DI+UbD+Chapter+5+Block+2

[|Synthesis - UbD/DI C5 B2]

In chapter five of //Integrating,// entitled, "Considering Evidence of Learning in Diverse Classrooms," discusses various forms of assessment, as well as what is good evidence. A very good example was given. As a teacher we want to have a “photo album” of our students progress, not just a “snapshot.” We learn much more about their progressive and who they are as a student by not just having that one test, “snapshot.” Also discussed were The Six Facets of Understanding, which include, explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy and self judgment. All of these indicate that a student understands the subject. But it is important that each student can demonstrate each of these, not just one or a couple. There are also different types of assessments. One of this is called a summative assessment. These are evaluative and are marked on report cards and transcripts. Next is diagnostic, which assess the amount of knowledge the student came to that class with about the subject. Lastly are formative assessments which serve as guide to teaching and to improve learning. They are not graded with numbers, but more of a practice. Also mentioned was the importance of giving good feedback. Not just good job, or try harder, but effective feedback that will help the student learn. In conclusion, successful assessment is not about giving out grades, it is about finding where your students are and helping them succeed. || This chapter was very helpful in giving specific tips on how to assess. There was a clear illustration of the Assessment Photo Album. The section of inauthentic work versus authentic work was helpful because it was clear. I feel that books like this often are vague, but this book gives clear examples that I can relate to. I plan on using the Product and Performance Tic-Tac-Toe boards in my teaching. It is a great idea that contains structure for students that need it, but there is also a lot of room for creativity, which is very important in a classroom. The section on giving feedback was very useful. I want every comment I write on a piece of work to improve the students performance, whether it is encouragement or a critique. Overall, I feel like I am having a better understanding of assessing, and how to make a lot of the homework and activities beneficial for the students. || Chapter five discussed a lot about how standardized tests aren’t the best way to test students. Instead, teachers should be assessing their students by collecting many different pieces of data in the classroom. The chapter uses the example of a photo book to describe this concept. A person can learn much more about someone else from many pictures in a photo book than they can from one single picture. In the same way, teachers can learn more about how much the students have learned by assessing them in many different ways in the classroom. Also, teachers should frame assessment tasks by using the GRASPS acronym. GRASPS stands for goal, role, audience, situation, products, and standards. Teachers need to be more descriptive and helpful when they give students feedback. Even though by putting a good grade on a paper or putting a nice comment on there makes a student feel good, it does not help their learning. By giving a detailed feedback describing what was good about a certain paper and what part of the paper needed work will help the student learn better.  I really enjoyed this chapter because I agree with everything that was discussed. I firmly believe that standardized testing is a very inaccurate way of testing students because it puts a lot of pressure on students and only targets one way of learning and assessment. The statement from the book, “The predominant assessment format (selected-response) favors students with facility for recall and recognition. The results of high-pressure exams in which reading ability is paramount may present a distorted picture of the achievement of learners whose parents do not speak standard English, as well as students with disabilities” really sums up how I feel about standardized tests. This is a very powerful statement and shows how standardized tests are not the best way to assess students. Also, I feel that teachers need to give much better feedback. I find that I learn much better and improve my skills when my teachers provide feedback that is very detailed about what was done well in a paper and what needed work. In chapter five of DI UbD, Tomlinson and McTighe discuss different assessment strategies. The first assessment principle is to “consider photo albums versus snapshots,” (pg. 60). This principle focuses on the importance of using various kinds of assessments to gauges students learning versus a high-stakes standardized test. The second assessment principle is to “match the measures with the goals,” (pg. 64). This assessment touches on three different kinds of knowledge teachers should be looking for and assessing. The first kind of knowledge is declarative knowledge, what the student should know and understand, the second is procedural knowledge, what the student should be able to do, and the last is dispositions, the “attitudes or habits of mind that students should display,” (pg. 64). Tomlinson and McTighe also stress the importance of distinguishing the difference between a student knowing and understanding material. The third assessment principle is “form follows function,” (70). This principle covers three approaches to assessment. The first is summative assessments, which are used to summarize what a student has learned. The second is diagnostic assessments, which are used to judge student knowledge before starting something new. The last is formative assessments, which are administered typically as un-graded quizzes to test student knowledge as they are learning. They also stress the importance of returning finished work and feedback to students as quickly as possible. “Nevertheless, we strongly recommend that our goals should dictate the nature of our assessments, not external factors,” (pg. 65).
