UbDDI+B2+Chapter+5


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Lauren Scheidegger
Chapter five of “integrating Differentiated Instruction + Understanding by Design “, by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe, talks about how to teach a diverse classroom. Different methods and tactics are explained. The first idea they bring up is that a teacher should assess in a way that is more like a photo album and less like a snap shot. One “High-stakes” test is not something that accurately depicts a students’ knowledge. Students should be assessed multiple times and in multiple ways. Students learn in different ways and therefore should be able to share their understanding in different ways. Recalling knowledge is different than understanding and it is very important to make sure a child understands. Knowledge is a yes or no thing either a student knows the answer or they do not. Understanding is measured more in degrees. There is something called “The Six Facets of Understanding” which can help teachers see how much or how deeply a student understands the material. The six facets are “explain”, “Interpret”, “apply”, “perspective”, “empathy”, and “self-knowledge”. When assessing a students’ understanding a teacher should always use “authentic work”, work that requires thought instead of just recall. Keeping in mind the differences between knowledge and understanding seems vital for any teacher or anyone planning on becoming a teacher. I hope to always assess my students based on understanding and to be able to give students choice in how they present their understanding. I found the “tic-tac-toe” idea to be a clever idea. It lets students choose, and also allows them to share their understanding in multiple ways.

Megan Millette
Throughout Chapter 5 of UbD and DI, Tomlinson and McTighe discuss assessments and the reason why they are so important. Assessments provide evidence to help answer questions we might have about our students. Through assessments we as educators can get a complete understanding of what our students know, understand, and can do. However in order to have your assessment be reliable it must possess multiple sources of evidence. To describe this Tomlinson and McTighe relate it to photos. I especially found their relation interesting about how you can tell a lot more about a person from an album of photos rather than just one photograph. Some examples the book gives as ways to assess students are the six facets of understanding, the GRASPS frame, a variety of assessments such as summative, diagnostic, and formative. The book then discusses how it is important to figure out students’ strengths and weaknesses. This helps by showing how they improve in the end. If we as teachers are giving our students feedback it must be constructive. In the book they suggest how though some ways of positive feedback encourages them one must specify specific areas in order to help the student understand what they do well with and what they do not. In my classroom I hope to keep this in mind. I especially like the idea of using many strategies of assessment to help my students succeed and allow me an accurate view of where each student it at. I believe another spot mentioned in the book that is crucial in my future class would be giving my students specific feedback. In English feedback given back is normally beneficial or of no importance to the student. I need to make sure my feedback benefits the students so they can better learn and grow.

Kevin Lind
The one idea in this chapter that really stands out in this chapter for me is that assessments have to be targeted at a specific goal. I think that in my area of study, I will focus most of my assessments toward declarative knowledge (what students know about the content), but I will try to add procedural knowledge (what students should be able to do) and dispositions (attitudes/habits students should have) into some of them. I can think of a few ideas for projects that could effectively test at least two of these types of knowledge.

I understand the fact that students will have to show what they know in various ways. This really depends on the learning styles and multiple intelligences of each student. It seems like a fairly simple idea that students who learn using visual aids will also display what they know using visual aids. I will have to find ways of gauging the knowledge of my students using a variety of assessments, but I don’t know if there are that many ways to assess government knowledge.

I agree completely with the chapter’s idea of using rubrics for students to self-assess their work. I know that when I was in high school, I would use rubrics to double check essays and projects to make sure they fit the criteria. Taking this into account, I will probably make rubrics for about all my assignments so my students stay on the right track. Since rubrics specifically say what I am looking for with each assessment, it should be easier for my students to meet my expectations.

