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Simone Thiry: Abstract/Synthesis
Chapter three of __Fair Isn’t Always Equal__ discussed assessment. According to the authors, our goal as teachers is to coach students and help them improve using a variety of assessments to maximize learning. We must begin with a clear understanding of what we want students to know and be able to do, and to rank those ideas within our understandings. The chapter also goes into detail about the processes of pre-assessment, formative, and summative assessments. [|Pre-assessment] is necessary because it helps us understand what students know at the onset of a unit, so we can better measure their learning throughout the unit. [|Formative assessments] are designed to help students learn better throughout the unit. Instead of giving one final test and taking that as the only measure of learning, formative assessments are our opportunity to give feedback to students and help them improve and learn from their mistakes before the big tests and performance tasks. Formative assessment is the major component in this situation, even though formative assessments may be difficult to grade, they are essential for maximizing student learning. Summative assessments are the major tests and projects at the end of a unit, in which students combine all of their knowledge to respond in a more structured way. One primary idea that all of us gleaned from this chapter are that the process of assessment must begin with a clear understanding of which standards are going to be addressed, and in what way. Many people also discussed the necessity of teachers understanding which parts of the curriculum are most important for students to understand; we will inevitably have to make a decision about which topics to cover in more depth, and as such should be aware of those choices. Another idea that came up often was that we do not want to include “fluff” in our assessments. The class seemed to have a solid understanding of the three types of assessments, pre-, formative, and summative. The class agreed that assessments must be authentic and help deepen understanding by covering substantive content. While several of us agreed with the book’s critique of [|multiple choice tests], there are ways to transform any type of assessment into a formative assessment.

Lauren Scheidegger
The third chapter of “Fair isn’t Always Equal” by Rick Wormeli was stuffed full of “Principles of Successful Assessment”. Wormeli spoke of EEK and KUD, meaning essential and enduring knowledge, and Know, able, Able to do. Knowledge and understanding were mentioned in this chapter as in many other educational texts. To aid with creating assessments and knowing how often to test Wormeli shared the three categories of assessment. The three categories are, Pre-assessment, formative assessment, and summative assessment. All of these are beneficial in a classroom and work well together. When creating these assessments it’s important to be sure that there are no “fluff” assignments. Fluff assignments are ones that may seem “fun” or at least more enjoyable than traditional assignments, but ones that do not actually contain substance. One example Wormeli gives is having students create a poster of an equation they learned in class. Simply writing out an equation from a book, perhaps with a sample problem, does not insure that the student fully understands the concepts, nor does it help them to further their understanding. When I lead a classroom I plan to eliminate all “fluff” assignments, although I would want my assignments to be as “fun” as a “fluff” assignment, I also want it to assess their understanding and help them move forward. Something very similar to the “fluff” assignment is “busy work”. I despise that form of work as well and plan to banish that from my classrooms as well. As an instructor I want my out of class assignments to help further students knowledge of what they gained in class, and to solidify their understanding.

Megan Millette
In Chapter 3 of __Fair Isn’t Always Equal__, Wormeli discusses assessment saying that it guides practice and that instructional decision is based on what we know about curriculums and our specific students. He then goes on to discuss how students are able to learn more when they have a clear understanding of the expectations of a class. Educators should prioritize by putting information into two sections essential which are items that are vital to understand for ones future, and desirable which are great to know but not as important. He then goes into a discussion about the three types of assessments and the order they go in summative, pre-assessment, and formative. Wormeli tells the reader of how authenticity is important to assessments by making sure it is close to how students will apply this information later on in life. He ends the chapter discussing how educators should avoid fluff and instead challenge students in other ways if they don’t understand. Through this chapter, I found many parts I could apply to my teaching. Such as making sure my students get a clear understanding of the expectations of each lesson by me outlining and teaching them to my students. Using the methods of having summative, pre-, and formative assessment will help me understand were each student is before and after the lesson. I should test an assessment first for myself to make sure it fits the essential knowledge and helps read all my students skill levels. I should automatically act on the results of assessments by adjusting my instruction to fit the needs of my students. I need to make sure I am teaching my students things they can use in the real world; rather than, sticking to something that will not be used again such as the five-paragraph essay. By me doing all this my students will get all they can out of my lessons.

Kevin Lind
A major idea in this chapter that every teacher should take into account is to teach the essentials. Since many units could potentially cover a large amount of content, teachers have to decide for them what information they have time to teach and what information to leave out. This is critical because there is no way teachers can teach students every piece of information regarding a unit, but they still have to teach the necessities to meet the standards. As a teacher, I will take all of my standards into account while devising my lessons and units.

