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Abstract - Jen T
This chapter, titled “Three Important Types of Assessment,” was actually about 15 different types of Mr. Potato Heads that you could incorporate into your curriculum...just kidding. The three types of assessment are: portfolios, rubrics, and self-assessment. Portfolios are a decent way to keep records of students over a long period of time. Instead of grading their knowledge of the curriculum in one test, quiz, or paper, you can collect a multitude of various assignments, in order to track their progress over the course of the year. The next assessment is [|the rubric]. The chapter talks about two types of rubrics, analytic or holistic. Holistic rubrics are used for projects/assignments that you wish to grade as a whole, while analytic rubrics break the assignment into pieces to grade each part separately. Holistic rubrics tend to be more objective but lack detailed feedback. Analytic rubrics are more subjective but give more specific feedback. The last assessment is the self-assessment. This assessment consists of students reflecting on their own work, via blog, journal or something similar, or to assess how well they’ve learned grasped a new subject.

Reflection
Based on the limited personal reflections from our class, I’ve decided that Block 1 definitely approves of portfolios. Everyone thinks that they are extremely useful in the classroom because they can track progress of any student over a long period of time. One practicum student writes, “I like how I can look at a student’s progress rather than snap shots of grades.” As far as rubrics go, I personally wrote how it is a good idea to make them anything except for a 5-level tier because parents/students will automatically associate each level with a letter grade. Some students showed surprise that creating rubrics would be so time consuming and difficult. Even though we love the flexibility and straight-forwardness of rubrics, we also understand that [|not everything] can be scored using a rubric. Some of us remember our own high school days regarding types of assessment stating, “sadly, I don’t think I kept either one of those portfolios,” and “I always liked clearly defined standards and rubrics are perfect tools for that.” Also, our class gives the official ‘thumbs up’ to self-assessment saying, “ Self-assessment helped me with motivation and with finding ways to do better and be better in high school, and still does today.”

Rachel B.
This chapter directly reflected the title. It was about types of assessment, which can be seen as very important. A strong focus of this chapter was portfolios. I liked how a section was worded on page 43. It stated, “With portfolios, students get opportunities to reflect on their own progress when they are asked to choose works to include in their portfolios and to explain how an included work came to be, and what it reveals about their understanding.” I think this quote perfectly outlines the meaning on portfolios and what they do for students. This chapter will influence my classroom because I will use portfolios, with my own added technique, hopefully find them to be clear, helpful tools in assessment.

Jen T.
I really enjoyed how this chapter explained and differentiated between the two types of grading rubrics. I also completely agreed with the author on going against a five-level tier because parents and students automatically associate each level with a letter grade. In my own classroom, I will probably use both rubrics depending on the class, grade, and assignments. I intend to converse with my students on what I think they should be graded on and what they think they should be grading on, and meet somewhere in the middle. That might not work as well with middle school students, but I always want to keep my students in the loop on how I grade, why I grade that way, and how they can receive the best grade possible.

Rachel F.
Chapter 4, “Three Important Types of Assessment,” starts out immediately talking about student portfolios and how they can be a great way to assess. Most teachers in this day and age give the typical tests that include multiple choice, fill in the blank, and short answer. These tests are given in one day and only offer right or wrong answers. Portfolios are collections of the student’s work over the entire course. When the final portfolio is presented, the teacher can view all of the student’s work over time. The teacher can see where the student grew or had great success. Using this assessment, students get a much more accurate grade for the class. The next type of assessment, rubrics, can be very important for students. It is important, however, when you make one to make sure it includes content, clarity, practicality, and technical quality/fairness. Rubrics may seem easy to create but when you actually sit down to create one you quickly realize how difficult it truly is. The last form of important assessment is student self-assessment. It is great to allow the students to reflect on their own work and progress throughout a course. They can see how they’ve grown and where they could grow. This chapter has opened me up to new ways of assessing. Portfolios will be great for my students because they actually see themselves grow. Rubrics will give them a clear idea of what I expect from them and self-assessments will allow me to see what they think of their efforts throughout my class.

