FIAE+B1+Chapter+9



By Brittany Sawyer
 * Abstract:** This chapter of __Fair Isn't Always Equal__ provides ten practices to avoid with grading and assessment. These ten practices (in a nutshell) are to avoid grading nonacademic factors, avoid penalizing students' multiple attempts at mastery, avoid grading practice homework, avoid withholding assistance with learning when needed, avoid assessing students in way that do not accurately indicate their mastery, avoid allowing extra credit or bonus points, avoid group grades, avoid grading on a curve, avoid recording zeros for work not done, and avoid using norm-referenced term to describe criterion-referenced attributes. The chapter describes each of the ten practices in detail and why they should be avoided. For example, by avoiding the grading of practice homework you show students that the work they are doing is not met to be 100% correct, hence it being practice. Students are given the opportunity to get things wrong in practice, it helps the student and the teacher understand what needs to be focused on and what is already to a point close to mastery. Another example is to avoid giving extra credit or bonus points, but rather give the student the opportunity to continue their learning by redoing the assignment. This way they are not receiving points for things unrelated to the failed assignment. This chapter is full of advice and reasoning on what teachers should avoid and why. Each of the ten practices could be discussed in length, but the point is that these ten were chosen for a reason, they are the most common practices that hold students back.

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 * Synthesis:** For this chapter we all pretty much agreed with a majority of the ten practices to avoid. For us the major practice we would like to avoid is giving bonus point and extra credit, especially when it is completely unrelated to the topic. However, we did feel that every so often adding a bonus question to a test that challenges the student and is related to the topic, but that this should not be a regular occurrence. We also felt that it is important to grade and [|assess]students accurately in ways that indicate their mastery, an easier way to say this is simply to [|differentiate]! Through differentiation we are able to see students mastery in ways that make the most sense to them. We see their mastery in ways that they are most comfortable and proficient. Grade students based on their strengths, not weaknesses. We also firmly agree that students should have the opportunity to retake tests and make up assignments, we all felt we understand that sometimes, as students, we have bad days. As a class we were on the fence about giving zeros. For example, some of us felt that we should give the student time, but others of us felt that giving students time to complete the assignment is better than a zero. As a class though, we felt that even if we do put zeros into our grade books, we are more than willing to change that grade once students complete the work. Overall as a class we felt that these ten practices should be avoided, even if only to an extent.

Katie
In chapter 9 of FIAE the main point is that not all students work at the same pace or even learn at the same pace and therefore should be given redoes on tests in case they could not learn the material in time to take it. Of course teachers have to set deadlines for things such as papers and tests because of the amount of people in the class. Teachers do not have enough time to give individual students tests at different times based on their learning, so they must tell students when the test will be given and that they must be prepared for it. When I become a teacher, I will allow my students to retake any tests or quizzes that they feel they did a bad job on because I understand that not everyone has a good day come test day and that there are many other variables that could play a part in a student’s life for why they did a bad job. I want to give my students a chance to pass my class and I feel that having them do retakes is a good way to promote them to do better and to show me their best work. I also will not give out zeros right away for missing smaller assignments, but instead I will wait and give them until the end of the semester to finish what they need to do before giving them a definite grade on an assignment. I feel that this way, students can work at their own pace before the semester is over.

Jasmine
When grading a differentiated classroom, there are some things that should definitely be avoided. The first is completely incorporated with the previous chapter, which is to avoid grading things like participation and attendance. Also teachers should avoid grading homework. Successful teachers do not give homework without a mastery o the material. When students are sent to figure something out on their own, they often create what they think might solve the problem and it will be 100 times harder to learn the real way. In school, I can relate to this as far as math classes. I don’t think I have ever been graded on homework except whether or not I tried it. It just isn’t fair to grade it because homework is meant to be practice, and thus should not be graded. Something I found interesting was to avoid extra credit and bonus questions. The reason this is interesting is because it isn’t really fair that the students who demonstrated a mastery of the material receives the same grade as a student who didn’t but knew the teachers favorite football team or something like that. Even if the bonus is related to the topic being taught on the test, why is it a bonus? Why is it not counted as the real test? Shouldn’t they be expected to know it? The only situation where bonus should be allowed is if it is a more in depth question about what is related to the topic. As a teacher, I will make sure to grade fairly to the students and try to accommodate for students based on their individuality and learning abilities.