The chapter also shows different parts of assessments for students. The form of assessment that stands out for me tests how students will use knowledge gained outside the classroom. This seems important when legitimizing knowledge, since it shows that there is actually a reason to learn it. I plan on using this kind of assessment as much as possible. I want to make sure my students understand the significance of government in their daily lives.

I agree with this chapter’s criticism of standardized testing. High test scores don’t necessarily mean students are learning more. It is easy to see this by taking multiple intelligences into account. Since different students learn in different ways, they shouldn’t all be assessed in the exact same way. These tests do absolutely nothing to advance the education of students. Even though I will prepare students for these tests to the best of my ability, they will not be my primary focus. I will students what they need to know in whichever way suits them best.

Alyssa Amari
Successful assessment is composed of many parts that require a lot of time, preparation, and thinking from teachers. Assessment is important, but what is more important is good assessment; chapter three discusses the steps needed in order to have good assessment. Assessment is paired with instruction, because without the other the two would be unnecessary, that is why it is important to determine what s worth being assessed by construction of essential understandings and skills. Assessments need to be designed in such a way that teachers can gather all necessary information about a students learning, but it must be done frequently, not saved for the end of a unit. Assessment is emphasized by a student’s readiness, levels of ability, and current understandings, which is why assessment needs to be flexible. When designing assessments it is necessary to make them authentic, reliable, and valid so they portray reason. Truly good assessment must be designed so that students can use different tools to show their understanding, with a given criteria, given multiple times so students may continue to understand what they have learned. Most teachers know that they must assess their students learning in order to recognize what they have actually learned, but what many teachers do not know is what it means to assess successfully. I must be able to plan and design my assessments just as I would my instruction. Each falls hand in hand and I need to work with my students and my instruction to frequently design assessments that ca determine what my students have learned. Just as instruction must be differentiated, so must my assessments because all students will show what they have learned differently. My students will be impacted because they will need to show progress in different ways. This might be alien to some students, but it could most definitely be as much of a learning process for them as the actual learning.

Samy Tracy
Chapter three of this book explains all about assessing students. This chapter made me think about how many of my teachers really did not use assessments in the correct way. There are many important parts that make assessments actually work and show that the student not only retained the information but actually understands it fully. I know all throughout high school, it was mostly just cramming a bunch of information all together and then blurting it all out on paper, then forgetting all about it by the next day. Wormeli describes exactly how not to do this with your students. Just like making up lesson plans, you have to start from the end with assessments. There are three types that I had never known about, pre-, formative, and summative. The author suggests starting with summative because that shows the experience and objectives that were supposed to come across in the lesson. Formative assessments are rather new to me because I feel like I only had these assessments once I started college. There was never really any little checkpoint quiz to make sure we were on the right track. It was learn the material, regurgitate it onto paper, pass it in, and then forget it by the next day. This method obviously was not very effective. Finally, there was a pre-assessment which shows how ready students are to learn the new material. Many times, previous teachers did not formally show students what they were supposed to learn that year and so that hurts them the next year or even the year after that. Another important part of this assessment is to make sure that it is authentic. I think this is EXTREMELY important because that is probably where many of my previous teachers went wrong. Many of them treated us as if we were adults already, but this obviously was not the case no matter how hard we tried to act like it. These bad teachers taught me how exactly not to be as a teacher though.

Lauren Breton
Assessment within the differentiated classroom was discussed thoroughly throughout chapter three. This chapter of the text explored how to create assessments that actually assess what we want them to, are authentic, and are substantive. As a student, I have always been on the receiving end of assessments and have never had to consider all of the effort that goes into the creation of tests, projects, and rubrics. Now that I am on my journey to become a teacher, however, I realize that this is an important aspect of teaching that I will have to develop over the course of my career.

One of the many options that was offered by the text to ensure that educator’s assessments are evaluating what they are intended to evaluate is for the teacher to take their own test and then highlight the essential knowledge and skills that are provided by their answers. I thought that this was a great idea because that way teachers can be absolutely sure that everything they need to test students on is getting addressed on the assessments. As a teacher, I also think that it would be beneficial to have the answer key for your test at the beginning of the unit so that you can ensure that all of the material is covered in class. Although I agree with and intend to incorporate that aspect of the chapter, I am not sure whether or not I will incorporate the idea of allowing students to redo work for full credit. This idea would be incredibly beneficial for students (in terms of grading and learning), but I am not sure whether or not it would be practical for all students in the classroom. Unless there were some rules that applied, such as it only applied for students who completed the assignment on time, I am afraid that it might not be an effective tool for teaching.

