FIAE+B1+Chapter+5



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Leighlan
Abstract: This chapter discussed adjusting assessments for learner readiness levels. It advised the educator to always create the base assignment with average readiness learners in mind first, in order to keep the expectations reasonable and appropriate. From there an educator could increase or decrease the complexity, challenge, structure, independence and facets involved. A simple way to do this would be to add more choices; if given many choices students will often choose and create a product that shows their understanding and reflects their readiness level. Synthesis: Most of us wrote about [|tiering assessments] and what that meant, and looked like. The class also talked about the importance of pre-assessments and there seemed to be a lot of enthusiasm for the learning menu idea. Many of us addressed the ideas of [|Tomlinson's equalizer], and thought they made sense. People are all different why should they all be expected to do well on the same test?

Brittany
Chapter five is titled “Tiering Assignments” but I like to think of it as knowing how deeply or how much thinking your students can do about a subject. That is the trick right there: thinking. How much do you need to stimulate a student’s brain before it takes off and the metaphorical smoke comes out of their ears? Some students do not need complicated material to get them thinking, others need a moderate amount of material, while still others need to get right down to the bones of a topic before they really have to work at something. Of course there is that problem where students do not want to think because it takes work and will open them up to constructive criticism (and not so constructive criticism). If we can get them thinking, it will get them questioning, their curiosity will spark, and who knows, they might even go and learn something because they want to and not because they have to too pass a test.

Seth
I really liked reading about Williams Taxonomy on page 67. While at Mt. Blue I had to familiarize myself with Bloom’s in case it was brought up in class, which it wasn’t. When closely examined, Williams makes a lot of sense. The different levels in his taxonomy seem to fit into the classroom. Fluency (to make sure your students understand what you’re teaching), flexibility, originality, elaboration, risk-taking, complexity, curiosity and imagination (68) all fit into today’s classroom. Whether it’s in an applied class, honors class or regular “college prep” level course, all these things (I can’t think of any other word) appear. I hope that when I go back out to the high school I will have the opportunity to implement Williams’ ideas into a lesson and see how the class reacts. It should be interesting.

Leighlan
If you want something to work and fit really well, it must be tweaked. In order to have assessments that fit learners, one must tweak them to fit the learners. It is important to get down the expectations of the average ability group first. How do you know what to expect from advanced learners or early readiness learners if you don’t know what to expect from the average? You can’t. But tweaking projects is not just for master tailors, students can do some tweaking themselves. I remember that when I did not think a project was challenging me too much or too little, I thought “how can I tweak it?” I had trouble writing essays and getting the length requirement so I did poems instead. I still cited my sources and a lot of times I was able to go more in depth with the poem, because I was more comfortable.

Brody
After reading the fifth chapter of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//, I pray that we have ample experience with tiering assessments in my Practicum classes, as it seems like a craft that can only be perfected with practice. Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson gives a wonderful description of tiering when she states that it is “ratcheting up or down the challenge level” (56). Realistically, students are not coming to a teacher as blank slates that are on equal readiness levels. Pre-assessments are important to determine these readiness levels. However, a teacher can’t just give a pre-assessment for the sake of giving one thus disregarding any sort of action plan. This is where tiering comes in. Wormeli gave numerous examples of how to tier in the classroom. Many examples have one common theme: choice, choice, choice. Learning menus for example have required “entrée” tasks and choices for “appetizers” and “side dishes”. Thus, students can choose options that best fit their readiness levels as well as their most developed multiple intelligences. Another example I found interesting was the Tic-Tac-Toe board. In particular, the board using the multiple intelligences grabbed my attention as a teacher could easily expand on those categories by providing examples that speak to the learner. Choices allow students a higher chance to successfully display the knowledge they have gained from the teacher’s lessons.

**Mike**
Reading this chapter actually made me reflect on Practicum in general so far. Tiering is definitely a way to describe the workload that has come upon us, but as long as I have the ambition to continue to learn and grow as a future educator then things will eventually become easier. As cliche as this sounds practice makes perfect. It is about time though that the author recognizes that students do not come into the first day of class as brainless wonders. So where does tiering factor into all of this? Well, if you are assessing what a student may already know then after tiering is good since you are able to give your students different choices that will fit into their readiness level. I thought on page 69 that RAFTS was the easiest concept of tiering to understand since a lot can be connected to everyday living. I would like to incorporate RAFTS with my teaching philosophy when necessary.