 * **Names** || **Abstract** || **Reflection** ||
 * Barnes Mckell || Chapter five in UbD talks in great detail about assessment and evidence of learning. It brings up a good point about appropriate assessment and it different ways to assess different learning activities. It also makes a good point about evidence of learning. We cannot just obtain meaningful evidence of learning through one assessment, there needs to be numerous accounts of evidence. The book refers to this as a “photo album” instead of a “snapshot”. The book then goes on to talk about the different assessment types which correlate to the appropriate learning activity. First is the summative assessment, these are assessments that are evaluations put on report cards and transcripts. The next assessment is diagnostic, which assesses how much or how well a students knowledge is in a subject prior to the course. Lastly, the formative assessments which are the most instructional when improving teaching lessons. || I really liked the analogy the book used when discussing the best way to learn about a student. The “photo album vs. the “snapshot” gives a great way for teachers to go about obtaining crucial evidence of students learning’s. I also think the different assessments the book provided gave teachers an opportunity to explore different ways to assess. And I think one of the most important aspects of assessment that the book touched upon was making the assessment appropriate with the learning activity. ||
 * Brennick Christopher || This chapter addresses the question what is the evidence of learning in a diverse classroom? Three key principals are addressed to start out this chapter with the first one being we need to take a photo album rather then a snap shot in terms of assessment. We must look at many assessments because one type of assessment may favor a different type of learner and also one day an assessment is due a student may just not be doing well so it isn’t fair to just take one assessment and see that as a way to judge student. The next principle is matching the measure with the goals we have set up in stage one. It is important that we keep our focus on the desired results we developed in stage one so we must always keep those in mind when looking at what kind of assessments we make. We must also focus on assessing understanding and not knowing. Knowing is simply being able to recall acts, but knowing is being able to actually use knowledge in one of the six facets of understanding. The book also encourages us again to assess inside of an authentic framework so students can see how this can be applied to use in the real world. The framework they use for this is the GRASPS frame, which stands for real-world goal, a meaningful role for the student, authentic real world audience, a conceptualized situation that involve real world application, student generated culminating products and performance, and consensus drive performance standards for judging success. GRASPS is a good way to give student a real world way to show understanding. The final principle is form follow function. This section encourages answer four question when designing assessment and those are what are we assessing, why are we assessing it, for whom are the results intended, how will the results be used? The answer will point us towards the type of assessment we want weather it be pre-assessment, formative assessment, or summative assessment. The book stress that we must pay attention and use all three types of assessment. Offering appropriate choices is a key because all students have different strengths and will excel at something different and find it easier to express if done in a format that fits them. Also the key is not the product format but rather the content, which we aim to teach. The close of this chapter talks about the important of giving direct and timely feedback to students. Feedback needs to give clear guidance to students telling them how to improve and get better not just good job. Be specific says our book in the way we comment on students work. Also being timely is just as important because if they get it back three weeks after they turned in the assessment then that cannot help them better deepen their knowledge || I think the highlights of this part of the book are important parts teaching. Using pre and formative assessments are very important to guide our instruction in a way that is responsive to the needs of our students. How can we fix something when we don’t know what about it is broken? I also feel that the need for clear and timely feedback is must. We must positive with our feedback so we build kids up and not tear them down but they also need to know what areas to improve in and have it in time so that they can use it in that unit before we move on. A number is not something a student can build on, but if I give them advice and let them re-do the work then they will be able to show growth and progress and that is the essence of education. ||
 * Columbia Laura ||.
