IAE+B1+Chapter+9

[|Filbert says, "Click this!"]

[[image:Picture_3.png]]
toc

Rachel B.
This was an interesting chapter. I thought it tied in nicely with the other two books we are reading. While reading this chapter I found that I greatly reflected on a quote on page 114, “Imagine the negative impact on a student who needs another route, a few more examples, or another few days to process information before successfully capturing Boolean logic or geometry proof” (or really any other material). This is an interesting point made by author Wormeli, and it does make a difference in reference to assessment and grading. That student would be more accurately accessed after they understand it, and through their personal journey. That is not to say students shouldn’t ever be expected to understand the material/topic at hand, it is saying there is a justifiable window between when the lesson is taught, assignment/assessment is given and the student actually understanding. I will make sure to keep this is mind as a teacher, and emphasizes the importance of seeing me (to students) when they are having a hard time, or just coming to conclusions at a different rate than some of the other students.

Rachel F.
Chapter 9, //Ten Approaches to Avoid When Differentiating Assessment and Grading//, definitely opened my eyes some to methods that should be avoided when assessing and grading your students. The first approach, “Avoid incorporating nonacademic factors,” was emphasized in chapter eight. Grades are a measure of the student’s mastery, not how many classes they missed. I loved the second one that encouraged avoiding penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery. Of course it is important to let students practice over and over because practice makes perfect. If a teacher grades that practice, then they are getting an inaccurate grade for the student’s true mastery. The chapter also wants teachers to only give homework when you know that the students have mastered the material. Only giving the students a foggy representation of something then assigning homework that will be graded is stupid. One of my favorites was avoid withholding assistance. I HATE when teachers refuse to help students out in hopes of giving them more responsibility. That’s just bullshit. Students need help and that’s what a teacher is there for so help your students as much as they need without just giving them the answers. One of the last ones that I loved was avoiding giving zeros for missed work. Zeros absolutely demolish grades so the student’s final grade is going to be so inaccurate if that student has missing work and therefore zeros. Just talk to the student about the assignment but do not count the zeros into their final grade.

Geoff
Rick Wormeli continues on his theme from chapter eight on grading in chapter nine of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//. This chapter provides ten things to avoid when grading in a differentiated classroom. As with the last chapter, this chapter has already impacted me in that I have found some more things I need to revise in my rubrics. For one of my assessments, I was considering offering bonus points for students who added a music video along with their song about living during the Progressive Era. Wormeli’s sixth point explicitly states, however, that bonus points and extra credit should be avoided. Wormeli writes that students should be motivated to do the regular work because of the regular work, and not the extra credit. He also warns against extra credit that does not deal with demonstration of mastery, which my extra credit situation clearly does not do. Therefore, I need to come up with a new way to incorporate visual learners into my lesson plans. I also strongly agree with his suggestion to avoid grading homework, as homework is designed either for practice or for further internalizing of content mastery; this assertion builds off of the one in chapter eight that grades should be limited to summative assessments, and not all of the practice that goes into the final product. I do get a little confused, however, when he starts off the section by saying that we should avoid grading homework, and then finishes it by saying that homework shouldn’t count for more than 10 percent of the final grade; perhaps he should reword the section to suggest minimizing rather than avoiding it all together.

Courtney
So this chapter was a list of things a teacher should avoid when grading, I found some of them to be really interesting because when I was a student in high school my teachers would use these methods that this chapter warns teachers against. First of all it is important to give student second chances because not every student s going to master a topic at the same time. The section I liked the best was the portion on homework. As a teacher I don't know how much homework I am going to want to give and when and this chapter really helped me to decide this. Homework should only be given when a student has master a topic and is for further practice and understanding, homework should never be assigned when students are first learning a topic. I thought this was so true, kids have lives outside of school and when a teacher gives them homework on something they don't understand then it only stresses them out and doesn't help them to understand any better. As a teacher I do not want to give out too much homework because it can't really provide evidence on true mastery in a subject and anything that I teach is going to be important so I should teach it in class where the students can ask questions and receive help. Another important concept offered in this chapter was the plain fact that students should not be assessed in ways that do not show mastery meaning do not use words problems in math if a student is not good at reading and writing, this will only distract them from solving the actual problem. Also if I offer extra credit I shouldn't let it weigh in on their grade too much and it should be on a topic that is including in them showing mastery. All these things are great to remember when becoming a teacher.