Lily
This chapter talks about tiering or “ratcheting”. “We are primarily emphasizing the adjustments we make in assessments according to students’ readiness levels, not interests or learner profiles” (56) The book suggests having a contract between students and teachers and this is designed to allow students to work on their own and at their own pace making it easier to focus on what the main goals and themes of the material. What all of us future teachers should always remember is letting know what is expected of the students and making it known what is in the plans with future work. We see this in all of our practicum classes with using wiki syllabus.

Max
Math is all about building foundations and building upon them. So in my class I think it would be very helpful to me to see who knows what before I start my lessons. His is why pre-assessments are so helpful. They allow me to see what students know and what they don’t. If I am teaching how find area, then it might be helpful to know who is strong at multiplication and plugging numbers into a formula or something. Also this chapter explains how tiering assessments work. They put more responsibility into the students and in math, I think it would be difficult to do but I could offer a “harder” worksheet to some students but I think if I were to leave it up to them they would always choose the easier one.

Jen
As teachers we base our lessons off "the standards", but what we don't understand is that students aren't always up to par with the standards. What we really need to do is some pre-assessments to determine where are students are in terms of the curriculum and then come up with expectations for them. I would be the first to say that students should be at their grade level but I've learned that trying to base a classroom off of the attitude "you should have learned this before so I am not going to teach it to you" isn't going to get you very far and you will have a lot of discipline problems. We as future teachers, as much as I hate to say it may have to go back and cover the grounds of what is missing and figuring out all of this through assessments is the best way to do it. They don't even have to be formal "standardized tests," but rather surveys or such that allow the students an informal and "safe" and comfortable way to explain what they know and what they need to work on and their concerns. RAFT(S) addresses a point that I am sure has been made a number of times before, this provides students with choices and that is the most essential aspect for students. I know for some teachers, maybe even myself, that it shouldn't always be based off of what the students want but rather what they need but maybe in this "structured"process it allows students to explore their opportunities in a safe way.

Kim
This chapter was about tiering different assignments, which helps learners who might not be hitting the standard and are instead below or above it. Tiering is a method of differentiation that either assists students by guiding them a little more or challenges their thinking by asking more thought-provoking questions. Although I had been exposed to tiering before, I hadn’t really seen how easy it is to tier assignments or the benefit of it for more than just students below the standard. After realizing how advantageous tiering can be, it will definitely be something that I incorporate into my classroom, and there are fun ways like the RAFT which will make it easier for me to do so.

Casey
In chapter five titled “Tiering Assessments” I really liked how Wormeli suggested critiquing your assignment or assessment with someone else that teaches a similar subject. This allows you to make sure that you are achieving what you intended to. Along with this, because the teacher you are looking to for advice teaches a similar topic they will know what you should be trying to teach the students. Wormeli included tiering questions that you could approach your colleagues with as well that would be very useful. Also, I liked how Wormeli gave samples of tiering tasks. The one I liked most was the learning contracts. This enables the student to work at their own pace, on something that interests them. Even though the teacher will tell the student what they need to work on, the student can do their assignment in a way that they enjoy.

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Jasmyn
The major thought behind this chapter is: don’t predetermine tiers without doing assessments first. Anyone designing a lesson must first check to see what the students are ready to learn. Is the content appropriate for the audience? It is crucial, when lesson planning, to “increase the complexity” of the learning gradually and eventually get the students to understand in-depth ideas or carry out complex tasks. It would be to understand the different levels the students are on when grouping, so that each group will have individuals at the same level of knowledge and then the number of or level of complexity of assignments can be changed accommodate the group.

Kaitlyn Bartlett
In chapter 5 of Fair Isn't Always Equal, one of the tiering assessments that really jumped out at me was the Learning Menus. I feel like it is a great way for kids to really enjoy picking out projects, that allows them to really do what they want to. It would be extremely fun and easy to understand because everyone know how to read a menu. I feel like you could make it simple and/or complex for different projects to really display tiering at it's best. As a teacher you could think of different places and how some menus are confusing and difficult to understand and others are very simple. This is definitely something that I will use in my class to help get students engaged.