FIAE+Chapter+4+Block+1

[|Synthesis FIAE C4 B1]


 * **Names** || **Abstract** || **Reflection** ||
 * Archambault Michael || Portfolios are naturally a part of differentiated learning. They allow for a very good assessment of a student’s mastery of a given subject. Not every class that is differentiated will have a portfolio, but it is a common tool used to differentiate. Rubrics are also a common tool used in assessing a student’s subject knowledge. Creating one is less intuitive than one would think, as they tend to need refinement over and over again to make sure you are asking the right questions to get an accurate measure of understanding. Labeling the goals on the rubric can be challenging because students may not be motivated or confident enough to score the highest level of mastery. Having the students do self-evaluations of the rubric can be a successful way to differentiate in your classroom. It gives the students ownership in their mastery, and allows the teacher insight as to what the students think they have gotten out of the assignment. || The rubric examples were fun to look at. It was cool to see them compared to some of the grading rubrics I have gotten at UMF. I think that it would be important to meet with each student one on one when grading them against a rubric, so that they can get direct feedback, instead of the general comments in whatever score they got on a certain part said. It also allows the teacher to receive feedback from each student regarding the assignment and how it can be made better for the next round. I think using a portfolio to grade students will only be a success if the teachers maintain the portfolio themselves. As a high school student, I was much to unorganized to ever keep a folder of all my work for a chapter. If the teacher just collected each assignment and held onto it, I would have scored much higher in every class that expected me to have specific worksheets and quizzes all organized and not wrinkly. ||
 * Audy Melissa || Chapter 4 in Fair Isn’t Always Equal introduces three of the most efficient ways of assessing understanding: portfolios, rubrics, and self-assessments. It goes in depth on each type of assessment, providing examples of each, and how each one successfully aids in assessment. A portfolio is a collection of completed student work over a period of time. The main objective is to show the progress made by the student. The author states that portfolios are not necessarily used by all effective teachers, yet they are a great tool to consider for teachers of differentiated classrooms. It then goes over rubrics, explaining how to create rubrics, and how they work as assessment tools. Self-assessments are suggested as a way for students to look deeply into their own work and determine future goals. A self-assessment journal is a suggested idea that helps students really analyze areas in which they need improvement. || I think portfolios are a great way of demonstrating learning. I believe that progress is very important to recognize within a student. Honestly, I don’t really like rubrics. I prefer analytical grading sheets—a grading sheet specific to the assigned project which lists off everything that is required of the project and assigns a point value to each portion. It is quite similar to the rubric in the way that it assigns a point value to how completely one has met an objective, but rather, it describes only how to excel at meeting the objective and rates how well the student has done so. However, I suppose I can see how rubrics can be beneficial to some learners. Self-assessments seem useful. As a teacher, you can benefit from a student’s self-assessment by taking note of where they felt their performance was weak. Overall, I like the idea of self-assessment best of the three. ||
 * Boulter Elizabeth || This chapter discusses, at length, three important types of assessment, those being “Portfolios”, “rubrics”, and “self-assessments”. First off, portfolios serve as a great long-term assessment tool. As previously discussed, assessment is more accurate when done over a long period of time so as to reflect on the students’ changes and progress. The teacher as well as the student is able to see the bigger picture and have a valid understanding of the students’ level of mastery. Rubrics are a powerful assessment tool that allows teachers to specifically address areas of achievement as well as concern. It went on to cover how to make a rubric and what the scoring levels should include. Self-assessment was next and was said to be a useful tool at reflecting on one’s own work. It allows for the set up and achievement of personal goals and gives opportunity to study individual progress. Looking for growth and change is an essential part of student achievement and self-awareness and they gave some tips to start that reflection process. || This chapter brought this to life for me. I really started thinking like a teacher when I read this. I was taking all of their suggestions to heart and was trying to see if these would work for my students. I liked the last part about self-assessing because I don’t think it happens often enough and I also think it’s the most important of all assessment types! Knowing yourself and your work, your progress and change, your goal and achievements, all help you to become better learners and better people. Being self-aware creates less behavioral issues and when students are in touch with themselves, they are more apt to try and be in tune with others. ||
 * Brown Ryanne || This chapter addresses three very important types of assessment. First Portfolios are discussed. Alike to the photo album type of assessment discussed in Chapter 5 of our UbD text, this type of assessment is done over lengths of time. This form keeps the students on track, and the teachers able to visualize their moving progress. They can serve as a reflection of learning for the student and for the teacher, and they are flexible enough to use is nearly every subject. They are a great example of assessment used in differentiated classes. Another approach to assessment that fits in well with a differentiated classroom is rubrics. The chapter defines them as “focusing learning and for assessing and reporting student achievement.” Rubrics take qualities that you want the students to achieve and place them in a format that can be understood by the students. They basically serve as a guideline for the student work. Another strong source that the chapter discusses for differentiated classroom work is student self-assessment. This form helps the students find where they are in the classroom work and help them be honest with their own achievement and improvement. Tools such as journals and learning logs are helpful parts of self-assessment. || These three types of assessment all seem like accurate and effective ways to measure mastery and progress in the classroom. I think it’s important for the students to be as involved as possible in the assessment process so that they fully understand their own progress. When students become more interactive with their grades and assessment they very well could become harder on themselves and put more effort forth towards learning and achievement. By using portfolios the teacher can check the status of the work the students are doing, but it gives the students more options and less constraint. Rubrics give really clear instruction and grading that helps the students fit more of what the teachers are looking for in assignments. Rubrics can also be used by students for self-assessment and peer assessment, helping them look further into what is expected of them and their peers. ||
