FIAE+Chapter+6+Block+2

 [|Synthesis FIAE C6 B2] ||
 * **Names** || **Abstract** || **Reflection** ||
 * Barnes Mckell || Chapter six in Fair Isn’t Always Equal provides a really good concept that all teachers need to incorporate into their classrooms. This concept is developing good questions that are both traditional and non traditional. It is also important to incorporate true or false questions into tests or assignments because they are less intimidating than other questions which allow students to relax and sometimes help them become more successful. This also minimizes confusion for students which is another reason why they are more successful. Overall, the chapter really emphasized to teaching to all types of learning by creating different questions which focus on different types of learning. || I really liked the idea of creating different types of questions that targets different learning styles. I think it is a great way for students to become more successful. I also really like the idea of providing true or false questions instead of questions that are intended to trick students which sets them up for failure. The only thing I am worried about is how to develop different types of questions, I am not much of a creative person hopefully consulting with other teachers will give me creative ideas to use in my classroom. ||
 * Brennick Christopher || The sixth chapter of the FIAE book is about how to create good test questions. The fist part of this chapter advises us to mix up the type of test questions we use between traditional and non-traditional and forced and not forced choice. Also the book cautions us to use innovative question, which will engage our students and let them think creatively. Make testing more efficient is important according to the book so that they can do not have to worry about process and they are just worrying about contents. Double recording of test is another good tip the book gives. Doing this is having students put answer down twice and they keep a copy and give you one because the book says it allow for instant feedback instead of waiting days. The book suggests making yourself clear by not using negatives and being specific about what you are look for. This is recommend because then we see clear content knowledge instead just guessing or stumbling over process. Making question authentic to way we teach is only fair because if a teacher is allowing a student to use a calculator and then doesn’t on the assessment it unfair to students. The book also says to pair test down over time so we focus in on key content and this will give us clear instructional guidance. || The test questions chapter gives some good hints on what to use for questions but it also does state some things that I personally disagree with. I do agree on making test easier for students to line up and to give them things to circle because I know that my sloppy hand writing has made it hard for teachers to read answer and this has lost me points. I do not agree about the use of negatives like this is not because I think it gives students a chance follow instruction and this is an important life skill. The finally think I would to disagree on is the advice to double write a test because that will lead to student giving out the answer to my test and I do not want that out in the open because it will lead to students just memorizing answers instead of knowing content.
 * Columbia Laura || Chapter six of //Fair Isn't Always Equal,// Rick Wormeli is overflowing with valuable and thought provoking information. It's entitled, "Creating Good Test Questions" and it helps you do exactly that. In the introduction it clearly states that the purpose of tests is not to play games with the students success by tricking them. It is important to use a variety of questions. It is also important to make it efficient for students by providing a T or F to circle in true or false questions, and have matching items on the same page. These simple things make the test less frustrating and clearer for the student. Another suggestion made was double recording of test responses. The student gets one copy, while the teacher gets another. After the tests have been collected, the students can have immediate feedback. There were many other good points made, such as doing smaller tests over a period of time instead of one large one as well as keeping them short. There was so much information in this chapter, but it was all very helpful. || As I said earlier this chapter was full of information. The more I learn about teaching, the more I look back at my teachers and notice what they did right and what they did wrong. Many of my teachers liked to make confusing or tricky questions that would frustrate me. Yet, at the same time I know a few of my teachers that really tried to encourage us to learn through tests and would be open to discussing the question. I really respected him because after a class discussion if we could prove the other side or give example to how it was confusing he would "throw" the question out. I feel like I am gaining more and more resources on how to be an effective and good teacher. Some of these test making techniques I have never thought of before but make sense now. I really want all of my assessment questions to be clear, and have a strong purpose-demonstrating that the student has learned something. ||
 * Coombs Kayla || Chapter six, “Creating Good Test Questions,” illustrates the importance of using a variety of questions and prompts, like mixing traditional and non-traditional questions and prompts, in a differentiated classroom. It is key to mix items on the test that limit the amount of response options provided by the student, and those that are constructed and allow students to generate the information themselves. This allows us to get a better sense of the students’ mastery. Some of the important things to consider when writing test questions and constructing tests are as follows: avoiding confusing negatives, making prompts clear and easy to understand, keeping them short, being careful of timed tests, making certain that the questions assess what one wants them to assess, and putting some fun into the questions. || This chapter is a good read for current and prospective teachers as it gives a lot of options and valuable information for devising good test questions. I have taken many tests that I do not feel demonstrate the mastery that I have achieved, and I feel that teachers should really make certain that they are making good test questions. I will try to use a variety of the suggestions from this chapter, and make sure that my tests are demonstrating the mastery of my students to the best of my ability. ||
