FIAE+B2+Chapter+3



toc

Ben
Chapter 3 Chapter 3 of FIAE it discusses the basic outline of making a classroom successful where everyone has an equal chance to succeed. Starting out with the outcomes of the class is practical. In the real world we know the outcome of every practical situation, so why can't we apply this to the classroom. From the knowledge I have learned in this chapter, when dealing with assessments I need to avoid fluff, making sure the established goals are clear in every assessment. Making sure my assessments are reasonable is key to the ultimate goal of EEK, essential and enduring knowledge. This knowledge will make my classrooms in the future easier to succeed for my students.

Dani
Chapter 3 of FIAE is about assessment. I learned that it does my students no good to only be assessed once. After all there could be a number of factors that could be influencing their performance that day. It is more helpful to assess my students many times over the course of the entire unit. This way I can know what they are really learning and give them feedback. This allows them to make adjustments and improve. But it is not enough to just assess my students. The assessments must also be fair judges of what has been taught. This affects me in that it means I have to send a lot of time making up different appropriate assessments and giving good feedback. It affects my classroom because it means more chances for my students to show me what they know.
 * Chapter 3**

Cam
As professionals we expertise in the concept of adjustments to others’ skills, it is our mastery. Teachers are responsible for engaging the minds of their learners by assessing them the whole nine yards, while avoiding fading in and out of the lesson. It is critical as a professional to assess the learners before constructing an elaborate unit. Once the teacher has identified the individual’s needs, then the building process of a unit can begin. This impacts me as a future science teacher because it is vital not to introduce material to my students that is beyond the level of learning. I need to recognize that I used to be in the same shoes years before hand. Since then, my knowledge of the sciences has expanded. It is necessary to stick to the basics, better known as the lesson plan. My future students will be impacted by the fact that I need to be fully aware of their learning requirements and it is my duty to fulfill them.
 * FIAE Chapter 3: Principles of Successful Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom **

Jason
I learned a great deal in this chapter, but the two things that stood out most were remembering that how we assess students should match up with how and what we taught them; if I give a lecture and then ask the students to make a PowerPoint without them knowing how, then that kind of assessment would be a failure. The other important part is that as a teacher you need to recognize what the important info is and what is just good to know. This impacts me because I am going into the history field; there is so much information that I need to prioritize and teach the things that meet with the standards. This has an impact on my classroom because the chapter spoke a lot about backwards planning – since that is how I will be trained, then I will be able to use the best system out there to teach my students what they need.
 * FIAE Chapter 3: Principles of Successful Assessment in the Differentiated Classroom. **

Marcy
The point this chapter made was that the word assessment means to sit beside, or in other words to coach. We as teachers have a goal in mind, the standards, and assessing students is a way for us to know where they are. This book also talks about assessing students at the beginning, middle, and end of a unit. This impacts me as a teacher because if I assess my students, notice that there is a problem, and then do not doing anything about it, it would have been better to not have wasted the time assessing them. The point of assessing students is to help the teacher modify the lesson to meet the students’ needs. I should also break down the standards to decide what is essential, what is highly desirable, and what is desirable. Having priorities of what to teach keeps the teacher focused on the goals and less time is wasted on arbitrary lessons. A good assessment will accurately show what the students’ know and are able to do. This helps my students because if I give them feedback that they can understand and the feed back comes before the next assessment, the students have time to fix their mistakes and perform better on the next assessment. The students will also be helped by the fact that they always know what the goal is and there are no surprises.

Nicholas
Chapter 3: The important message that jumped out at me in this chapter was not the fact that we, as educators, are now able to assess learning styles. Instead we are able to assess learning styles and make the adjustments needed in order to be “fair” to all students. As a future teacher I really need to remind myself that I am not going through the motions of an ordinary teacher, but using these assessments in order to help me to become a unique and original teacher that is “fair” to all students. I am aiming to become a highly effective teacher and there are endless possibilities of how I will be able to achieve this goal.

Lindsey
This chapter discusses the way that assessment plays a role in a differentiated classroom. In an effort to see students’ progress in the classroom, the teacher must assess from the beginning of the course until the end, and not merely assess when the student has reached a level where they have limited ability to improve. An interesting approach to insuring student growth is to provide them with a copy of the test at the beginning of the semester so that they may pay close attention to the key points of the semester. While it is necessary that students pay attention at all times, this will give them incentive to undertake a deep understanding of the material. It is a good point that since no end result in the future is hidden, no end result while in school should be hidden. Instead, students should have a clear understanding of the objective they are aiming for. An effective teacher will break apart whether a question is essential to a student’s learning, highly desirable thus interesting, or merely desirable. The focus will then remain upon the essential questions before later centering around highly desirable and, in the future, desirable questions. The process of determining essential questions takes time and collaboration, thus the teacher should not wait to begin the process but allow time to question faculty members and predict the end result. Even after choosing essential questions, it is necessary for the teacher to observe student progress and determine whether the questions need to be reevaluated. Pre-assessments should be done before the unit is designed so that the teacher may design the unit around student experience and need. I enjoyed that the chapter walked the teacher through deciding the relevance of pre-assessments, asking the teacher to first complete the assignments and determine the usefulness of the assessment. The teacher is to insure that they do in fact use the results of the assessment effectively, incorporating the student need into the curriculum.