Tyler
Chapter nine provides ten practical teaching methods that teachers normally use and should avoid while differentiating assessment and grading. The first method is to avoid grading nonacademic factors like behavior and effort. Teachers should not penalize students for multiple attempts at mastery. Basically, avoid retesting tactics like averaging the two tests, offering half points for each question corrected, and setting a grade cap that they can not pass if they re-do the test. Avoid giving homework to students if they have not mastered the material. Homework is meant as a way to practice what the student has mastered, not teach what the student does not yet know. Assistance should not be withheld to students who need it. If a student needs a little more instruction or a different graphic organizer, then the teacher should not withhold these materials. Do not assess students in formats that inaccurately depict their mastery of a subject. Teachers should create specific questions that allow students to solve the question in a way that the teacher can properly assess.

Teachers should avoid giving out extra credit and bonus points. While teachers tend to think it gives the students hope and motivates them to do better in school, extra credit does not allow them to master the topic the teacher assigned. Avoid group grades as well. While the collective group may be more accurate than any individual, this only shows the groups mastery of a subject, not the individuals mastery. Grading on a curve is also ineffective while differentiating. The curve defeats the purpose using grades to assess mastery, since the curve severely scrambles the student's actual grades. Also, teachers should try to avoid placing zeros in the grade book for work that was not completed or handed in. The zeros cause inaccurate grades because they offset the grades the student earned in the first place. Finally, avoid using norm-reference term to describe criterion-referenced attributes.

Ally
This chapter was the one of the most important we have read this year. These ten approaches to avoid should be constantly used. I think that behavior should never get graded because there are factors that teachers do not understand when it comes to behavior. I think the advice about grading for a group and scaling makes sense because it is difficult to decide what grade is sufficient for the group. I never understood scaling because I understand it to mean that adding points to the group based on the highest grade. I never understood how that worked other than giving the students extra points to make their grade better. I do not understand why the book says avoid recording zeroes in the grade work. I think you could put a zero to keep track which students did not do the work. When the teacher receives the homework then the grade will change. The book says that teachers should avoid giving extra credit. I do not agree because I think having extra credit helps students improve and they are still having to do a assignment. If I were to give extra credit it would be a whole extra assignment with multiple parts the students have to do in order to get the full extra credit. This will effect my teaching because I will be taking into consideration these different ideals, it is ultimately my decision whether I want to do certain grading policies in my class. I want to mainly be fair to my students, I don’t want my students to be frustrated based on my grading. This will effect my students because they will be graded for their work but I need to be responsible for them to be grading fairly.

Jenn
This chapter focused on the things not to do when incorporating differentiation into grading. I found this chapter really helpful, because it is confusing on how to combine differentiation with assessing students. One concept that I really took away from this chapter was confabulation. I can recall countless times when this has appeared in my life, through my own ignorance and through talking to people with a clear lack of understanding. It’s funny to me that even though I’ve been confronted with this again and again, I still didn’t fully understand it. In some ways I believe that this happened from signals in our brain being crossed, or maybe subconsciously we were being bothered by something, or maybe we simply couldn’t recall things because of outside factors. I didn’t fully grasp that this occurs from not fully understanding something, and this makes a huge difference when dealing with secondary education level students. These students are ones who are low on self-esteem and high in pride, so it is only natural that they are going to project that they’re an expert on things that they aren’t. Obviously, when looking at this from a teacher’s perspective, it becomes clear that “two of the greatest allies in the battle against confabulation are frequent assessment and revision of instruction” (117). If students are filling in missing critical details with their own inventions then assessment should reflect this. If a teacher uses frequent assessment they can more easily avoid it and then they can work on revising how to teach the missing information. I really thought that this was a helpful thing to think about when assessing students.

Dan Many teachers are under many impressions when it comes to differentiating assessment and grading that should be avoided. Teachers should never withhold assistance from students when they need it. Some students will need help more than others, and some will be ahead of the class. If teachers do not help those students who are struggling and not fully understanding the concepts are taught, then those students do not stand a chance when it comes to test or assignments. They will feel unheard and rejected, which will cause them to not partake in class and eventually they will shut down. I know it is unrealistic to help everyone understand all the concepts and material, but when I am a teacher, I will always assist my students whenever they need help understanding the material. As much as I want to agree with the fact that zeros should not be given when work is not complete, I am prone to disagree with this statement. If students do not do their work that was assigned, and turn in blank papers, they shouldn’t receive any credit for it. That’s something that applies to the real world. If you have a job and paperwork is due and you do not complete any of it, you won’t receive any credit and you might lose your job because of it. Of course, if circumstances show that students have a legitimate reason why, then we can work together to create a plan. Otherwise, if students find no need to complete their work, there shouldn’t be a grade for it.

