one test al the end of the quarter or semester.

Posted by matt colby

Chapter 2

Abstract:
This chapter addresses the subject of mastery. It talks about the need for a clear definition of what mastery is. You need to decide what the most important things for the students to know are and then you need to come up with ways of assessing them. Assessments must determine who only has a simple understanding and who actually has mastered the material. The six facets were discussed as a way to help teachers assess mastery. It is important that assessments are actually assessing the important ideas and not focusing on unimportant concepts. In this chapter you will find examples of how to determine which information is the most important and will help the students meet the required standards.

Reflection:
I think for the most part our team had never put to much thought into how much work needs to go into making assessments. I think we all knew that there were standards that needed to be met and that standardized tests are definitely not the best way to determine if they had been met, but we hadn't really considered what would be the best way to determine mastery. It was pointed out that some teachers only focus on material that interests them and they don't pay much attention to the standards and other information that is important for students to learn. Some members of our group found the examples from the book very useful and think that they will help them to determine mastery in the future. Personally, I thought this chapter helped to explain the purpose of the packet we had to do. It really emphasized the importance of figuring out the big ideas and making sure the students master them. Having a variety of testing methods is a very important part of being a teacher because one test does not give you all the information you need about a students knowledge, and one testing style is not fair to all students. If you don't use variety then it is easy to think that a student has not mastered the subject even if they have.
*posted by Chelsae