Jenna
Chapter three of __Fair Isn't Always Equal__ emphasized the meaning of assessment. Assessment means "to sit beside" or "coach". Teachers need to have goals in mind (the goals can be created through breaking down the standards) to be capable of properly assessing the progress of students. Assessing children does not work if a teacher decides to test the students' mastery at the very end of a unit or year. It is essential that the educator assess students at the beginning, middle, and end of a unit. The main idea of formative (ongoing) testing is that the educator can use the results to take action and change certain aspects of the unit to fit students' needs. This particular idea impacts me as a teacher because if I assess my students, notice that there are problems and/or difficulties, and I do not take any action to change it, I am wasting time to teach my students valuable material that they could potentially retain. Modifying my lessons is a skill that I can obtain through the proper use of assessing my students. I also need to break down the standards into what is essential, what is highly desirable, and what is desirable. Having these certain priorities of what I should teach will keep me focused on the final and desired goals. Assessments should always be clear and understandable so that my students will know the goals set for them. Assessments also serve the purpose of showing me what my students know and are able to do. If I know what my students are capable of and if I know what my students need to work on, it gives me the opportunity to give them instructive feedback on how they can improve. When my students fix the problems, they will be able to perform successfully on the next assessment.

**Andrew D**
This chapter talks about assessment in differentiated classrooms. Great assessment is easily understood and is something that will help students achieve mastery of the subject. Achievement of assessments is reached more successfully when there are clear expectations in front of the students. Pre-assessments will help teachers determine the readiness of each student and readiness is key to knowing how and when to assess our students. There are three types of assessment: pre-, formative, and summative. Formative assessments are like checkpoints, while summative assessments are the assessments we give students at the end of each unit. This chapter impacted me because it showed me what kind of assessment is good to give students and what kind of assessment is not good to give students. I want to be able to assess my students and know that the results of those assessments are valid because I was able to maximize their learning and give them a proper assessment. This will impact my classroom because that will be one of my main goals when designing and then teaching each unit I teach.

Lizzie
I see that this chapter opened my eyes to different ways of assessment in the differentiated classroom. Students come into the classroom biased on how they see each subject. As a teacher I have to be able to break down these biases to promote the real truth and learning behind each subject. Teachers must understand the students’ talents, weaknesses, and be able to convince the students that the material being covered is actually worth studying. In a differentiated classroom, assessment is key, it guides practice. It is important to remember when beginning anything new to first look at what the end result will be, or the outcome. How do you want the students to feel and what do you want them to walk away with having learned? Great assessments in the classroom focus on EEK which is essential and enduring knowledge. This means that students should be able to know and understand all the things they are able to do. It is important to determine what is essential in a unit as well as assess and reassess what we are doing, as teachers. It is also important to know that some will succeed more than others. A teacher must also determine the students’ readiness or use diagnostic pre-assessments to understand how to plan the units of study. There are three types of assessments: pre, formative, and summative. Pre-assessments are used to indicate the students readiness, formative assessments are using for routine checkpoints to see where the students are in their learning, and summative assessments are used at the end of the learning to see how much the students have understood and learned. From these results we can then take action in the classroom to improve the learning and teaching. Providing opportunities for the students is key as well as making yourself available. Authenticity is important as well the two aspects of authenticity that refer to assessment. The first type is how the students will apply their knowledge to the outside world and the second is the assessment being authentic to how the students are learning. One question that arises is if an assessment is not authentic then what good is it doing to you or to your students who are learning this material? Using different ways to understand and assess your students can be extremely beneficial to them and to the teacher. It is important to be substantive and not fluff. This means to teach and learn with importance not just to fill time or get the job done. A teacher must also understand there are factors affecting students outside of class, their different learning experiences, and their own individual style. All factors must be assess in order to fully understand your students.

Andrew F.
Chapter three was a section dedicated to what makes up a good assessment of a student, and also if the students themselves are prepared to be evaluated. One of the most important things was having the assessment hold true to the learning experience within the classroom. As educators we need to make our content easy to relate to life outside of the high school, and make sure the activities we use to supplement our curriculum give our students skills they can take with them through all paths they choose to pursue.

The quote that kind of struck me the most was that of Douglas Reeves, "Too often, educational tests, grades, and report cards are treated by teachers as autopsies when they should be viewed as physicals." Time is a very important factor within assessment as well, and just like the photograph example provided in Understanding by Design, we as educators need to see how a student progresses, rather than poor marks on one section within a course. We have to be the change within these students lives and make our assessments fair and clear, true to our subject matter, and focus on the whole semester, rather than just a small portion of it.

T ed
This chapter repeated a lot of what we’ve already read in other books. I take this as emphasis of the chapter’s importance rather than needless repetition. Everything from avoiding fluff to furthering differentiated instruction to keeping one’s eye on the essential goals was reiterated in my mind as I read this chapter. The bulk of material in this chapter, which for the most part was reiterating differently things we’ve already read about, was summed up excellently toward the end. The “good assessment” bullet list would be a great thing to scan down when testing out an assessment strategy for the first time in a classroom, especially if I’m nervous about it.