Chapter 10: Conditions for Redoing Work for Full Credit

Chapter ten had conditions that students should be allowed to redo assignments. Allowing students to redo assignments can be very powerful for understandings. However, this can also cause problems with students repeatedly putting in a half done assignment because they know that there will be a chance to repeat the assignment later on. This can cause more time grading for the teacher and more headaches. What I plan to do is to allow students to redo their work only after they have talked to me about what they did wrong and how they plan on revising and fixing the assignment. I hope that students will not rely on a redo but use it as a tool to further their knowledge. Giving students a chance to redo the assignment is very important but can be very frustrating and disappointing if not handled corretly.

Chapter 9: Ten Approaches to Avoid When Differentiating Assessment and Grading

What really stuck out to me during the reading of chapter nine was the idea that teachers shouldn’t grade students practice. This means that teachers shouldn’t grade student’s homework. This was strange to me, because I know that homework I know isn’t going to be graded has a chance that it won’t get done. After reading the options for grading homework, I came up with a few good ideas that I hope to utilize in the classroom. Give the homework a small percentage of the overall grade so it won’t affect the overall grade but will keep students honest by doing the assignments. Teachers should also provide non-graded feedback on homework so they know what they are doing wrong and can adjust their study habits or thought processes. This can be very beneficial to the teachers as well. The homework of students will be a clear indication of whether they understand the material that you are going over. So this is also a test for the teacher, homework, or any formative assignments are very important!

Chapter 8: Why Do We Grade, and What About Effort, Attendance, and Behavior?

Chapter eight was very similar to one of the chapters in Multiple Intelligences, which talked about grading participation, attendance and behavior. When teachers grade students on these tools, it tends to skew a student’s grades and may cause students to turn away from the material that is being taught. I remember when I was in school; I had my days where I didn’t talk at all because I simply didn’t feel like talking. There were classes that I felt uncomfortable in because I knew that if I didn’t contribute to the class, and then my grade would go down. I feel this unfair and students may not learn by demonstrating their knowledge to the class. In order to portray a clear demonstration of a students mastery of a subject, I will not grade students on their participation, attendance or behavior unless directed so by the school or the school district.

Chapter 7: The Relative Nature of Grades and Their Definitions

Chapter seven focused on grading and how I plan to do it. A grade is not a good indicator of how much a student knows, it is simply a letter or number on the test. By giving out grades on having no formative assessments, students will never receive the feedback that makes them a stronger learner, nor will the teacher know how well he/she is doing. The shift in grade expectation was really interesting to me because it represents a change in ideals. Students are expected to achieve higher so “C’s” are no longer average but poor. “B’s” are the averages now and this is plain to see in students today. I can remember talking with students who felt that receiving a “C” was just as bad as failing. Students need the feedback that comes with more formative assessments. I plan on giving out tests which are summative, but also a lot of formative assignments that will show what the students need to work on and what I need to make more clear in the section.

FIAE Chapter 6: Creating Good Test Questions

This section was one of the best sections so far because I really enjoyed looking through all of the examples and seeing the different ways that I can improve my tests for my students. Some of those were giving lots of small quizzes in between tests, changing the vocabulary of questions so they aren’t stuck in the same format and giving feedback as soon as possible. One of the formats that really stuck out at me was the use of many quizzes in between the big tests. This has always been a very important way for me to focus on whether I have truly mastered the required information or if I needed to go back and fix my misconceptions. Quizzes do not have to be long nor do they have to be difficult. Giving the students feedback will allow them to adjust the focus of their studying. Using quizzes will also give me feedback on how the students are doing and what needs to be worked on for a little bit longer on what the students have mastered.

FIAE Chapter 5: Tiering Assessments

Chapter five talked about the concept of tiering. Tiering is used for adjusting the challenge level in assignments. Not every student will be at the same level in the classroom, so this will give all the students a chance to learn the material at their own level. The best classes I have ever been in gave the ability for each student to work on their own level of work. This doesn’t mean that the students were able to slack off if they wanted to but they also weren’t required to do work harder than they were able to do. Tiering is an important skill that I hope to incorporate in all of my lessons and assignments because it will give everyone, no matter the skill level, the ability to do their best work. By encouraging students to work at as high a level as they can, I hope they will push themselves to achieve as much as possible.

FIAE Chapter 4: Three Important Types of Assessement

Three types of assessment were introduced in chapter four, including portfolios, rubrics and self-assessments. Portfolios are useful to students because they require the students’ work and their explanations for why their piece of work meets the goal that was set for the portfolio. Beyond simply doing an assignment, portfolios really made me think about why I did that assignment and how that assignment really fit into the main ideas of the class. I felt like this really benefited my understanding of my work and forced me to really master the material that was being covered. This could be very helpful to the students in my class because if they keep a portfolio of the important ideas that I lay out for them in the beginning of the year, the important concepts that I want them to truly grasp will hopefully be imbedded. This is also a way for me to check and see if the students truly grasp the concepts at hand.

FIAE Chapter 3: Principles of Successful Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom

The biggest thing that jumped out to me in chapter three was to be abrupt with the students.  Tell them what is going to be on the tests so that they can look for those important facts that they will need to put in their reservoir of knowledge.  Having an idea of what I will be expected to know for an assessment before the content was provided always allowed me to know all of the information that was truly important in the material covered.  I learned more when I knew what it was that I needed to concentrate on instead of memorizing everything in the book.  I will pass out tests at the beginning so that they can differentiate the important aspects from when they come up in class.  The numbers and certain material in the “true” test will be changed, but everything else on the test will be exactly the same.

FIAE Chapter 2: Mastery

Assessments are difficult to give students because teachers need to see mastery of the subject not just lucky guesses.  Teachers must assess students in ways that they can be sure that the students truly understand what they had done with a certain problem.  I will have to find ways in order to create assessments that demand true understanding of the ideas.  I will need to become creative when I create my tests and assessments because I will differentiate the assessments in as many ways as I can; at the same time I will make sure that the students will truly understand the point of each topic they are learning.  My students will have to write out their reasons for certain answers.  I will require them to do different types of questions using the same knowledge with different contexts.

FIAE Chapter 1: The Differentiated instruction Mind-Set: Rationale and Definition

Differentiation is in everyday life including going to the grocery store.  Without differentiation in the classroom, we would probably never be able to learn all of the skills that are necessary to graduate.  Differentiation is important because, differentiation can be a deal breaker in students’ success.  Being the one who can create success in a student or ruining his/her academic career is an important and sometimes scary prospect.  Students will see as many different ways to learn and succeed as I can find in my career.  Having the necessary skills to join a college classroom and understand the different ways of learning will hopefully be something that I will be able to provide for my students.