FIAE+Chapter+13+Block+2

Synthesis FIAE C13 B2

In chapter 13 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal the author talks about how a teacher could set up their individual grade book for all their students in a differentiated classroom. It states that the teacher needs to be flexible when creating a grade book because there needs to be room for improvement. Setting up a grade book based on the benchmarks and or objectives is one that was really stressed as a positive. Grouping assignments together based on those two factors will help the teacher’s grade book flow more smoothly.
 * **Names** || **Abstract** || **Reflection** ||
 * Barnes Mckell || Chapter 13 in Fair Isn’t Always Equal talks about the different grade book methods teachers can use to keep track of grades. The chapter provides many examples of different ways to set up a grade book. The chapter poses the idea of not setting up grade books as a method to keep track of assessment but to set them up for assessing learning goals. A few different examples the chapter gives are: listing assignments by date in the grade book and topics-based grade book. These are both great examples for any teacher to use especially if a teacher is using differentiated instruction in the classroom. || I like all of the examples the book gives for the different ways to set up a grade book, however, I feel as though some of the examples seem to be way drawn out. For example, the topic based grade book. I think that example is way too confusing and could messed up easily. Although there are many examples that I probably wouldn’t incorporate into my grade book, I like the idea of setting up a grade book based on the learning goals and not just on what you have assessed. ||
 * Brennick Christopher || This chapter talks to readers about the different formats they can use to set up their grade books. The chapter starts out by setting out the questions you should ask your self while making your grade book out. There are many different versions given in this chapter of how to set your grade book up. The first idea given is to set it up by standard or objective so you can see which standards students are doing well on. The second idea is to set your grade book based on by weight so you easily see how student is assignments that weigh the most. The book says another useful idea is to list assignments by date to keep track of progress. The final idea is a topic based grade book so you can see how a student is dealing with a topic throughout class. || I had really never thought about how I would set my grade book up before this chapter, but I really am not. I really liked the idea of going by standard because then you can get more data for instruction on students out of your grade book. I really think the most important thing about my grade book is that it gives me clear feedback student’s ability to meet benchmarks and their progress, which is hard to balance. ||
 * Columbia Laura || Chapter thirteen of Fair Isn't Always Equal discusses different formats for grade books. It is clearly stated in the introduction that there is not perfect grade book that works for every teacher. First, the idea of grouping assignments by different things such as objective or benchmark. This helps you look at your grade book and identify an area that needs to have focus on. Next, deciding on how to weight assignments and listing assignments by dates. These are all things that help teachers stay focused and have an understanding of where they are. The main of goal of grades is that they are clear and accurately reflect where the student is. That is the most important thing. || After grading assignments and entering them into a grade book, I understand how confusing and hard it can be. That is why it is important to have a grade book that you understand and that meets your classroom's needs. Some of the ideas such as putting the assignments in by date seem like common sense, but is important to remember. I think the biggest and most important idea in this chapter is having your grades clear. A simple number does not say anything. But adding comments and showing what areas the student has mastered and what needs to work on, helps immensely. ||
 * Coombs Kayla || Chapter thirteen, entitled “Gradebook Formats for the Differentiated Classroom,” it says that there are many different gradebook formats that work well. It suggests that one examines several different types of formats and then choose the format that would suit his or her needs best, and that may change over time. Being flexible with gradebooks is helpful. One can group assignments by standard, objective, or benchmark, and depending on what his or her classroom is most dedicated to, reflects how their gradebook should be designed and organized. One also has to consider if they will group assignments by weight or category, and determine grades based on how much each assignment is weighted, or how influential categories are. If one wants to look at how a student has grown longitudinally, then it makes sense to list assignments by date. One could also organize their gradebook by topic, so each topic has subcategories within it that are considered in the overall outline. || I enjoyed reading chapter thirteen because gradebooks are not something that I am overly familiar with. I rarely saw my teachers’ gradebooks, and if I did it was to show me my final grade. Recently, however, my mentor teacher showed me her gradebook, and she had listed the assignments by when she assigned them. This format worked well for her with the gradebook she was provided and the space within the gradebook that was given. She had just enough space to write the students’ names on the left-hand column, and had the assignment titles on the upper part. Under each title she had either a grade or a blank space, and it was easiest for her to consult her book when students asked her what they owed. The date she assigned them did not necessarily matter, as she allowed them to turn in late work as long as it was before the unit ended, or progress report/report cards went out. I think that I would like to have mine listed by date, so that I can look at how the student has grown over the course of the unit, so be able to easily pinpoint if a student is slipping or progressively getting better. ||