 * DePue Margaux || Chapter Four of Fair Isn’t Always Equal discusses the importance of three main types of assessments in the classroom. The first is the portfolio, which shows the collection of work over time and allows students and teachers to reflect on the student’s work as a whole. Next is the rubric, which should be highly specific and well tailored to the assignment that is being evaluated. Rubrics can be analytic (addressing specific skills within the larger topic) or holistic (evaluates assignment as a whole), depending on the assignment given. Next is the student self-assessment, which allows student to critique their own work, showing where they know they have grown and the skills that they still require work on. || This chapter was very helpful in the sense that it was well organized and gave great specifics on what assessments to use for certain assignments. The chapter stated step by step how to create a rubric for a class, which will be a great reference to look back on when I begin making my own rubrics. There were some wonderful examples of different rubrics that could be used when evaluating a student’s work and they gave me some great ideas of what to use when assessing my students. I plan to use self-assessments in my class, as I feel that this is the most effective way to help a student understand the progress they make and what they still need to work on. ||
 * Dunne Kaisha || This chapter goes over the three important types of assessment: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. Portfolio’s are a great way to demonstrate students work over time and get their progress. Portfolio’s are great organizers and are great demonstrators of kids organizational skills as well. The other bonus to portfolio’s is that they’re flexible! You can tie just about any assignment to a portfolio. The next is rubrics, which is a very popular form of assessment for focusing learning for assessment and reporting out student achievement. This chapter goes over the guiding questions to be able to get a good rubric. Self-assessment is something that I would use after a group project and maybe incorporate a rubric or a questionnaire for them to answer. || I enjoyed this chapter because it gave a good breakdown to rubrics, which after meeting with the past students on Tuesday I was a little worried about. I also haven’t been thinking about portfolio’s too much when writing my unit and I feel like maybe next time I could include one, but for now since they brought up student assessment I think I may use that. ||
 * Hudson Kimberly || This chapter was all about portfolios. With a portfolio, teachers are able to collect work throughout the year. This allows the teachers to evaluate the students’ development over a long period of time. Rubrics are also a good way to assess students. However, there are criteria that a rubric has to have for it to be viable. Teachers need to evaluate their rubrics in terms of content, clarity, practicality, and technical quality/fairness. The first step to designing a rubric is to identify the essential content and skills that the teacher wants the students to demonstrate. The second step is to identify what qualifies as acceptable evidence that students have mastered content and skills. Next, the teacher needs to write a description for the highest performance possible. After that, the teacher needs to make a decision if the rubric is going to be holistic or analytic. The fifth step is to determine the labels that the rubric is going to have. Next, the teacher needs to write descriptions for each level, and lastly, the rubric needs to be tested. || This I found interesting because I did not realize just how much work really needs to go into an effective rubric. Many of the teachers I had never used them, so I usually did not know what to expect on an assignment. Students really should know what is expected from them, that way they know how to do well. Most of the time, students guess what the teachers want from them and most of the time the students are wrong. If a student knows exactly how to do well, then what is stopping them from doing well the first time around? ||
 * Korn Shauna || Chapter Four discusses three important parts of assessment. The three are “Portfolios, rubrics, and self-assessments.” Each section goes into depth on each assessment and explains why it is important and its uses. For the portfolio the assessment is done with content and its quality and quantity. There needs to be information that pertains to what is being discussed or relates to the class and there needs to be work that shows this. For Rubrics things are a little different. They lay out what is expected of the students to do ahead of time and shows them that if they meet the requirements and put in the effort they can receive the grade that they want. Self-assessments are used more for individual products or in groups that need to express what each member has contributed. Self-assessments are good for the kids that need to know that they have contributed something and allows them to be fair to themselves. || I think that these three assessments are the big assessments out there and I personally like each one. My favorite it the rubric, while the portfolio allows almost all complete creativity with the process of putting it together and the self-assessment allows reflection; I think that the rubric has a little of both put together. A rubric lets you know what is expected of you ahead of time and allows the person who is doing the project to make the choice on how much work they want to do, how much effort they put in, and essentially what grade they get. I think of a rubric as guidelines, but still allows the creative side to show through. It explains what is needed to make it a completed project but lets the creator decide how they wish to present it or what the finished project will look like. ||