Alyssa Amari
Chapter five describes three key principles that should inform and guide classroom assessment in academically diverse classrooms. Principle one is to consider photo albums versus snapshots, this means that to truly asses a students understanding of what they are learning, a teacher must collect multiple forms of evidence rather than just one test. Each form of assessment must be geared towards the type of understanding the student should have; in some cases quizzes and tests are efficient, but in other cases, visual products, oral performances, or even demonstrations would measure understanding more accurately. Principle two is to match the measures with the goals. These goals can be of three types: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and dispositions. Each type is useful and necessary in determining a student’s progress and understanding. These goals are necessary for teachers to plan what they want to teach, and also necessary for assessment of understanding. Understanding can be determined through several indicators, including the six facets of understanding which help to determine which stages of understanding a student has grasped. Principle three is form follows instruction, this directly correlates to the actual purpose of assessment and how important is to understand the importance of assessing and when assessments should be done. It is important to assess before teaching, to offer choices to student so they can choose how they will show an understanding in a way that will make them successful, to provide feedback quickly ad frequently, and to encourage self-assessment and reflection. As an aspiring teacher this chapter impacts me because not only will I have to teach in differentiated ways, but I will have to assess in differentiated ways as well. If I am going to give students the opportunities to show me their understandings in a way that correlates with their learning styles, I must give them a chance to show me their learning in different ways as well. This will affect my classroom because my students will all be given the opportunity to learn and be assessed in different ways, giving them the opportunity to be successful.

Morgan Ware
This chapter talks about different types of assessment and how it is helpful to the students and to the teachers. Assessments help teachers make changes to their curriculum in order to accommodate to their students needs. There are three key principals that should be helpful in the classroom. Number one is to consider Photo Albums versus Snapshots. Certain standardized tests are more like a snapshot of a students learning. A portfolio is like a photo album; it should the growth of the student. The second is to match the measures with the goals. For example the assessment of stage two cannot be done without thinking about the goals in stage one. There are three types of educational goals, declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and dispositions. The third assessment principal is that form follows function. The way we design assessments need to answer certain questions about students learning. There are different assessments that serve different purposes. Summative assessments are a summary of what people learned over a course, like a final exam or portfolio. Formative assessments are assessments that go along with instruction, like ungraded quizzes and observations. Diagnostic assessments follow instruction and are used to check a students’ previous knowledge on the subject. These include, skill checks and ungraded pre-tests. Teachers should give students choices on what to do their assessment on and also give them valuable feedback. This impact my classroom and me because this shows me how to assess how my students are doing and what I need to improve on. Also it gives me the chance as a teacher to see how affective my units and lessons are.

Lauren Breton
This chapter dealt with the assessment aspect of teaching and learning. This chapter focused on a variety of ways to ensure that students in differentiated classrooms would all be able to convey the material that they have learned. One of the major themes within this chapter was the idea of looking at students’ learning as a photo album rather than a snapshot. This means that, as a teacher, you use varied forms of assessment and evaluation, and that you take into account both formal and informal assessments.

At first, the idea of using multiple measures of evaluation to ensure that students truly understand the material that they are learning seemed overwhelming to me. As I read further into the chapter, however, the text reassured me that not all information (especially declarative knowledge) needs to be tested using multiple forms of assessment. After I understood what the text meant, however, I was able to understand how I would be able to assess learning in multiple ways within my own classroom. I hope to be able to incorporate different types of assessments that play toward learners needs by using the product and performance tic-tac-toe boards that are shown on page 74. As an English concentration, especially, these boards appeal to me because they would offer my students choices, but I could also make requirements on the board. For example, I could require that all students provide a written assessment but then I could let them choose from another form of assessment provided on the list. I hope to incorporate these multiple forms of assessment in my classroom because they will give my students options and different avenues to show that they understand the information that we are covering in class.

T.J. Hebert
Assessment is an often overlooked, yet extremely important aspect of any classroom or unit. There are three principles of effective assessment: photo albums vs. snapshots, matching measures with goals and form follows function. Standardized testing is an example of a snapshot used to judge students and schools. These tests are used to make large scale decisions that can have major effects on schools or school districts and the decisions are based on one test instead of the whole picture of the students or the “photo album”. The next principle has been broken down into three types of goals: declarative, procedural, and dispositions. These help teachers determine what area of knowledge a student may need extra help on, for example, students may understand certain material (declarative) but may not know how to apply it or use it (procedural). The third principle is the purpose of assessment.