 * Cummons Michael || Chapter 13 in FIAE is about the different formatting options with a grade book. 1.)grouping assignments by standard, 2.) grouping assigments 3.)objective 4.) benchmark. A teacher must decide how much each assignment is going to be weighted, or if categories are needed. Listing assignments by date helps a teacher and student see how the students has done over time. Some use topics in the gradebook. There are many different ways to set up a gradebook. A gradebook should continually be reevaluated. This chapter shows some good examples of grade books. || I really liked this chapter a lot. Grade booking makes such a difference. I saw this when looknig at my mentor teacher's Powerbook Pro. Each assignment has a purpose and each assignment must be graded differently. I'm not quite sure how I want to set up my grade book just yet. I think more reading and class time will help me decide. ||
 * Damboise Kelley || This chapter describes four different ways to format grading books when dealing with a differentiated classroom. The four different kinds are: grouping assignments by standard, objective, or benchmark; grouping assignments by weight or category, listing assignments by dates, and topic-based gradebooks. Grouping assignment by standards is when certain assignments are placed under different categories set up in the gradebook. The books example of the categories could be analysis, synthesis, and prediction. Grouping assignments by weight or category is when assignments are broken down into different categories such as: writing, tests, and homework and then given a numeric value to weigh which category is more important than the others. Listing assignments by dates is a liner timeline basically where the student’s assignments are placed into the gradebook based upon the date. This demonstrates the progress students have made since the beginning of class, and how far they have grown. Lastly, topic-based gradebooks provide a wide range of areas to be graded upon; basically one assignment can be graded based upon two or three different ways and recorded into the gradebook using this method. || I really like the weight or category gradebook because I understand the outline, and how grades should be grouped and assessed. However, when grading for differentiated classrooms I feel this is one of the weaker gradebook methods describe in the chapter. I think that topic-based gradebooks are the best way to arrange a gradebook when dealing with differentiated classroom because of how thorough it is at assessing each assignment. ||
 * Kelley Kathleen || Chapter thirteen in Fair isn’t Always Equal discusses a few different ways to format your gradebook for a classroom that has been differentiated. Wormeli begins by saying “our record keeping should reflect on learning and differentiation” (page 161). As we have moved through this class and learned about how to run our classroom, I also feel that it is important that our gradebook should reflect on the level of a students mastery and progress, not just on a letter grade. He suggests grouping your assignments together by objectives or benchmarks. This not only makes it easy for viewers to see the benchmark being addressed, but you are able to put multiple areas into perspective. Wormeli also suggests grouping assignments by weight or by category. For example, you could have the writings that the students complete weigh more than the exams they take. With this gradebook approach, you could switch different weights around if you know that a student cannot effectively convey his knowledge through writing, but does well through other assessment styles. Weights are not set in stone, and the book reverts back to a saying that has been discussed through this book: “One size doesn’t fit all” The two other suggestions for gradebook formats are listing your assignments by date which allows you to see how a student progresses day by day and week by week, and topic-based gradebooks. || Overall, I thought that this chapter was great because it offered a lot of great suggestions that I haven’t had any of my teachers use before. Through the past, I have seen teachers that arrange their gradebooks by listing the assignments by date. I know that many of these teachers did use it to monitor progress. However, I have never seen any arrange their books by objectives or benchmarks, or by weights. If I decide to become a teacher, I really think that I would be more tempted to arrange my gradebook by weights because then you can tailor things to your students if you know they have mastered a subject and are not able to show it due to learning disabilities or other issues. ||
 * Knowles Christina || This chapter talked about the different ways we can record grades. It was very interesting. The first option we were given was to group assignments by standards. This way a person can see how a student is doing based on the standards they are supposed to reach. We are given an example of this on page 163 where we can clearly see the standards and the assignments go along with the standards. The next option we were given was grouping assignments by weight and category. This one is when teachers group things like quizzes, tests and homework. They all have different weights and are organized in that way. Next, we are given the option to record grades by when they are due. Lastly, we are told about topic based grade books which organize the grades by their topics. || The form of keeping grade books I am most familiar with is keeping the books by the weight of each assignment. I was also wondering during this chapter if most teachers were even given the option anymore on how to keep their books. I ask this because the use of computer programs could take away the choice from teachers. Most programs I have seen either categorize the assignments by when they were due or what they are weighted. ||
 * Mourkas Margaret ||  ||

I really liked how this chapter introduced us to many different ideas about setting up a grade book. I always thought there was the classic way of just listing all you assignments by date and recording the grade. Now that I have seen all these rich ideas I am going to have to carefully strategize a way to set up my grade book based on my way of being organized and thorough.