Sara
I strongly agree that students should be able to redo assignments for full credit! Students are doing the work to achieve mastery not a letter grade. Teachers don’t want the students to get an ‘A’ they want students to get the understanding of what is being taught. I also strongly agree that ‘practice’ homework is not to be graded because it is used to achieve mastery, once mastery is achieved then a grade can be assigned to it. I feel teachers should always be available for assistance, teachers’ jobs are to EDUCATE and some students may need extra help, we should not deprive them. I HATE bonus points, my father always used to ask ‘how can you get more then 100%, it is full, there is no more, you can not get points that do not exist.” I agree that students do not need extra credit, it emphasizes grades far too much.

Jen P.
I appreciated the first practice to avoid that came up on page 113. Assessments and grades should reflect how much a student has learned, really learned, not how they behaved while they learned the information. One particular quote stood out to me: “With every assessment we must consider what we are trying to test, find the most accurate way of revealing what students know,” (123). This advice is definitely something I will use in my classroom! A teacher cannot just make a regular rubric and expect it to accurately assess the mastery level of each and every student. Details and deep thinking, with regard to differentiation, need to be applied to the creation of assessments and grading practices.

Megan
I definitely had mixed feeling about this chapter. I think students should be able to have extra credit. I see what Wormeli means about how students should be motivated to do the regular work. But the fact is that not all students are. Also extra credit can be a good learning experience in itself. I believe in the redo. Students should be given a second chance to do something if it helps them learn better. Kids have a lot going on in their lives and sometimes the first go around didn’t work so they need another shot. Also I disagree with what Wormeli said in regards to grading homework. I don’t plan to give a lot of homework when I teach. If I do it will be for a project the kids are doing or in preparation for the next lesson. But I am going to grade it. If I were in their shoes I wouldn’t want to have to do homework just to do it. There should be a purpose and I would expect to get credit for it. I completely agree with not giving group grades! Being graded as group is the most frustrating thing to me as a student. Group member should be given specific tasks and graded on those. They should also be able to give feedback to the teacher to allow for fair grading.

Stephanie L.
This chapter is chock full of great ideas when it comes to grading. I agree with most of the ten approaches that should be avoided and have personally seen the positive effects that come out of avoiding these approaches. For example, my senior year math teacher would assign us homework that he would only check for completion. He never graded based on whether or not we got problems correct. This motivated me to try, even if I was unsure of what I was doing. Once all homework was checked, we would go over the answers as a class and he would explain any confusing problems. The section on avoiding extra credit and bonus points really jumped out at me. I used to be a huge fan of extra credit and bonus questions when I was in high school. They motivated me to an extent, but after reading this chapter I realize they were motivating me for the wrong reasons. This section made me rethink what bonus points and extra credit are really doing. They are filling in trivial information for the important information that a student can’t wrap their minds around. Instead of trying to fix that problem, some teachers just find a way to make students feel better about their low grades.

Karin
Most of the ideas in this chapter I agreed with. The second one in particular is virtually non-disagreeable. How can you penalize a student for actively attempting to master a topic? If the student put in a good effort in the first place, then there is no reason that the student shouldn’t be given another chance to prove mastery. I also particularly love number seven – “avoid group grades.” As the member of a group who almost always does all the work (with the exception of practicum groups), I hated my good, hard-earned grade being theirs because they just happened to be in my group; on the other hand, I don’t feel that I should be penalized for their shoddy contribution if my part of the project was exemplary. It has happened to me so many times, that I know this will impact my classroom. I will never assign group grades if I can help it. Perhaps I will assign a grade based on how the group worked together, but product is off-limits for a group grade, because there are too many factors involved that have nothing to do with the mastery of the concept at hand.

Jordan
In this chapter, I really like the idea of not giving group grades. I agree with Rick Wormeli that giving a group grade does not reflect individual progress or mastery of content. All that is truly being graded during group grading is how well the entire team did-not the individual students. There are always those few students who don't want to do the work, so they hand it off to other members of the group. I not fair for those students to get the same grade as other students simply because they were in the same group. Individual grades should be given. I think it is more effective to grade each member of the group individually based on what they did during the activity or assignment. I know that I will not give group grades for assignments, but instead, individual grades for individual students.


 I have reviewed my lessons and I've noticed that every single one has students working in groups of three or more at some point. None of my lessons involve evaluations on a group-wide basis, because like Wormeli I understand the tendency for groups to have students who contribute more than others. Since effort and participation are things that I hold fast to when it comes to assessment, the majority of my evaluations on group projects are on an individual basis. Often I have my lessons set up so that there is some sort of self-assessment at the end, with at least one question addressing what the student thought of their participation and the participation of the other students in their group. When looking at the self-assessments it would make it easier for me to see which students were actively contributing and which were merely going with the flow.