 * Cummons Michael || Chapter six of FIAE is about creating good test questions. This chapter says that using a variety of questions and prompts is a good way to go. It is good to mix traditional and with not traditional questions. Traditional is: matching, true/false, fill in the blank, multiple choice, definition, essay, and short answer. Non traditional are: analogies, critiquing others, demonstrating, integrating, exclusion, revealing a secret message conclusion. It is good to make questions efficient for students. For example, provide a T and F for students on true and false, as this saves them time on the test. Avoid confusing negatives, make prompts clear and concise. It is good to keep the test as short as possible. A teacher should also be careful about times tests. Giving a time limit sometimes makes it harder for kids, as they cannot always show what they know in such a short amount of time. It’s also okay to add a little fun into the test, which can sometimes help relax students or spark interest. Formatting tests for efficient grading can help out the teachers save time. It is important to give feedback about the tests to students in a timely manner. || This chapter is very useful. It does a great job at showing how to make effective tests. There is so much to consider that I had never even thought of before. Making the test efficient for students was an interesting one. It makes sense because it keeps students thinking about the task at hand, and not how to work around the test. Formatting tests for efficient grading is very helpful too. This makes it so a teacher can get the tests back in a timely manner. Writing a test with traditional and non-traditional ways seems like a good way to go about tests, because it gives the student many different chances to do well on the test. ||
 * Damboise Kelley || Chapter six displays numerous ways to create test questions that are not used to stump students, but instead are used to help determine if a student is truly mastering a subject area. The author points out that it is important to use a wide selection of questions and prompts when testing students’ mastery levels. It is important to mix traditional and non-traditional question together, as well as mix “forced choices” with “constructed response”. Tests, for some students, are stressful enough so it is our job as teachers to create test that are efficient. For instance, matching questions should remain on the same page as the answer key; this causes less confusion and decrease the changes of an incidental mistake. A neat tip for teacher that like to use multiple choice questions, or true/false, or fill in the blanks test; have the students fold their paper in half and number both sides the same. One half of the paper is ripped off and given to the teacher, the other half is used for the students answers. When the student is done his or her test the teacher collects his or her answer sheet and then gives them back the other half of his or her answer sheet with the answers on them. Students receive instant feedback as to how well they did on the test. Try to stay away from timed test because many students become stressed out when they know they must perform with in a given amount of time. Lastly, put some fun into the test questions, add a student’s name to one of the problems, incorporate student’s favorite activities into questions that will allow it, and occasionally if the question allows itself to do so create a pun out of the question. || I have never been a fan of test; I guess I’m just one of those students who are awful at exams. However, I feel that if some of my test were presented in the way this chapter describes them I would have probably done much better. I’m glad the author keeps pointing out how important it is for exams to test students on whether they have mastered the information; not on how can we trick them into making a mistake and proving they truly don’t know the content. I had a teacher, when I was in high school, explain to us students that his test were created so that we would have to choose the best answer because on most of the questions there were two or more answers that were correct. However, he was expecting us student to choice the answer that best fit the question. Maybe that’s why I’m not a big fan of tests. ||
 * Kelley Kathleen || Chapter six of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// discussed how to formulate good exam questions. Some of the general guidelines are to mix some forced choice questions like multiple choice and matching, in with some constructed response questions like prompts, drawings, and short answer. The text suggests that using a format like this allows the teacher to gain a better understanding of how much of the material the students are actually grasping. It is also important for teachers to make assessments easy for the student to understand and navigate. If students are confused by the layout and what is on the exam, it may affect the test results. Some suggestions were to keep matching on the same sheet of paper and under ten questions to eliminate confusion. It is also important to highlight keywords so students know the expectations. Not only will all of this be helpful to the students, but it will also make the grading more efficient. The book also suggests giving a few smaller tests over the unit instead of one large one at the end. That way you can monitor their progress and prevent the negative exam scores that come from stress at the end of the semester. Other points that were brought up to help us as future teachers create effective exam questions are making prompts clear, put some fun into exam questions, and to make sure the questions that are being asked assess everything you want them to assess.