Last semester I took an epidemiology class which opened my eyes up to how important evaluation is. It is used in all aspects of community health, in things like writing grants, developing programs and assessing current programs. Evaluation is an ongoing process in the world of community health and should also definitely be ongoing in the classroom, school and the district. It is the best way to determine overall effectiveness of a program or curriculum; it shows you where strong points are and where improvement is needed. It can also determine if a particular program or curriculum should continue or be scrapped. I guarantee that evaluation will be a never ending aspect of my classroom and if it is not being done in whatever school I work in, I will ensure that something will be done.

Samy Tracy
This section was very similar to chapter three in the “Fair Isn’t Always Equal” book. It also talked about assessment and how to make the assessment better for students so that they actually learn something. One of the ways this chapter made assessments more interesting to me is that they compared assessing students to photo albums. Only giving one test on one unit does not show the teacher any sort of results, just how that student was learning at that particular point (because it could possible change from day to day). Which is why the “photo album” approach is so much more advanced, you have to give many tests and many types of tests to see the full picture and how that student is doing over time.

Another important part to assessments is providing feedback, and the right type of it. Many of my previous teachers would just write a grade in the upper right corner and call it good, but without them specifically telling me why I got that grade or what I did wrong, how am I suppose to improve? That is why feedback is so important. I am definitely going to give feedback in my future classroom and plenty of it. Students learn better when they are told what it is that they are doing a great job on and what they can improve, no one does better without getting criticism. If people are never told that they are a bad singer, this world might be full of screeching people (and in turn cause a lot of people to not want to leave their houses because of the dreadful noise). There are always things people do very well, and things that someone else can do better at, that is just how things work. The feedback shows students what they are doing right/wrong and they decide whether they want to try to improve or they do not care so they just keep what they are doing.

Rachel Joiner
 After reading chapter 5, I have a much better understanding of assessments in the classroom, and how to know if it is actually working. This chapter has taught me many interesting things including, by looking at what needs to be learned before creating a lesson can help a teacher. When designing a lesson plan, if the teacher creates the assessment for the unit first, it can offer a more purposeful and focused lesson plan. Although it sounds difficult, I feel as if it will keep the lesson more compact and focused on the essential information, which benefits both the teacher and the student. I also learned, and found very interesting how the book mentions that one assessment at the end of a unit does not give a satisfactory representation of a student. I think this is important because as teachers we need to be aware that our students may have had an “off day.” I have had teachers that have allowed us to make things up with the understanding we do not always perform at our best. I think as an individual and a teacher this is important for me to recognize. I think this will better help me serve my students.  The book brought up a good point of how in North America we rely a lot on standardized testing. As a student, I disliked this method of testing, because I felt it misrepresented our talents and interests as students. Now looking at it from a teacher view, I see that it may not be in my best interest, or my students, as a teacher to take these assessments and use it as representations of my student’s knowledge. I agree with the book in that over time teachers need to collect data and information on their students in order to better gage their understanding.

Emily McGee
Tomlinson and McTighe convey that understanding whether students have achieved the desired skills and knowledge allows teachers to make necessary modifications to their classroom. They describe different types of knowledge (i.e. declarative, procedural, dispositions) and the different types of assessment for distinguishing if students truly know and understand the necessary content and skills. The authors recommend pre-assessing students’ prior knowledge base using diagnostic assessments, which may act as a guide for planning differentiated instruction within a unit. Also, Tomlinson recommend offering appropriate format choices for assignments, providing early feedback on assignments to improve performance, and encouraging students to self assess throughout the course in order to build autonomy and responsibility for learning.

I believe that offering feedback on student assignments is very important for their growth as learners. However, I believe feedback requires time and opportunities for revisions in order to benefit learners. I think if the ultimate goal for assignments is to build a deep understanding for a concept and fluent performance in skills than the ability to practice or retry, if necessary, is apex in a teacher’s role. I like the idea of allowing students the opportunity to redo a major assignment for partial credit, and if they are motivated to they can and if they are not they do not have to. I believe that can help stimulate responsibility and autonomy, which seems to be an unspoken goal for high school graduates to reach to some degree.

