FIAE Chapter 14

This chapter was not any better than chapter 13. I feel that these report cards would simply confuse students and parents when they received them. If I were using a differentiated curriculum with a student, I would sit down before hand and discuss with the student and the parents what the report card grade would be reflecting. I feel this would eliminate the need for special report cards because the student and parents would understand what the grade meant.

FIAE Chapter 13

The ways that this chapter says to manage your grade book seem a little ridiculous to me. The only one that made any sense to me was the one that listed assignments by the date with color-coding. I feel like this would be the most effective way for me to keep my book. The other ways don’t make any sense at all. They all feel like they would take more work than their value at the end. Reading about it, let alone keeping my grade book that way, confused me.

Chapter 12

I cannot imagine making a rubric for every single assignment that I give my students. No matter how many times I make a rubric, it is going to be time consuming and pointless for some tasks. I don’t even see how I can use a rubric to grade a math test. On a math test, a student can get an answer wrong or right, but there is nothing in between. I feel that a 100-point scale is better for math because I can give partial credit for steps that they get right. I do not think that a rubric can obtain this same effect.

FIAE Chapter 11

The whole dilemma with putting a zero in the grade book for not turning in an assignment is difficult to decide on. I see why a zero should not be put in; it drastically drops a student’s grade. However, I do not completely agree with giving a student who doesn’t do any part of the assignment a 60. What if a student completes the project, but doesn’t do well, like they earn a 60? I don’t think it is fair that a student who does nothing on the project gets the same grade. It’s not fair to the student who actually did the work. However, I do not want to put a zero in the book because mathematically it is awful. I just don’t know what the best way to do this is.

FIAE Chapter 10

I am slightly confused about how to grade work that students redo. Wormeli says that averaging two test scores or giving back half credit for every question is not right. Students should be able to receive full credit for everything that they redo. I feel two totally different emotions with this; the teacher emotion and the student emotion. As a student who studied and received an A the first time I took a test, I feel as though students who get to redo a test and receive full credit is a little wrong. I don’t get anything for getting an A the first time, but those who didn’t get to catch up. However, as a teacher I want all my students to learn and do the best that they can do. How can I make sure my students get to learn the information for mastery, but still not slight those students who do well the first time?

FIAE Chapter 9

After reading this chapter, I realize I am not ready to grade in a differentiated classroom. Out of the ten approaches to avoid, I was either thinking about using them or I had never even thought about them. There were a couple in particular that stood out to me. The first was avoiding bonus points and extra credit. I agree with the last half of this sentence, however, I have always thought bonus points on tests and/or quizzes were like presents. I was never planning on using pointless or irrelevant bonus questions, but the idea of giving a couple of deeper thinking problems that they can attempt to solve for some extra points was an idea I had. I do agree that extra credit is not needed. I feel this instills the idea into students that they can slack off on an assignment and then get extra credit to make up the difference. The other approach that stood out to me was “avoid recording zeros for work not done.” Again I can see both sides to this. Sometimes there is a very reasonable and acceptable reason to not get an assignment done, but what should be done if a student just refuses to do that work? I feel as though something has to be done so that the students who do complete the work don’t feel as though they did it for no reason.

FIAE Chapter 8

I have always thought that attendance and classroom participation were a part of every class and every student’s grade. After reading this chapter I am torn. I believe that students should have to come to class and participate in the activities that are being done in that class period. However, I see that they are not the best aspects to grade students on, but how do you get kids to take them seriously if there is no grade for them? I understand that participation and attendance do not show a student’s mastery of a topic or information, but by what I have been reading, not many things show this mastery. I think I still want to include attendance and participation as some sort of point value in my future classroom, but I just won’t count it as a huge part.