Rachel Joiner
I really enjoyed reading this chapter, and got a lot of important information out of this chapter. I learned how our students walk into the classroom with predetermined “bias” and as teachers, we need to be aware of that. We need to understand this, and work to reverse their current biases and teach them the correct information. In addition, it is our job as teachers to make the material relatable to students. They should not be asking when they would ever use this in their life. Students should be able to see a connection between the content and the real world. However, I also learned that sometimes the connections may not always be obvious and sometimes we have to teach this material as well in order to get to the more important real world topics. This information affected me because after reading this chapter I realized that I have preconceived notions, and biases that I should be aware of as well. I am unaware of my current biases, but when I am teaching I need to be as objective as possible. These made me realize that I need to become aware of this, and try to correct my biases. As a teacher, I feel like this was good information to know about, because I do not think it is something I would have thought of on my own. I also enjoyed when the chapter talked about how important it was to make real life connections, because this is something I value as a teacher, and I am glad that it is an important part for the students. This chapter helped me put assessments in perspective and gave me a better sense of assessments and content in a classroom.

T.J. Hebert
Classroom assessment begins with the end in mind. The entire curriculum must be laid out with clear end goals before the class even starts. There are three types of assessment, the first one is pre-assessment. Pre-assessment is used to determine students’ readiness to learn and helps guide instruction. The second is formative assessment, which is done frequently throughout the lesson. It provides feedback and reflection in order to maximize learning. The third is summative which is done at the end. This is where objectives and experiences are matched and the essential knowledge is reflected upon. All of this assessment has a purpose and should be acted upon. It is designed to aid teachers in ensuring the students learning is at its most effective and shows strong/weak points in a curriculum. Once a teacher is aware of such things, they can adapt and alter curriculum to better suit the students.

Patrick Hurley
To me, assessment is the most vital aspect of any curriculum. It is the best way to determine whether or not a curriculum is effective and the students are learning. I am very familiar with assessment or evaluation. In the community health field, all effective programs are built around evaluation of others and ongoing evaluation of itself. Every program that is created or already exists is constantly evaluated. This is where programs are determined to work or not and the ones that do not work are scrapped. A funder does not want to give out money for an ineffective program, they want to be sure that their money is being spent wisely and they want to see results. Evaluation or assessment will be one of the largest aspects of my classroom and curriculum. One needs to strive for mastery of a subject not just knowledge. Your students may know the information but do they understand it and can they apply it to other situation. You need to consider the 6 facets of understanding: explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge. For evidence of mastery of a subject you can either use multiple assignments or track the progress of a few important works over time. You have to spend time unpacking standards to find what is acceptable evidence to demonstrate a mastery of the subject. One way to easily tell if someone has mastered the topic is through writing. This way you can see if there are any parts that the student struggles with. You need to pay close attention when choosing what is important to master. I am worried about picking the wrong things to master in my classroom. This is one of the things I worry about most, because if I choose the wrong thing then my class won’t get what they need out of my class. I need to make sure I am not just making my students memorize dates and people and events. I need to make sure they know who the people are, what they did, why it was important, and what were the effects of that person or event. I will have to ask my colleagues to check what I chose to master so I pick the correct things. My class will benefit from this because they will master the subjects which will help them later on in school.

Morgan Ware
This chapter deals with what makes a good assessment and what is not a good assessment. Assessment is a coaching tool that needs to be nurturing. When a teacher thinks about assessment they need to think about the end in the beginning. There are two things that need to be kept in mind when thinking about assessment. The first is EEK, or essential and enduring knowledge. It can also be called KUD, or Know, Understand and Able to Do. Understand is the relationships, concepts, and connections that students understand as a result of the unit. Know is what students have retained from the learning. Do is the specific skills that students can do. Essential understandings are important in figuring out what is important to teach within the unit. You should categorize the standards as essential, highly desirable, desirable. When a student needs an alternative assignment there is a difference between “fluff” and substantive assignments. Teachers should avoid “fluff” assignments because it does not accurately portray what the student learned it just show that they can copy what the book states. This chapter also talks about what a good assessment is. One example of a good assignment is that it advances learning, not just document it. These skills will help me in the classroom because it tells me about assessment and how to assess. With the information of “fluff” assignments I know what is a good assignment to give my students. I hate busy work and I do not want my students to have to do work that do not assess what they have learned or apply to the real world.

