FIAE+B2+Chapter+14


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Cam
Chapter 14; Responsive Report Card Formats When teachers provide a report card, it must highlight the differentiated practices and the students’ experiences. The given report card will be overseen by future colleagues, students, and parents. This is why it is relevant that school districts revise their report formats. It is important that report cards give feedback and not just a symbol by which a student is classed by. When a professional uses the adjusted (modified) curriculum, students are closely observed from one point in time to another. The specific adjustment though needs to be defined on the report card because categories are weighed differently compared to the regular student. In a dual approach, a student is graded on their personal progress and achievement against the standards. For example, a student gets a D3, he or she had a great year! This chapter impacted me as a future professional of teaching because I will definitely incorporate the dual approach in my grading system. Though it may be difficult to do this, depending on the specific school district I work for. This impacts the students because with the dual approach students will not be made fun of for their low grade or high grade. The second part of the grade gives student the self-confidence boost the need from a teacher to do better.

Marcy
This chapter talks about report card formats and what to do when you have differentiated instruction and the student has shown mastery but has not mastered all of the material. The grade to report is the one that shows that the student mastered what was asked of them to master, the adjusted curriculum grade. That does not compare to the other students in the class who have mastered the whole curriculum. This creates a problem because those grades do not mean the same thing even thought they are the same letter. The solution is to make a note on the report card to let parents and other teachers know that the curriculum was adjusted. This can be done with an asterisk and a note put in the student’s file. A way to show regular curriculum students’ personal growth and achievement would be to put both a letter and a number in the report card column. The A would show mastery of the material but an accompanying number such as a 3 would show an extensive amount of personal growth in the student’s knowledge. This documents exactly the achievement of the student throughout the course of the year. This affects me as a teacher by giving me the idea of a number and a letter grade. I remember earning A’s in classes when I know I did not grow. The A was easy and I was bored. This system will help me find that problem with students I will have in the future. This affects my students because I will not only know the level of their mastery but also how much their knowledge is growing.

Nicholas
**Chapter 14:** This chapter discusses report card formats, which really helped me to make learning the focus of success. Some of the aspects that were suggested within the text using science as an example, were categories such as, consistently demonstrates proper lab procedure, successfully employs the scientific method, properly uses nomenclature and/or taxonomic references, accurately creates and interprets graphs, all of which really show mastery of the content. It is important to assess a students’ mastery when creating a report card. A report card to me is similar to that of an overall assessment of a students’ learning. You have to be consistently reflecting on you students’ success and creating new goals or revising old ones. Report cards are used as a form of self-assessments and reflections of student success. You have to know where you want to go and where you are currently in order to meet and exceed the expectations that have been set.

Dani
This chapter of FIAE is about report cards. If we are using a grade book system that looks for mastery of many different benchmarks then it only makes sense that the report card reflects this. The chapter suggests many ways to sow how a student has progressed in a class on a report card and a few examples of how to reformat a report card to show how a student met each benchmark. This will affect me as a teacher because the grade on the report card will be questioned by parents. They will want to know why their child got a C and what that means for how well they are doing in the class. It affects my class because it means I can give the students, heir future teachers and their parents more productive feedback on their learning. That will help them in years ahead as well.

Jason
I think that this chapter was probably one of the better ones because it helps a teacher think about report cards. I thought it was a very good idea for teachers to mark grades with an asterisk so that parents could see what their child was given compared to what is to be expected of them. Once again, I am not very use to dealing with grades like this because my high school did everything similar to a college. It is very interesting to see all these types of grading and ways to report grades. As a teacher, I will obviously have to follow the report card rules of my school and district; I just hope that I will be allowed to make comments and add things so that parents can recognize what their child has accomplished over the course of the year. If I have done my job, then my students’ grades should reflect that.
 * FIAE Chapter 14: Responsive Report Card Formats **

Lizzie
This chapter allowed me to think about the report cards I will be giving my students as well as how I can relay information about their challenges, successes, and overall progress. When students receive a report card, it is seen not just by their eyes but by the eyes of other colleagues (sometimes), other students (if they share), and parents. It is important, therefore, that schools take a good long look at how they are giving or presenting these grades to these eyes. Report cards should give much more feedback than a number or letter grade. They can give a wide variety of feelings to a student, as horrible as that may sound. These students, parents, and maybe even other colleagues must be able to understand the format. If students are judged on a particular piece of the classroom that is not on the report card, what are we really saying to them? You did really well on this, but it does not matter in the end? Students must be able to know that their grades are the result of not just one homework assignment or a test, but the combination of several aspects in the classroom resulting in their overall understanding and mastery. How to have or even present a report card in a specific format bothers me. I wish that each teacher could create their own individual report card. Although they essentially do grade by their own system, they must still meet certain requirements and for me, too many requirements or pieces of a puzzle just make me frustrated. This frustration also falls into how to relate one class’s grades to others. Because each teacher is so different and will have different ways of assessing, one teacher’s way of doing it may be different. A 90 in my class may be a 93 in another. I know this is why having a set format for all report cards is important but it takes the individualized, special part of each teacher to student relationship away. The report card is the overall assessment of the student, but it is also a reflection of the teacher, this means that how I value my students’ grades will affect how they value their grades. I will definitely have to truly think about how to “grade” my students in relation to understanding for not just them but for me.