Jake
This chapter talks about ten different approaches to avoid when utilizing differentiation in the classroom. It talks about a lot in correspondence with grading and, provides a variety of insights on a plethora of scenarios.

One piece that really stuck out to me was the discussion concerning grades and homework. I can remember my math teachers in high school grading my homework, and my homework grade was usually what kept my grade at a B or lower. This was frustrating from my perspective simply because often times I would go home with little understanding of the material and the only way I was ever going to answer the 30 questions assigned was to spend the entire night reading through the chapter and teaching the math to myself, and even then I would come up with the wrong answer most of the time. It did not matter how much effort I put in there were times when it was just beyond me. I’m not saying that struggling with the material was wrong; however it was an unfair assessment when I would show up to class with wrong answers. I think it is important for teacher s to utilize homework in an appropriate fashion, and not assign it simply because they feel that the students should have homework, or that “they need to learn responsibility”. It should be there to compliment what was learned in class, and only a tool for building up understanding. It should have no effect on the grade; if it’s meaningful it’s useful ness will translate into the final assessment. I will certainly not grade homework in my classroom and I hope that others follow the trend.

One bit that I’m not sure I entirely agree with, was the piece on bonus points. I think bonus points can have benefits if used properly. Obviously the bonus needs to be relevant, but if a student wants to prove that they have mastered the content than I am certainly willing to improve their grade for doing so

Alex Slack
FIAE 9 - This chapter had absolutely bologna rules to follow thank god I am going to teach differentiated instruction as well as the new model. I am going to be a teacher that when i get my class room i will hang these rules up on the wall and laugh at them every single day. i will make rude gestures at the sign and make it the punch line of every joke. These rules will be made fun of so much that even the students will know that they are bologna. I learned from this chapter that everything that I am going to teach goes against not only the rules in this past chapter but a lot of it is against what I was taught as a kid. When I was a student a lot of the rules that this chapter described were stuff that I was taught as a kid. In fact when I was reading this chapter I was just having flashback to when I was a student These rules are the definition of everything I don’t want to be as a teacher I am going to make the world a better place and start by revolutionizing the education field.

Lizz
When grading differentiated classroom teachers must do everything, they can to make sure the grades students earn are accurate depictions of mastery. Some things should be avoided when differentiating instruction and assessment. The first one is too avoid incorporating nonacademic factors such as behavior, attendance, and effort into final grades. This goes a long with the chapter eight. The second one is to avoid penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery. Not allowing students to have multiple attempts at mastery is another way of teachers saying they don’t allow work or assessments to be redone to full credit. Some students don’t learn at the same pace nor retain information at the same pace so why would you have them all be assessed at the same time. The next one to avoid would be to avoid grading homework. Successful teachers don’t give homework unless their students have already mastered the concepts. I remember in high school I had homework all the time yet in some of my classes, the teachers wouldn’t even take the homework from us. It was more like busy work then anything and rarely did it relate to what we were learning in class. The fourth one is avoid withholding assistant with the learning when it’s needed. The fifth one is avoid assessing students in ways that don’t accurately indicate their mastery. The sixth one to avoid is allowing extra credit and bonus points, 7th is avoid group grades, 8th is avoid grading on a curve, 9th is avoid recording zeros for work not done, and the tenth one to avoid is avoid using norm-referenced terms to describe criterion-referenced attributes. These top ten aspects to avoid will help me become a better teacher because I will know why I shouldn’t do these things. The most important thing to remember is that every student is different but some things have to be the same across the board.