 * Coombs Kayla || Chapter five of "Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design" is about using effective assessment methods. Proper assessment would be evident through the achievement of desired results, and three principles that inform and guide assessment were discussed in this reading. The first principle was about considering photo albums versus snapshots. This analogy was basically having one consider how photo albums present a more accurate account of an individual than a single snapshot, just like a collection of diverse sources of evidence gives a much accurate account of a student’s learning than a single test at the end of a unit. The assessment principle two was about matching the measures with the goals, in which assessment evidence cannot be considered without considering the desired results. There are three types of educational goals to put into perspective: declarative knowledge, which is what students should know and understand, procedural knowledge, which is what students should be able to do, and dispositions, which are the attitudes or habits of mind that the students should demonstrate and show. The third principle is about form following function. This is connected to the idea that how we design and use classroom assessment should be influence by what the answers are to the following questions: What are we assessing? Why are we assessing? Who are the results intended for? How will these results be used? Classroom assessment serves the purpose of summative assessment, which is used to summarize what has been learned and is an evaluative assessment, and diagnostic (pre-assessments) and formative assessments, which occur with the instruction and are used to guide teaching and learned to improve achievement. The four classroom assessment practices that respect student differences and promote learning are as follows: doing assessments prior to teaching, offering appropriate choices, providing feedback early and frequently, and encouraging self-assessment and reflection. || This chapter is a beneficial read for prospective teachers in the sense of how we should go about classroom assessment. It is important to be able to use effective assessment methods to achieve the results that you want to achieve. I realize now the importance of four classroom assessment practices, and I realize that each is significant but some I personally want to make certain I am applying. For my application of classroom assessment I want to especially stress the idea of doing assessments prior to teaching to assess at what stage of understanding the content the students are individually beginning with. I want to know how to effectively reach all students with the content and doing diagnostic assessment is important for that. I also will make certain that I provide feedback early and often to my students, especially because I feel that I could have benefited from getting more feedback early on in my past years of schooling. ||
 * Cummons Michael || Chapter 5 of DI/UbD is about how to tell if students are really learning in the classroom, or if changes need to made in the classroom to help students truly “master” the material. A book is like a snapshot when looking at students learning in a classroom. There must be a photo album to look at students learning to get a true idea if teachers are learning in the classroom. A photo album must show all of student’s abilities, not just a narrow bit of information. This chapter looks at the three different goals in education. 1.) Declarative knowledge. 2.) Procedural knowledge. 3.) Dispositions. These three goals can be used to help assess students. Looking at students, with an eye for these three things, can help a teacher look at what students are really learning. This chapter looks at the “GRASPS”frame, which is an assessment with a goal, role for the student, world audience, real world situation, a cumulative product, as well as a standard. When students do this it makes it much easier to observe and access what kind of learning is taking place. || I really liked this chapter because it points out that students are not truly mastering material in schools, today. There is not nearly enough actual learning taking place. I don’t remember much algebra from high school, yet I never failed a class. Students cannot just slip through school with out grasping certain material. Teachers must do a better job of teaching material and assessing actual learning. ||
 * Damboise Kelley || Chapter five focuses on three main effective assessments principles that teachers should use when assessing their students. The three main assessment principles are: consider photo albums versus snapshot, match the measures with the goals, and form follows function. When assessing students it is beneficial to remember that the more assessments that can be preformed the better the chances of truly evaluating what a student understands. The metaphor describing assessments proves to be true; a person cannot learn everything about another person through one snapshot, it takes numerous pictures to create a general idea of what that person is like. The chapter keeps on stressing that it is important for teachers to always look at the objectives, and continue to relate them with the goals or bench markers that have been established. This section describes the three different forms of educational goals; they include declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and dispositions. “Declarative knowledge- what students should know and understand, procedural knowledge- what students should be able to do, and dispositions- what attitudes or habits of mind students should display”. (Marzano, 1992) Lastly, in form follows function the three assessments were discussed; pre-assessments, formative assessments, and summative assessments. || My favorite part of this chapter was when the metaphor was used to describe how we should assess our students over a period of time, and also how teachers should vary the kinds of material used to assess. I have to agree that standardized tests are not the culprit when it comes to assessing students. Standardized tests receive such a bad reputation because all too often students’ achievements and understanding of material is based upon one standardized test. This doesn’t present a clear picture whether the student understood the information; for all we know the student could have been having an awful day and not paid any attention to the assessment. That is why I think it is so important to use the phone album metaphor, and assess my students over an extended period of time using varied assessments. ||