Emily McGee
Wormeli describes the active role teachers must play in instruction and assessment, as a comprehensive guide to student learning. He states a 12 step process for designing lesson plans, that begins with essential and enduring knowledge and moves through a sequence of designing, reviewing, and evaluating a flexible and fluid lesson plan. In designing lesson plans, Wormeli advises laying out prioritized standards then categorizing objectives into “essential, highly desirable, and desirable (24)” for students to know. Also, add in “nice to know” for enrichment purposes. He explicates the importance of beginning with the end in mind, that being clear, concise mastery of developmentally appropriate material. Wormeli also advises new teachers to seek guidance and take advantage of available resources to learn how to effectively plan a learning unit. This is important to me as a future teacher because I need to be able to design my curriculum, my core, my lessons, my assessment strategies- everything. I think this is a wonderful place to start. I believe using the backwards design model for curriculum planning is so smart because it allows students to learn essential information and be tested through formative assessment, before learning desired information. In previous chapters, and in Ubd/DI it almost seemed like just the essential question needed to be answered when in fact there are many facets that are involved. Addressing the essential question simply allows some teachers to differentiate between students who need to walk away with just a deep understanding of the essential question and those who have the ability to delve deeper into the desired information.

Matt Roy
The third chapter of Fair Isn’t Always Equal corresponded almost perfectly with the 5th chapter of Understanding by Design. This chapter focused on the idea of assessments and how to utilize them properly in the classroom. It started by explaining how the backward planning helped decide what assessments would be testing for as the teacher has already identified the essential knowledge. They then went into describing the three types of assessments that are most commonly used. Diagnostic assessments are typically used as initial markers, they serve to inform the teacher of where each student stands before a unit begins so that the teacher may plan the unit accordingly and also have a baseline to see where progress was made. Summative assessments are usually given in the form of exams, quizzes and projects and typically have a grade associated with them, these are the most visible forms of assessment because they “summarize” the students learning. Finally, Formative assessments are (like diagnostic assessments) ungraded and occur throughout a unit to serve as a check-up for the teacher to see where the class is with the material in relation to where they started (information from diagnostic assessment). The authors put a particular emphasis on using the data collected from the assessments. I liked how they emphasized actually using the information that can be gathered from these assessments so that students can see that they are actually causing some sort of change in their lives. Nothing would be worse for class morale than the students feeling that the assessments were busy work instead of useful tools.

Mike Kahler
In chapter 3 of __Fair isn’t Always Equal__ the principles of assessment in a differentiated classroom are discussed. This is a very interesting subject. The first thing that is common practice when preparing to assess students is the idea of starting at the end while designing units. You have to establish clear goals for your unit before you even start writing it. This is because you need to know what knowledge your students must master before you even start thinking about teaching it and test/project formats. After these goals are finally established you can move forward and start planning your assessments. There are three important forms of assessment, formative, summative, and pre-assessments. These are once again to be designed backward starting with the final test/project for a unit and moving forward towards the formative assessments which will track student performance throughout the unit, and then the pre-assessment which will determine the level of prior knowledge among the students in the classroom. In my classroom I think that the most important form of assessment will actually be the formative assessment as the book seems to suggest. Although these do not show any real results or give a final grade to students they are really a vehicle through which students find out how they are currently doing, as well as the teacher. These little no-stakes assessments tell the teacher where the class is having trouble understanding the material, and allows for adjustment in the unit to get students back up to date on the material that they should be learning.

Simone Thiry
In the chapter about assessment, I was surprised by how much emphasis was put on pre-assessment and formative assessment. The ideas of pre- and formative assessment made me think of many instances in my own education where teachers failed to utilize these key components, and I see that by using pre- and formative assessments we can understand our students better, as well as see their progress. Pre-assessment helps us determine what a student already knows, as well as whether there are gaps in their prior knowledge that may affect their mastery of the current material. Formative assessments are given throughout the unit to show mastery of different pieces of the puzzle, while allowing us to give constructive feedback, which helps students succeed. These can be small activities, homework assignments, quizzes, or use evidence demonstrated in classroom participation, but it is imperative that we continuously give feedback to help students amend their mistakes and learn from them. Authentic assessments should assess the skills that students will apply outside the classroom, and should be put in that context. They should also be appropriate for each student given their learning style. If students are encouraged to demonstrate their learning in a way that shows their best understanding (e.g. if it is easier for students to explain in words than to write in a paragraph), then they will be more successful, and we will have more accurate assessments. By designing appropriate assessments for students, and by utilizing pre- and formative assessments in my classroom, I hope to maximize student success and fully understand levels of mastery with the material.