Caleb Fletcher- By Green Lantern's Light
10 tips about differentiated assessment that I couldn’t be happier to learn about, is what our topic is today. So far we have been explained that every student is different thus we need to grade them differently but now we have the chance to tackle the problem head on and get some tips to see how this way of teaching can be implemented. So, let’s talk about those steps, first one avoid grading students on non-academic fields. This means that I really can’t go off and start grading on effort alone. I am still shaky on this one but I believe that once you are in the classroom everything will make sense once again. The second tip revolves around not allowing the students to give up. If a student keeps trying to do better don’t show their own effort back in their face. That is a big no no. Give them the chance to do better so they can get the best grade possible. Expect the work in but always allow a student to succeed. Following that tip, we go to tip number three, which entails that we as teacher need to avoid grading students on what we have decided is practice. A coach or any sort of club member can’t grade a student’s ability to participate or to get involved that’s crazy. That is why feedback is a much better tool. Always, and I mean always, give the student assistance. This assistance doesn’t mean baby them or to be their crutch. It means that you are encouraging them and giving them a hand up when they fall down. Speaking of falling down, in the animal kingdom we don’t ask a dog to fly do we? We don’t ask a pig to swim for long distances? Then we must remember that a student needs to be tested on his strengths or how he or she learns the material. If we grade them unjustly then we are asking them to jump out of a building and live. Yes a rather dark analogy but it works in my mind. No, extra credit should be given out. It gives students the opportunity to get a few points right for doing little to nothing at all. Now, there is a few extra credit problems that I will do myself and that will be “If you have no idea what to do on this test, tell me what you know so far in my lessons and show that” so that a student can get points and I will understand where he or she is at. My own rationale goes against the experts but at the moment I don’t really care. If students are in groups as teachers we can not grade the group. It may be easier and it may teach the students teamwork but in all honesty someone in the group wasn’t doing their fair share. Thus we need to grade the students individually. Looking at all these tips there is one line that I can use to some them all up and that is “Think about how you would like to be graded?” “What is the fairest way in your mind?” In other words “Keep your students in mind all the time.”

Abby
Chapter 9 of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// talked about the things to avoid when differentiating your classroom. One point that really stood out to me, was this idea of not grading participation. Throughout high school I was quiet and did not speak up in class. I allowed others to talk and I simply listened to what they had to say, but when it came time to take the test, write the essay, or apply the knowledge I was spot on. I always hated that I would get marked down in my classes simply because my way of learning the material involved carefully listening with my mouth shut. Another good point was that homework should be used strategically and that this practice work should not be graded. Again, I had a teacher who used to send us home with our math books and a bunch of homework problems and we were asked to guess how to do it before he would teach it to us. We were then graded on our attempts (we did not have to get the problems right, but each question had to have been attempted) this resulted in me making up my own way of doing things, often in a way much harder than it had to be. This connected into the idea of //Confabulation,// where you fill in the missing pieces with your own ideas. This is probably why math still frustrates me. As a teacher, I want to make sure that I only grade student’s actual growth and progress. I do not want to just fill my grade book with grades just for the sake of grades, but rather grades that accurately reflect the student’s understanding.

Brittany
This chapter states that we should, as teachers, avoid certain things like grading homework, allowing extra credit and bonus work and grading participation and attendance. I can understand not grading attendance because you never know a students life situation, but I feel as though participation is an important aspect to the learning process. I think that providing a grade shows students how important participation is, even if you only count it as a small percentage. Through participation students show their thought process and share ideas that others may not think of. I disagree with the book on this portion, but I strongly agree that grading homework should be avoided. I think that students need to learn and should feel that any homework is a supplement to the learning process and allows them to continue their learning through practice. Also I think that if you are not going to grade homework it should be at least gone over in class to allow the learning process to continue. In my classroom I will provide extra credit opportunities on tests as the chapter discusses, but it will not be a common occurrence. I think that every so often providing an extra credit question that allows students to show their learning in any way (such as a drawing, poem or any other form) can allow student who have a hard time verbalizing what they learned show what they know in their own way. Overall I think many of the things the book suggests avoiding I will avoid to some degree. I do not agree that all these things should be avoided 100% of the time and to the full extent.

The ninth chapter of FIAE focuses on some things NOT to do when grading. Basically the book outlines some strategies to avoid, and what might be better to grade instead. Most of these are fairly obvious suggestions, like not helping a student when they ask for help. One phrase that did stick out to me was not using effort in the final grade. That seems a bit strange, since effort is a huge aspect of achieving. Having students be graded based off of how well they work encourages them to work harder, which then pushes them more towards the final goal of mastery. The book looks like it focuses more on mastery than the actual process of getting to mastery. It can be a difficult road to get there, and grades can be used as a tool for encouragement, and they can also be used to provide some formative assessment along this path. The majority of these practices will not be included in my classroom and teaching philosophy, as almost all of them are really not acceptable practices. As has been previously stated in other books and in previous chapters in this book, appropriate methods need to be used for grading in order for the concept of grading to be effective. Grades need to be objective and accurately reflect what the student knows and what they need to work on.