 * Kelley Kathleen || Chapter five of //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design// focused on what is considered acceptable evidence for learning. This is one step that has been integrated into the backwards planning model. Assessments were discussed and was suggested that sometimes single exams should not be the only way to see if a student is grasping the material. There are a large number ways you can assess whether or not students are meeting the desired results. Some examples could include oral projects, papers, and visuals. Since students differ in learning styles, teachers should offer many different ways for students to prove that they understand the material. The GRASPS frame is also a great method to assess a students understanding. This frame which stands for goals, roles, audience, situation, products, and standards help students show they understand what they are learning and how it can be applied in a real-world context. The book also suggests that we need to be able to let students create evidence in their area of strength. Permitting students to each do something different is great because it allows them to be creative, but they need to be evaluated by the same criteria. Prompt feedback from the teacher and reflection by the student is also imperative to the success of the student because it allows them to work on areas they may be weak. || Chapter five was interesting because it gave me a lot of insight into how to determine what constitutes as evidence. There weren’t really a significant amount of suggestions that I hadn’t thought of already, but the GRASPS frame and the tic-tac-toe model were really interesting. The frame caught my attention because many of the points had to do with letting the student apply it to real world situations. In my opinion, many concepts are more easily understood when they can be applied to a students life. The tic-tac-toe model was great because it gave the students the ability to pick and choose how they wanted to demonstrate their understanding, but still allowed the teacher the ability to keep it structured. Offering a free spaces may also give students the ability to be even more creative. ||
 * Knowles Christina || Chapter five talks about assessment and how teachers should approach it. The first section stated that we should approach it as a photo album instead of a single photo so we can get the whole idea. The section also talks about standardized testing and how they cannot possibly reach every student. The section also says that standardized testing is a very risky thing. In this chapter we were also introduced to the GRASPS frame. This frame makes us think about making our lessons relate more to the real world. Later in the chapter we are told we should assess all the time and constantly give feedback. || I thought that it was very interesting that this chapter started off comparing assessment to a photo album. It did confuse me at first, but once I read it a second time, I completely understood it. I like that this chapter added the advice to give feedback constantly because I love both good and bad feedback when I work. This way I know what things I am doing right, and what things I need to improve. ||
 * Mourkas Margaret || This chapter is mainly about how students can be assessed differently on the same material. It also is talking about how one test for all is not going to show someone how well all students learned the material. The snapshot vs. photo album example was used in this chapter. It being that you cannot pass judgment on a student just from one test or project, you need to create a photo album of experiences with the student in order to be able to truly judge their abilities and knowledge. Explain, interpret, apply, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge are the six main goals of teaching. These are the six things that every student in your classroom should be able to do with each new piece of knowledge you teach. This chapter also suggests testing before you teach. Find out what the general starting level of knowledge is for the class and work from there. Adjust your class calendar to match. Providing feedback throughout the unit instead of just at the end is a great way to make sure students are learning. || I thought this chapter was interesting because it was pretty much saying please do not teach to the test. I loved the line on page 66 that states, “When we speak of explanation, we seek more than a memorized recitation”. This really spoke to me because I was always that kid who wanted to know exactly why we were pushing that button on the calculator or why we had to put that word there in the sentence. I always had to understand why, and sometimes my grades suffered for it. Pre-testing I think is a great idea. Understanding where your students are starting helps you prepare for your unit. Having one assessment for the entire unit does not show how well the student retained the information. The teacher should use small quizzes along the way to help students realize if they know their material or not. ||
 * O'Neil Christopher ||  ||
 * Richardson Cassandra || This chapter was all about the importance of effective assessment in the classroom. The first principle was the ‘photo album vs. snapshot’ view to assessment. Essentially, this principle encourages multiple and varied means of assessment rather than a cumulative test, because, as Dr. Michael Kean said, “Multiple measures are essential because no one test can do it all. Therefore, no test, no matter how good it is, should be the sole criterion for any decision” (page 60). The second principle was to establish appropriate assessment measures that match up with the goal in mind. The GRASPS frame, which follows a Goal, Role for the student, Audience, accumulating Products from the classroom, and performance Standards, encompasses the ideal effective assessment, because there is no room for diversion. || These ideals are incredibly intense, mainly because effective assessment is something that most teachers struggle with. The idea that the GRASPs frame can focus teachers is incredible. Another idea, one that suggests that feedback, positive feedback, should begin early and often throughout the assessment period is also an excellent idea. This is also an area teachers struggle with, because it can be frustrating when a student doesn’t quite comprehend, so early feedback, constructive criticism, can be an excellent guiding point. ||