Karin
This chapter taught me about the three most important types of assessment – Portfolio, Rubrics, and Student Self-Assessment. Instead of classic tests that are used in education, these methods don’t provide just a snapshot of the student’s achievement, but rather a panorama of the student’s potential and achievement. Portfolio lets the student choose exactly what they feel is their best work. Rubrics provide good guidelines for the student to follow – they clearly know the expectations, and can work at their own pace to fulfill them. Self-assessment lets the student reflect on his or her own learning. These methods will have a very great impact on my future classroom; the methods are more effective and provide better example of student’s mastery, as well as better feedback for the student.

Courtney
There were three different types of assessment discussed in this chapter which were portfolios, rubrics, and student self assessment. A portfolio is good way to compile a students good work together as a way to see what they have learned. In this way the student gets to choose which works will go into the portfolio, whether it is a high grade or something they are proud of and in this way it is a reflection process for the student. Rubrics were talked about in depth in this chapter, because it is obviously one of the most common ways to assess a students work. A rubric lays down what needs to be done for a certain assignment and what is needed for a certain grade. Rubrics may allow students to focus on a certain level of achievement and not go for the highest one, which I thought to be very true. Last is simply having the student self-assess themselves where a rubric could be create to include both the teachers grade and the students grade for themselves. It may tell a teacher a lot by the grade that a student is willing to give himself.

Megan
The chapter describes three types of assessment: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. However, the two types that stood out for me were portfolios and rubrics. I love the idea of portfolios because of their longitudinal nature. I like can look at a student’s progress rather than snap shots of grades. I’m not a big fan of tests because there are so many reasons a student fails a test other than the fact that they don’t know the material. There is too much room for error and the student can end up getting a grade that doesn’t reflect the work they did. Portfolios show so much more than that and can help in giving the student a more accurate grade. Then the chapter talked about rubrics. I never thought that a student/parent would a equate levels 1-5 of a rubric to a grade A-F. That’s definitely something that I will keep in mind when I start to make rubrics. Also, the book mentioned giving students the full description of the task at the highest performance possible rather than giving them the actual rubric. I never thought that a student would look at the lower level requirements and try to meet those instead. It’s definitely something that I plan to test out in my classroom!

Stephanie L.
This chapter of "Fair Isn't Always Equal" focuses on, you guessed it, the three important types of assessment: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. I have done a lot with portfolios as a student and agree that they are a helpful tool. There are many variations that teachers can make as well. Some portfolios, like the ones they discuss in our book, are a collection of only the best work that the student has done, but some include all work, from beginning to end, to show how much progress has been made. Rubrics are another thing that I have seen a lot of as a student. It never occurred to me that it would be good practice to create rubrics for such mundane tasks like telling a joke or tying a shoe ( Wormeli, 44). This really does seem like a great way to get your feet wet. The chapter then goes on to a step-by-step instructional piece on how to design a rubric, and it even gives samples! The final type of assessment that they discuss is student self-assessment. This gives students a chance to think about what they've done and also gives the teacher a chance to make sure everyone is on the same page. Blogging and journal writing is a good way to keep up with that!

Geoff
Wormeli provides three great examples of assessment in the classroom—all of which are conducive to differentiated instruction and assessment in the classroom in chapter four of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. Of course, these three things can all be used at the same time, as rubrics can be used to grade the portfolios, and student self-assessment is an important component of a portfolio. I remember in high school for two of my social studies classes, freshmen Global Studies and sophomore American Government (both with the same teacher), we had to do a portfolio at the end of the year. For the portfolio, we submitted work we had done for those units earlier in the year, along with different assignments which had us recall our knowledge from all of the units we have done throughout the school year (sadly, I don’t think I kept either one of those portfolios). I also remember doing a smaller portfolio assignment for freshmen English when we read Romeo and Juliet (I definitely did not keep that one). I think portfolios, both comprehensive, year-long portfolios and smaller unit ones, are definitely something I would like to replicate as a teacher. Rubrics are something I think I may have a hard time with at first, because I have a hard time making my mind up for anything, and I assume the same thing will happen when I work on trying to decide what demonstrates content mastery. I also like student self-assessment, even though I had a very hard time with those kinds of things in high school; I think it only benefits teenagers to be able to learn about to look at themselves and their performance in retrospect and with a critical eye. Self-assessment helped me with motivation and with finding ways to do better and be better in high school, and still does today. Wormeli again gives us plenty of ideas, and I look forward to more great ideas in coming chapters.