Patrick Hurley
Be sure to cover everything in the topic your teaching don’t just give random snippets of information. You need to make sure you incorporate a little of everything in the assessment to make sure you students understand the big picture. Give an appropriate measure of a given goal. Make sure you take differentiated learning into account when you are making these goals. Test to see if the students have an understanding of the big ideas. Use the GRASPS frame to make sure your students understand the topic. Be sure to use summative, formative, and diagnostic assessments. Use pre-assessments. Offer choices in assessments to make sure everyone can pick a fit for them. Use plenty of feedback so your students know where they stand in class. Like I said in one of the other reflections I can use assessments in my class all the time. I need to make sure all my students are where they should be. So I will make sure they are where they should be through different types of assessment. I need to make sure I give my student plenty of options with these assessments so they can pick which one they can do best. Pre assessing is another good way to see what your class already knows so you can teach what they need to know.

Matt Roy
Chapter 5 focused on the issue of assessment in the classroom. Assessment is an extremely important aspect of the curriculum because it gives the teacher a means of measuring the progress being made in the classroom. The chapter went on to describe the many types of assessment that can be utilized by educators to best help students learn. 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 do take care to mention that there is no one single way to accurately assess students, assessment must treated as a “photo-album” (pg 60) of individual assessments that (when viewed together) gives us an overall understanding of the progress made by each student. I felt this chapter was very important for aspiring teachers because assessment is really the only way that we can tell if we are reaching our students. I now know that end of unit exams are not enough to gain a full understanding of how much a student learned.

Mike Kahler
There are three principles of assessment to consider in your classroom. These are consider photo albums versus snapshots, match and measure with the goals, and form follows function. The first principle “photo albums versus snapshots” states that a good assessment cannot be a high stakes test. There need to be multiple assessments in a variety of different formats to make them fair to all students, and also make them reliable. Students need to show a true understanding of the material. The second principle “match the measures with the goals” says that you must first understand the three types of educational goals. One must know facts, be able to apply their knowledge, and have good work habits. These three goals can all be assessed in different ways. A knowledge of facts can be assessed through something like a multiple choice test, but application of knowledge can only be seen if the students apply their knowledge to a new situation. This can be seen through an essay, presentation, or short answer test. These assessments are usually the “big” ones and can be given to students as differentiated projects as well as tests to give all students a fair chance to receive a god grade even if they are not good with high stakes testing. Testing work habits can only be done through a longer project. A journal or portfolio shows student commitment to learning. The third principle “form follows function” says that all assessments must have a purpose. Summative assessment can be used at the end of a unit to show what has been learned, while formative assessment is done throughout to track student learning and adjust lessons. Also there is diagnostic assessment which is done at the beginning to get an understanding of prior knowledge. These are all useful classroom tools which I plan to utilize when I am a teacher.

Simone Thiry
There are several principles of assessment in UbD. The text used the example of photo albums and snapshots to provide justification for why it is necessary to collect multiple pieces of assessment evidence for each concept. Having a whole photo album of an individual will tell you more about that person than just having one snapshot. If we consider this idea, we will be more likely to see patterns within a student’s performance, as well as see gaps that are present in multiple assessments. Another principle of assessment is matching the understandings that we assess to the core understandings and essential questions created in stage 1 of the UbD model. We must also consider questions of who, how and why we are assessing when we create assessments (summative, formative and pre-assessments). We must also offer students choices of how to demonstrate their mastery. As long as the type of assessment doesn’t affect the demonstration of core understandings, it is less important than a students’ ability to show their comprehension. Another important idea is that we should encourage student self-assessment and reflection. Students will learn more about how to catch their own mistakes if we utilize self-assessment as well as peer and teacher assessment. For example, if a student is asked to fill in their self-assessment on a rubric, and the teacher fills in the same rubric, the student can compare them side-by-side to better understand what the teacher was asking for. I hope to utilize all of these principles of assessment when I evaluate my students’ understanding and use assessment data to help me evaluate my teaching practices.