All in all, this chapter was extremely interesting and very helpful. I would also have to say that it is probably one of my favorites so far because it answered a lot of questions that I thinking about recently. Many of the points that were made were all things that I will make a point to bring into my classroom. I always hated those exams that had multiple choice selections like a and b, a and c, a, b, and c, a, none of the above. They are confusing and more ridiculous than they need to be. I enjoyed the suggestion of including some special questions for the students. It was a good idea because you might get some insight into your students mind after they take the exam. I also never thought about how the grammar that is used in the exam questions could give away the answers. I realize that is something that I really need to be more aware of because that is something that I would be apt to do. || I feel like I’ve taken away from this chapter a greater sense of how to construct questions, and making sure that I am clear about what I am truly asking. The opening example on the front page of the chapter definitely brings back memories of poorly written multiple choice questions that left me wondering what my teacher was thinking, and believing that the correct answer might have to do with what mood they are in that day. I also liked the section on making sure to even out the T/F questions so students aren’t left thinking “Wow, there are just too many T’s right here”. Lastly the strategic format for including easy and hard questions into the test was helpful because it gave me a better understanding of test patterns. Most of my teachers did well with opening easy and spreading out the tougher parts, but there were a few who made the first twenty-five real easy and the last five or ten wanted to melt your brain all in a row. Obviously it seems disrespectful to open a test with a tough, or stumping question, and none should be worded in a tricky manner so that a student who is trying to display their math skills is forced to also display language skills to simply understand the question. This chapter focuses on the importance of test questions and how they need to be made clear for the students if they are going to actually help us in accessing the student’s knowledge. The chapter opens up with a very confusing multiple choice question that shows that poorly written test questions often leave students in a guessing game when they would have normally been able to demonstrate their mastery of the subject, if it had been written in a clear manner. The chapter also says this goes for T/F questions, the T/F questions need to be either all true or all false, nothing about the question should make a student ponder about it being partially true. The chapter also states that tests need to be efficient for students. When working with a matching section, have definitions on the left and the answer on the right so that a child will read one definition and then look through six words, as apposed to looking at one word and having to read through six definitions. When it comes to matching questions the chapter also says that these definitions and answers need to be on the same page so that a student is not constantly flipping pages, and that the matching section should not be more than eight questions so that the students do not feel that it is dragging on too long. The chapter states the importance of making very clear test prompts so that students know for sure what we are planning to assess. The chapter tells us that over time we should be using smaller tests, rather than one large one at the end of a unit. We read of the dangers that having one tests leaves the possibility of many factors causing a student to be having a tough time on this particular day, and that if the material had been spread out there would be a more accurate demonstration of mastery. Also the idea of a huge and highly weighted tests can scare many students and give them anxiety that is not productive to scoring well. Finally the chapter touches upon tiered questions and how we should open easily building up student confidence and easing nerves, but that the tougher questions should be spread evenly through the test so that they are not clumped together at the end, after a student has already begun to exhaust themselves from earlier questions.
 * Knowles Christina || Chapter six gives us also of advice on how to make assessment testing more interesting than the tests teachers usually give out today. We are told that we should not only include typical test questions, but also questions that relate to real life. The chapter also explains that we should make tests more efficient by giving them letters and numbers to circle instead of write so there is less confusion about a student’s handwriting. We should also keep some questions on the same page, like matching, so there is less confusion. We should also make questions very clear so our students are not confused. Also, make sure that the tests are not too long, and ask a couple questions whether or not they liked the test. || I still do not like the idea of having tests because they are not fun and they stress students out. I really like the idea of assessing students through projects, not tests. However, I do understand that sometimes teachers do need to create tests. I agreed that if a class needs a test for an assessment, then the teacher should make it more fun, engaging and relate it to real life situations. ||
 * Mourkas Margaret || Chapter 6 teaches the reader how to make good test questions on a written test. It explains that all tests should have the following qualities: use a variety of questions/prompts, make it efficient for students, double recording of test responses, avoid confusing negatives, make prompts clear, keep it short, be careful with timed tests, include common errors as candidates for responses, put some fun into the questions, make sure questions assess what you want to assess, make questions authentic to the instruction, format tests for efficient grading, use smaller tests over time, include two special questions, and tier questions as warranted. It seems like a lot of stuff to cover in a test but a lot of the “criteria” has a lot of common sense qualities. The chapter suggests that instead of having one giant assessment at the end of the unit the teacher should give out smaller assessments within the time span of the unit. || I believe that giving all the students one general test at the end of a unit is a horrible to test all the student’s knowledge. This chapter tells you how to create a good test however big or small you make it. The idea of just using small tests throughout the idea is a good one. Then that way the students do not get as worked up as they might for a giant test at the end of the summer and this way the grade at the end of the nit is based on several things not just one. ||