 * LaRose Rebecca || This chapter was about assessment. The chapter stressed the usefulness of portfolios. They are useful because it can show progression over a large amount of time, and help a student to mark their progress. It also can help the student with introspection if they are made to justify their reasoning for including something in the portfolio. The next part of the chapter went over how to properly create a rubric. It included important verbiage that should be used as headers as well as within the boxes of a rubric. These are good for students and teachers because both parties can see where they fall among a spectrum, and see what they need to do better next time. Finally, the chapter stressed the importance of self assessment. There are tons of methods to do this, but all help the student accurately grade themselves. || This chapter was very helpful. I felt as though it allowed me to see the complexity of rubric making. I feel that rubrics can be very good, or they can be unhelpful and bland. I feel that a rubric should include all expectations in order for the student to see exactly what to do. I would like to incorporate portfolios of writing pieces in my classroom so students can see how they develop over time in my class. I really like student self assessment because I want to know how my students think they are doing. If they are trying their hardest but getting C’s or D’s, then something is wrong. ||
 * Murphy Amber || This chapter touches three more types of assessment. These three types of assessment are more details and accurate descriptions of exact examples. The three types of assessment are portfolios, Rubrics, and Student self-assessment. It explains the positive impact which portfolios have on students which include, eliminating single sampling, providing something to compare to, and time to reflect on ones work. These are all helpful for both students and teachers to look back and see progress as the year goes on. Rubrics are a good approach to explain exactly what information is needed to know. Rubrics can be used to help grade and show students where they stand compared to their peers. When rubrics are laid out it shows the things which one can do to improve where they are. These help students to push themselves to get the better grade and also lay a clear understanding of the grading technique. The final form of assessment is self assessment. It is important to take into consideration what they student thinks they have gained from the class. Having a self assessment can really make the students think back to the information and what they have obtained from the course || I believe that all three types of assessments are positive qualities to the classroom. I am a firm believer in the portfolio because I think it has potential to see the progress one has made in a year. I think that it is very rewarding to the students to see what they have accomplished and I believe they it adds value to the work which they are doing. When students believe in the work they are more likely to put in more effort and the final product will be at its best. I also believe in self assessment because I believe it is important for teachers to listen to their students. Some students have a lot of information to share and aren’t very good at taking tests. These different forms of assessment help the student to show what knowledge he or she has obtained from the classroom. ||
 * Nieuwkerk Hannah || There are three types of assessments that are very important: portfolios, rubrics, and self-assessments. Each one is very important in its own way. Portfolios are neat because the teacher can collect the work of the students over time and look at how the student has learned and improved, and it is easier to look at because it gives the big picture over a period time, not just quizzes and tests that are hard to interpret. Rubrics are a good form of assessing for focused learning and reporting student achievement. To make a good rubric, a teacher has to figure out what the task requires, what is ‘proficient’ for the work, which steps are more important than others, making sure the criteria is clear to the students, etc. The teacher also has to decide whether to make the rubric more holistic or more analytic; analytical looks more at content and skills while holistic focuses more on the understanding of the big idea. The teacher has to keep grading in mind, too: holistic is more objective and the scores are more reliable, while analytical is kind of nit-picky. And the final type of assessment is student self-assessment, such as journals, learning logs, and interactive notebooks. It provides incredible feedback to the teacher and allows both the teacher and student to set individual goals. || I like the idea of keeping a notebook or folder of each student and put in a couple pieces that each student does well or stands out in, and it’s not too hard to analyze or too time consuming. I don’t remember having a teacher in high school that kept a notebook about me, or if they did, they never told me about it. I think many teachers are lazy and they don’t really try to keep assessments of their students. As a student, I really liked rubrics, because it spelled out exactly what the teacher wanted and how it was going to be graded. As for self-assessment, sometimes at the end of the year, we were asked to take a survey for the class, but it more for the teacher and the class next year. I wish that we had done more self-assessments. ||
 * Scheffler Erich || This chapter included three different ways teachers can assess students, and gave three types of assessment. These are: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. Portfolios collect a number of assignments, and can show teachers how students perform over the course of an entire lesson, instead of just at the end. Rubrics are useful because they assess students on more than one criteria, instead of just whether or not they know some answers. The chapter then had a section on how to properly design a rubric. The final type of assessment that the chapter gave is to have student assess their own performance in a class. Often times, students can have great intrapersonal knowledge, and are very aware of how far they have progressed, and how much they have learned. || There are several ways teachers can assess students. These are but a few of them. But these are probably the best ways to assess students. I personally like the idea of making a portfolio for each student during a particular unit, that includes all of the assignments in that unit, and using that to give students a grade. You could give a test at the end of the unit, but not make it worth as much as the other assignments. ||
 * Simoneau Andrea ||  ||   ||
 * Stevens Newcomb || There are three basic ways to assess a student: portfolios, rubrics and student self assessment. Portfolios help to show how as student has developed over time: this also helps students to become organized. Portfolios are perhaps the most flexible. Rubrics are another form of assessment: they utilize grading key components of an assignment. This form of assessment is a lot of work on the teacher’s part. The third form is student self assessment. This form allows a more intrapersonal perspective of a student’s learning. || I have looked at these three forms of assessment and I have been subject to them before. I personally have no favorites: they all have their downfalls and uses. If I had to pick one form of assessment, I would use a portfolio. I could be able to assess a student over time and the student could learn some organization. I would not have to do much work because the student would have compiled a compilation of their work. This allows me to simply observe the changes in the student. ||