Jen P.
Page 45 of this chapter was particularly helpful. I hear from students a lot that rubrics they have to work with are difficult to understand and to work with. I learned that a good goal to really focus on when making a rubric is to be very clear. The vocabulary should be fairly easy for students to understand and the rubric should focus on what is truly important about the product to be evaluated. I like that there are questions on this page that explains exactly what components go into making a great rubric, one that checks for understanding. It also includes self-evaluation questions for me as a teacher, such as, “What should we do differently the next time we use this rubric?” I will definitely be using this method to form any rubrics in my classroom.

John T.
The three assessment methods discussed in this chapter have helped open my mind to assessment strategies other than essay tests, something of which I think I've had too much for my own good. Portfolios are especially useful in an English class, since the student's improvement in writing is only easy to see if all of their writing samples are kept together. Rubrics are also easily applied to writing assignments, since all the elements that should be in the assignment can be searched for and checked off. The questions provided in regards to the rubric were very good questions, especially: "Can a student understand the content yet score poorly on the rubric? If so, why, and how can we change the rubric to make sure that doesn't happen?" (45) I think that because of the practicality of rubrics it might be tempting to use them for nearly everything, but with this essential observation in mind, one is much more likely to use one's own knowledge and forethought to help assess the student, rather than let something so rigid take over. Student self-assessment is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately, and it has a nearly unlimited number of applications. In one of our reading assignments it was suggested that you could give students a general knowledge test in the beginning of the unit, then give the exact same test at the end. Why not use this technique and show the students the two tests at the end? This chapter is a good one because it offers just the right amount of suggestions to get you thinking abstractly about assessment in all these areas.

Tracey Hollingsworth
Chapter 4 - Three Important Types of Assessment

In chapter four of Fair Isn't Always Equal, Wormeli discusses three important types of assessment in differentiated classrooms: portfolios, rubrics, and self-assessment. Portfolios provide the "big picture" of students' growth over time and reveals areas in need of improvement. With portfolios, students take charge of their learning and are able to reflect on their own work when choosing pieces to include. While portfolios are great for showing growth, rubrics are a great way to give feedback to students. Rubrics are the most common way that teachers assess and report students' achievements. As a teacher, it is important to constantly be revising and testing your rubrics for content, clarity, practicality, and technical quality and fairness. Another great type of assessment is self-assessment. Self-assessment allows students and teachers to set individual goals. Some ways teachers can promote self-assessment are by using checklists, likert scales, and [|interactive notebooks]. This chapter introduced me to [|interactive notebooks] and I really like the idea of them.




 There are 3 ‘major’ types of assessment. The first of which is a portfolios. Portfolios allow teachers to be able to see a collection of the students’ work, not just a brief snapshot which is what a single essay is. Portfolios help gauge progression and patterns can develop with what students need to work on. The second assessment tool is a rubric. Rubrics clearly outline what is being assessed and how it is being assessed. Rubrics can be simple of complex depending on the task. The final form of assessment discussed is student self -assessment. Student self-assessment can come in the form of a unit end survey or journal entries. I hope to utilize self-assessment and rubrics the most in my classroom. I always liked clearly defined standards and rubrics are perfect tools for that.

Jordan
This chapter outlines three different forms of assessment: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. Portfolios allow the teacher to see collect, examine, and chart progression in students work individually. Rubrics are a way for teachers to outline their expectations for a certain assignment or assessment. Student self-assessment is the use of a student kept journal, learning log, or interactive notebook that allows the student to reflect on their learning, difficulties, and other insights. I think that all three forms of assessment can be used in a future classroom with great success. I really like the idea of keeping student work portfolios to track progression and also having students self-assess and reflect on their learning and ways to possible improve.