 * O'Neil Christopher || Chapter six discussed the different types of test questions and how to make a good test question. Good tests have a variety of questions. Teachers need to be able to mix traditional and non-traditional quests throughout their tests. Teachers also need to make the test efficient for students. Do not set up the test in such a way that students will be prone to make mistakes. Some of the ways to do this is by keeping the items in the matching section on one page, provide the letters T and F for true or false questions, and keep the blanks in the fill in the blanks section near the end of the sentence. Teachers also need to make their prompts clear and avoid confusing negatives. Also, make the tests fun for the students. Add their names and cultures into the test questions. Students enjoy reading about themselves during the test. || I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter. It provided an immense amount of information about creating good tests. I can use a lot of this information, and probably will use it, when I create my own tests. This chapter provides little hints on what helps the students perform better on the tests and also prevents them from making simple mistakes. Everything in this chapter is extremely useful and provides a clear understanding of what makes a good test. I think that all teachers should take the time to read this chapter because it will greatly improve the tests that they create. After reading this chapter, I looked back and thought about the teachers that could really use this information. I took a lot of tests that were poorly made and probably hurt my grade because of it. ||
 * Richardson Cassandra || Chapter six covered the best ways to ask questions on tests, and what to avoid when doing so. First, a variety of question types were preferred over similarly worded questions. Questions that don’t require much thought but rather psychological analysis of the teacher aren’t effective ways to evaluate. The chapter outlined successful methods of executing true and false questions, and also a double-recording method, which allows the student to retain a copy of their answers during the grading period. Incorporating similar answers (the examples the chapter gave were ‘revolution’ versus ‘rotation,’ and ‘weight’ versus ‘mass’) also encourage precise thinking in the students. Keeping questions short and avoiding timed examinations were also suggestions to effective testing. || I related to this chapter a lot, because I saw several different methods some of my high school teachers (most often my favourites) used to test us on material. I personally was always thrown by the similar-wording method, because I reasoned exactly the way the chapter suggested students would; that some terms were so similar that either could be accepted as answers. I had never seen the double-recording, though. I thought that was a very interesting way to correct answers, because I know from personal experience that test-anxiety is a growing issue- this kind of exercise would greatly eliminate some of that stress. I also liked the ‘put fun into questions’ suggestion. Some teachers see tests as more of a serious, stressful thing, but I had teachers who would have prompts or scenarios that were so utterly absurd that it was necessary to take a breather and laugh. This, too, I think would take some of the stress off of examination time. ||
 * Trundy Monique || Chapter six of FIAE covers creating good test questions. Wormeli suggests a variety of different approaches to the standard test question. First, he suggests mixing traditional and non-traditional test questions. It is also important to keep traditional test simple and efficient for students. Tests can be made more efficient by keeping matching sections of tests on the same page, providing a T or F for true/false questions and providing an answer sheet on a separate page. It is best to avoid multiple choice answers like “all of the above except C and E,” or “none of these,” (pg. 78). These kinds of answers tend to confuse and stress students, putting them in situations where they cannot perform to the best of their abilities. Making prompts clear is another way to ensure that students ill be able to perform at the best of their abilities, “the less students have to guess the more they can achieve,” (pg. 78). Keeping tests short and adding fun questions are also ways to keep tests bearable and appropriate for students. It is extremely important to make sure that if you teach one way in class, you ask questions on the test the same way. Instead of having one large exam at the end of the semester, consider giving smaller tests over time. || I really liked this chapter. Testing is an unavoidable part of our job as teachers, and students have been trained from year after year of terribly stressful experiences to despise testing. Keeping tests effective and efficient is extremely important, and this chapter touched on a multitude of question types that allows just that. I enjoyed the variety of question types provided, and the examples of what NOT to do as well. ||
 * Webb Christopher || Chapter six in FIAE is all about crafting good test and making sure your tests are clear and test what you want them to. It suggests using a mixture of traditional prompts such as true/false, multiple choice, matching, with some non-traditional ones like; exclusion brainstorming, analogies, and diagrams. Incorporating forced choice items with constructed response items is also recommended. Making the test more efficient for students is necessary as well. Providing the “T” and “F” for true/false questions will detract from any misunderstandings between the two. Having student’s double record the answers for the test so they have a copy as well and you can read off the answers after class and give them direct feedback was an idea. The book suggests staying away from trying to make questions unnecessarily hard, the straightforward questions are usually the best. One major point was to avoid making one major test, give a lot of tests over time so students don’t feel pressured to perform well once. || I thought this chapter had a lot of great ideas and I will certainly take most of them into consideration when I create any tests. The only one I was not so sure about was the double recording of the answers in class. I just thought when I read that that there was way too many ways this idea could backfire and I’m not so sure it’s that great of an idea. I never would have thought about making a pattern for true/false responses either but it does make sense because I can remember back in high school always guessing what would be next and would sometimes base it on what my previous answers were. ||
 * West Simon ||  ||
 * West Simon ||  ||