Andrew D
This chapter talks about responsive report card formats and the number of different ways to show final grades. Report card formats must be responsive and they have to reflect the differentiated practices the teacher provided. Adjusted curriculum shows the difference between the beginning and end. The two points are the statement of student growth and the starting point for determining grades. Students may not have experienced the same curriculum as other students and the report card must show that. Another type of report card format used is by grading both personal progress and achievement against standards. This is represented by a letter grade or symbol followed by a number or different symbol. The letter or first symbol represents the grade, while the number or second symbol represents student progression against the standards set for every student. Also, a continuous progress report is a way to responsively show a report card in a differentiated classroom. This chapter impacted me because just like with the gradebook, I did not know there were multiple ways to show a report card. This will impact my classroom because I will try to stay away from the traditional report cards and give more than just a letter grade when showing students final grades.

Ben
This chapter talks about the different ways to design report cards. For a DI classroom, using the traditional report card will not be enough. We need as liberators of education to use some of these new ideas on report cards so our students can get a better placement of where they actually are. I have seen it too many times in my old math classes where a student who does not get the material, and actually should not be in the advanced class gets a high B or a low A even though they do poorly on the quizzes and tests since they do the homework and put in the effort. If we are basing assessment of mastery level, then we need to do the same for reporting out the grades. The first method is sort of okay. It talks about beginning levels and end levels, measuring the difference, and the increase of level or decrease is the grade. What about the students who stay at the same level? They show no growth due to complete mastery. What would their grade be? The next topic was grading personal progress and achievement against standards. This method is better since it measures both personal goals and the amount of work done for achievement of standards. It addresses both aspects of what we are looking for as teachers in our students. We are always looking for personal growth, or goal attained, while trying to meet the State's standards and curriculum. So why not use the same method for reporting out grades. I believe if I have the choice when I start teaching, this is the method I will use for showing my students progress.

Lindsey
An essential concept of this chapter is providing feedback on a report card. Merely receiving a grade without an explanation does not foster development, but instead shuts the student off from the teacher and from the student’s own learning. Instead, this should become a way of communicating between teacher and student. In areas where the teacher realizes the student struggled, note should be taken as well as potential ideas of improvement. Likewise, if a student was successful in an area, they should hear what they have done successfully and be encouraged to continue this practice. Of course, reflection and grading will occur constantly throughout the course of the class, yet this further shows that feedback is essential.

Jenna
Chapter fourteen of __Fair Isn't Always Equal__ explains about responsive report card formats and the numerous methods of depicting students' final grades. The report cards must always reflect the differentiated instruction that the educator provided to the students during the year. Because students vary from one another, this must be shown on the report card because students will not have the same curriculum as other students. The first grade on the report card must reflect the students' grade (it will be a letter). The second symbol seen on the report card is the progression against the standards set for every student. The chapter also mentioned the use of progress reports. This is a phenomenal way of showing the students' progress in a formulative manner. It can be a good reference to the teachers, students, and parents to see where the student is, what the student needs to work on, and the student's strengths. I really loved this chapter because I've always thought that report cards had to be set in stone and very traditional. To the contrary, report cards do not have to be this way. I can incorporate my differentiated instruction into the grading so that I can truly give students more than a mere, meaningless grade. The grades will represent the students' understanding and hard efforts exerted throughout the semester and year.

Ted
Chapter 14 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal looked at the differences between teachers’ and parents’ views on report cards. Parents focus on how their child is doing in comparison to the other students in the class, where a good teacher is concentrated on what the student is doing to accomplish the standards. The approach that the chapter listed that I found most helpful was called the dual approach. This involved grading both the student’s growth and achievement in relation to the expected standards. The growth element will indicate how much the student has progressed in the course of the year. I really liked the idea of presenting the grade in a format like “A3” or “B2.” I think this reaches a good balance between what the teacher thinks is important and the satisfaction of the parent worrying about his or her student’s abilities and performance.

Throughout this book we have been learning what it means to be fair within the context of grading. We have learned all about the definition of grades being an accurate demonstration of a student's mastery over the content which should also provide the students feedback, show students progress over times, and help us as educators create better lessons after seeing how our students perform with the lesson. We must be empathetic to the learners in the classroom, while remaining fair and unbiased and yet still effective.

Despite this daunting task I have found the system of reporting should be done in the style of a dual approach. Thus taking the amount of student's progress throughout the entire semester and matching it against the standards we have to prove the student's mastery of. I feel as if this system is an honest way to provide the students feedback and a way for there to be much more collaboration between the learner and the educator. If a student sees they are doing well against certain standards, but are lacking in some others, they have a chance to fix that grade so that the final "photograph" of their semester reflects a positive one.