 * Trundy Monique ||  ||

While I was reading this quote really stood out to me, there’s something about the idea that someone outside of my classroom could possibly dictate to me how I should assess my students that irks me. Tomlinson and McTighe explain that some teachers avoid different assessment types and stick to what is easiest to administer and grade because they may end up having to defend their grading to students, parents and administrators. Honestly, I feel that if I decide, as a teacher, to assess an assignment in a particular way I have clearly put thought into why I’m assessing that way and the grade that I end up giving every individual student. It is important, as Tomlinson and McTighe wrote, to obtain a “photo album” of students’ growth and that requires using multiple pieces of evidence, and sticking to what’s easiest is going to get us nowhere. This chapter begins with the statement that anyone who is truly interested in teaching must also be interested in assessment. The chapter says that assessment is useful in helping educators answer three very important questions. These questions are, “did the student learn?”, “how deeply do they understand the material?”, and “what ways can I change my teaching style to be more effective?”. This chapter helps to more clearly understand that Backward Design is an important way of thinking in the education profession. One of the greater points shown by this chapter is that assessment needs to be frequent if it is to be considered valid. The analogy purposed is a photo album. The chapter states that one picture is not nearly enough to describe a person as a whole, but an entire photo album is much more accurate. Just as one test will not reveal all the achievements and capabilities of a student the way several exams, tests, quizzes, and papers will. The chapter quotes “No tests, no matter how good it is, should be the sole criterion for any decision” (Dr. Michael Kean, 1994). The chapter also warns educators about politically driven assessments and how they are often “quick and dirty”, as it states, and may not be a very relevant for of assessing students. One of the lessons trying to be portrayed by the chapter is to not narrow or too drastically change curriculum in order to satisfy these types of assessment. The next major part of this chapter is response to assessment. The chapter states that feedback should be timely, appropriate, and beneficial to students. One of the main points that the chapter stated about feedback is that if it is not done quickly it will not be effective for learning because students will not be able to put the information to use in time to improve. Also the chapter says that if feedback is not specific enough for students to understand it is entirely useless because they will not be able to put it to practice. Like any situation vague information does not help. This chapter really makes me take a second look at how assessment works. As a student assessment has always seemed annoying and a good way to make my grade drop. Now that I view myself as a teacher in training I see that assessment is a way, when done correctly, to provide students with vital information on how to improve themselves, as well as show educators what techniques they may want to impose to help struggling students succeed. I feel confident in saying that this chapter has provided me with the information necessary to say that I understand why my teachers so frequently had quizzes and papers for me to write. Through this I now see what I used to view as “busy work” to be something of actual importance that my teachers were using to evaluate my progress as a student. This chapter’s outlook on feedback is a bit different than what I was used to receiving in school. Much of my teacher’s feedback was helpful and descriptive, but it was not always delivered in a timely manner. It is not until I made it here to UMF that I receive feedback as often and as powerful as this chapter describes. All together though I feel that this chapter has shown me some very important views on assessment and feedback that are necessary in any learning environment whether it be in a classroom or not.
 * Webb Christopher || This chapter starts by talking about the principles of assessment and how important they are in determining what is important to teach. It uses the analogy of assessing students like a photo album rather than a snapshot of their work. We as teachers need to use multiple sources in our assessment strategies so we have an array of styles and sources to see how they have progressed. It explains how not every child learns the same way so we can't test them all the same way either. The quote from page 63 really stuck in my head even after finished reading, "Like the Judicial system we need a preponderance of evidence to convict students of learning." Explaining how to use different methods to test for knowledge of the same material was shown in this chapter as well. It talked about how one student could write a report whereas another one could do a better job explaining via a diagram or drawing. || I like how this chapter tied in very well with the chapters in the FIAE book. I never realized how important the assessment aspect of teaching was. I was one of the students who had teachers that typically used short quizzes and writing assignments to test our knowledge and while it did work well for me I realized that not everyone in the class was comfortable with that. Looking back I can identify which students in my classes had difficulty and I can see why they behaved the way they did, because the teacher wasn't assessing them correctly, they needed to use different methods to show that they grasped the material. I liked how it told us we can use different styles of assessment for the same knowledge. I had not thought of that before, it does make sense though, if a student isn't able to clearly express themselves through one medium they should have the opportunity to explain themselves using one in which they can clearly demonstrate that they understand the material. ||
 * West Simon ||  ||