This chapter talks about different grade book formats for differentiated classrooms. One type of grade book format was to group by Standard, Objective, and Benchmark. Another type was by grouping them by weight or category. By doing this it allows us to change the weights for certain students making this method pretty versatile. A third method is to simply record the progress of grades chronologically. By doing this we can view students progress over time and mark their progress this way. They suggested weighting the grades more towards the end because this shows how far they have come and where they have ended up. I liked this chapter and the man different grade book types they presented since I did not even realize there were more then one. They ended the chapter by stating that grades should be clear, undiluted indicators of what students have learned. It was good how the book stated that grading format should allow them to show mastery in whatever format best suits them. So if a student has writing problems he or she can use another medium to demonstrate that they skill have the knowledge. This chapter covers three important roles for MI theory that we as educators have not been introduced to yet. Computer technology, cultural diversity, and career counseling, are also ways that students can be touched by the multiple intelligence theory. We read that computers are not specific to the mathematical-logical intelligence, that actually depending on the software in use we find that computers can be useful in all of the eight intelligences. When it comes to cultural diversity we read that for an intelligence to be seen as true intelligence the skill must be valued by culture. We are given the example of an intelligence test asking a student to repeat random numbers as a task of intelligence, yet there has never been any type of value for this skill in any culture. Finally we run into career counseling and see that it is beneficial from a very young age that students are exposed to jobs that vary through the eight intelligences in order for them to get a taste of what they enjoy best. We are reminded that children should not be directed toward any certain career based on previous observations about the student’s more defined intelligences. This chapter helped me to discover multiple intelligence theory in a new way. The idea of cultural diversity was powerful for me, especially with the example of being asked to recite random numbers in order to show proof of intelligence. I felt that it was important to understand that all cultures use all eight intelligences in some shape or form, at to keep in mind that stereotypes about cultures can create racial innuendoes, so that though we should recognize the intelligences valued in different cultures, we should stray from making definite assumptions about them.
 * O'Neil Christopher || Chapter thirteen introduces different gradebook formats for the differentiated classroom. Readers are introduced to four different gradebook formats in this chapter. The first grading formation is grouping assignments by standard, objective, or benchmark. The second format is grouping assignments by weight or category. The third format is listing assignments by date. The final format is topics-based gradebooks. Each of the gradebook formats discussed have an explanation of each format and how they can be used in a differentiated classroom. || The information about each of the gradebook formats can be very valuable information. It introduces us to four different gradebook formats and shows us what they look like and how they are used. This chapter gives me a good idea of what I can expect to see for gradebooks. I also find this chapter important because it shows us gradebook formats that can be used in a differentiated classroom. Not all gradebook formats are suitable for differentiated classrooms, so by showing us four that are, will help us in deciding what type of gradebook format to use in our classrooms. ||
 * Richardson Cassandra || Chapter thirteen talks about formatting the teacher gradebook. There are four different basic formats that the book discusses; grouping by standard, which would allow the teacher to assess understanding and whether the students were reaching the standards. Grouping by weight and/or category would give insight to how students do on specific tasks. Grouping by date would be best for tracking student progress. Finally, grouping by topic allows teachers to see how students react to each topic that the class encounters. || To be perfectly honest, I had always envisioned myself keeping my gradebook with the last three categories in mind; not necessarily super-organized, but something that would make sense to me. I feel like grouping by standards could be awkward and disorganized. I do, however, think I will be keeping a notebook separate from my gradebook to track individual progress on my own, for my own benefit, so I can reflect on the individual growth of the student. ||
 * Trundy Monique || In chapter thirteen Wormeli covers different grade book formats. Wormeli offers a couple examples of grade book formats and suggests entering multiple grades under the same assignment. Entering multiple grades allows teachers to include standards, benchmarks and objectives reached by students. Wormeli also presents ways to maintain a grade book when using weighted grades and listing assignments by date or subject. || Honestly, I never would have put this much thought into my grade book, especially with everything being so digitalized. Now that it has been brought to my attention, however, I would really like to keep a place in my grade book where I could write down how a student did on a particular assignment, or anything else that I felt was necessary to comment on. Not to mention that those kinds of notes may make it easier to deal with upset parents. ||
 * Webb Christopher ||  ||
 * Webb Christopher ||  ||
 * West Simon ||  ||