FIAE Chapter 7

All of these chapters about grading irritate me slightly. I mean if giving an A, B, C, etc. is so bad why are we using that system? The part that irritates me the most is that no “good” grading system is mentioned. They all say that grading is subjective and that is not right. I can see where they are coming from that grading shouldn’t focus on the other aspects, like participation or how well a student writes, but I feel grades are necessary. I know almost every student in my high school based how well he or she knew the material on what grade he or she received. Students, parents, and teachers alike have been using grades to express knowledge. If that’s not the best way to covey this information, what is?

FIAE Chapter 6

This chapter was about how to make good test questions. However, some of the ideas mentioned seem to only make the test easier, like the order in which a teacher puts matching questions. I don’t see why it matters to put the sentences on the left and the words on the right. All it seems to me is that the student doesn’t have to think as hard. One of the ideas I loved in the chapter dealt with short quiz questions. The students write the answer done twice, once to pass in to the teacher and the other to keep for themselves so they can instantly know if they are correct of not. This seems like a perfect idea for math quizzes so they can know exactly which questions they got wrong so they can try to figure out what they did wrong.

FIAE Chapter 5

When I read the title of this chapter I was immediately turned off by the topic. My school tried something like a tiered assessment and it did not turn out correctly. I was always just given extra work as the more “advanced” student. However, this chapter changed my mind. I saw that if done correctly, tiered assessments could be helpful to every student. If a teacher uses the Bloom’s Taxonomy levels he or she can challenge a student without making the different work seem like extra assignments. The only suggestion that I thought was totally absurd was the student contracts. This seems like a way for teachers to just send a student off on his or her own and not necessarily teach them. I assume that it just depends on the teacher, but I do not think it would be beneficial to allow any student to use this technique.

FIAE Chapter 4

This chapter was a general overview of the three most important types of assessments: portfolios, rubrics, and student self-assessment. Portfolios are just a collection of a student’s work and a relatively reliable way to assess a student’s mastery of a subject. This is a great idea because students can look back on it and review what they did wrong so they don’t repeat that same mistake. The rubric section seemed obvious because going to school I have seen plenty of rubrics to know how they are used and what they are primarily used for. The only interesting part was that teachers should not use a five level rubrics because they give parents and students the idea of A, B, C, D, and F even thought that is not the point. The student self-assessment part was also a little obvious. I know that students are the best way to find out if they understand something or not and the best way to get this information is by having them assess themselves.

FIAE Chapter 3

In order to determine if a student has mastered a certain topic, a teacher must assess the students. However, one test at the end of a unit is not the best way to evaluate a student’s knowledge about a lesson. With only one test, a teacher cannot see what area of the content needs to be worked on more thoroughly or not. Pre-assessments, quizzes, tests, projects, and final exams are the best ways to get an idea for how your students are doing. I would have never thought pre-assessments were useful until I saw what a teacher could gain from them. However, pre-assessments would enable me to see what my students know before I even start teaching a unit. With this information I could clearly establish what I need to focus my lesson on, instead of teaching content that my students already know.

FIAE Chapter 2

According Rick Wormeli, mastery of a subject is when a student can use the six facets of McTighe and Wiggins. When a student can use explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge on a topic that he or she just learned then he or she has mastered the subject. This chapter explains that a teacher must decide what is the most important to master. To accomplish this, I would talk to colleagues and look at the text to see what they would emphasize in my lesson. Mastery of a concept is important in education. It shows us that as teachers we are achieving our goal because students understand the material so well that they are classified masters.

FIAE Chapter 1

Differentiated instruction has always been a heated topic for me. The experiences I have had with this type of education have been devastating. However, this chapter opened to my eyes about how differentiated instruction is supposed to be used effectively. “Differentiated practices are the ways we maximize students’ learning at every turn” (pg 5 Fair isn’t Always Equal). As a teacher this way of viewing differentiated instruction seems logical. If differentiation is used to “maximize” students’ potential then I am not skeptical for using it. Differentiated practices should be used to help those students who are struggling with one type of instruction so that they have an alternative for learning the information.