FIAE+B2+Chapter+14

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Tiarra
Chapter 14 of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal//, stresses many of the same points regarding formatting as chapter 13 except this time for Report Cards and Progress Reports. A report card should be more than just an over-all grade and by modifying the curriculum we can rate students on personal progress which allows for a deeper look into that particular students understanding. It’s important that teachers use asterisks with narrative comments to provide helpful feedback for students on their report cards so that they know they still have room for improvement and mastery. One way to do this would be to compare Personal progress and achievement against standards by assigning a letter grade and a number grade for progress. Personally I like this method of grading and believe it would be helpful for a parent especially to see that even though her child got a D in a class they got a high progress score meaning that they are working towards improvement. Wormeli also stresses that it’s important to communicate standards and personal progress, but that one should also acknowledge progress compared to other students when speaking with parents. I’m not sure I agree with this however because I thought that the whole point of adding the progress aspect of grading was to detract from the over-all grade that tends to rank students in an objective and insensitive way.

Grace K.
In chapter 14, Wormeli discusses report cards and their use in conjunction with differentiated instruction and assessment. He writes about the difficulty of reporting differentiated assessment on a form report card, and about some ways in which report cards themselves could be more tailored to individual students. One option, he wrote, is to include additional descriptors next to a class title and offer comments related to this descriptor below the class grade/summary. For example, the title of a class might be “U.S. History” and an added descriptor next to the title might note “modified curriculum” with a comment below to explain more; Why was it modified? In what way? etc. This would achieve differentiation for this students report card, but there are definite drawbacks to doing this. For one, report cards have a way of following a student throughout their career, and comments such as “modified curriculum” could be interpreted negatively by potential employers, colleges, or scholarship committees. My concern when reading this chapter was that I don’t know how much input or control teachers have over report card formats at all, so I don’t know if options to differentiate them will even be up to me. I think this is an important option to consider if you can, but if you can’t, then energy would be better spent ensuring that you provide quality feedback to students and parents throughout the year.

Will L.
This chapter focused on the idea of report cards and progress reports. Generally speaking, report cards are important to parents and grade-addicted students alike, but they don’t truly show the progress that students are exhibiting. Even so, the standard progress report that some teachers/schools give out merely has a grade and maybe a couple comments, if they’re lucky. Merely attaching a letter or number next to a student’s name and calling it a grade is really counterproductive in the long run, because no one except the teacher really knows how the student is doing in class. It’s important to give constructive comments if progress reports are regularly given. Students and their parents will take notice of these progress reports and make sure to keep working hard, or try to motivate that student to put forth a little more effort.

Danny K.
Chapter 14 of FIAE covers the use of report cards and progress reports. Report cards and progress reports can bring along a lot of stress for students, however they are important to keep parents up to date with how their children are performing in the classroom. Unfortunately these report cards don’t always show all the progress that some students are making. Report cards mostly just consist of a grade and maybe one or two comments from a teacher. Growing up my report card showed my attendance, the name of my class, the name of the teacher, and my grade. Some teachers would write little five-word comments, but most wouldn’t make any comments. A report card like this doesn’t really show parents what their child is learning and how they are progressing.

Justin C.
This chapter of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// talks about report cards and how they have adjusted as the years have gone by and along with how grading styles have changed. Report cards are used to show students and parents how the students are progressing throughout the year. Some parents and students rely heavily on the letter grade that is shown on the card. More and more schools want to incorporate a dual-grade system, which includes a personal grade showing a student’s development and then the grade of where they are in the class. It is important to realize that we cannot just assign a grade to a student without having the evidence to back it up. We need to be able to accurately show parents and students exactly why students got what they did and if they have actually learned material.

Jonathan B.
Chapter fourteen goes into detail regarding report card formats. A proper report card format that illustrates the implementation of differentiation will show student progress, rather than student deficiency. The “sample of a report card with no overall grades” found on page 178 is an good model for illustrating student progress. There are comments from the teacher, as well as categorical ratings for progress and understanding by content area. Each one of these areas can correspond to a different academic standard. I would use this type of progress report in my class, as I can see it working especially well with social studies. I envision the categories possibly being writing, research skills, discussion, and content analysis.

Jen R.
Chapter 14 covers the issues surrounding report cards. Throughout the chapter, Wormeli suggest different ways in which a report card can be utilized. The first suggestion that Wormeli gives is adjusted curriculum. Adjusted curriculum allows teachers to grade each student individually on their own progression throughout a class. This can be beneficial to the students because it allows them to know exactly what they are being graded on and therefore, they can understand the report card more clearly. Wormeli then goes on to talk about the dual approach. The dual approach allows for the double grading of both the personal progress of the student and the regular standards of the student. I strongly believe that a students report card should communicate how the student is both mastering the subject, and how they are progressing in the class. A simple numeric value is easy for parents to understand, but lacks informing the parent and/or the student on what ways they're lacking and where they can improve.

Grady B.
This chapter of //FIAE// continues to discuss the complicated issues regarding reporting grades, by discussing how grades should be presented on report cards and progress reports. I feel that in my own educational experience, a report card consists of little more than a number score and a letter grade, with little or no discussion of what the grade actually //means//. I wholeheartedly support a system of reporting that conveys specific information about students’ levels of mastery of specific content. While a report such as this would likely be more dense, I feel that one such as this would be far more beneficial to teachers, who would be able to see specifically where a student needs improvement. While I feel that parents may initially be resistant to a more complicated reporting system, once they become more acclimated to the process, they should also come to appreciate the specific report of what exactly their child has learned – and not learned- in school.

Dan B.
This chapter gave a variety of formats for reports cards. The one that I liked the best was the one that broke the grades up into several cattegories. I liked this format because it allows the students to see what areas of the class, and classwork, that they are doing well in and it also shows where they are struggling. This will make it easier for the student to improve their grade because they know what to focus on. If a student sees that they struggle on tests, by looking at the report card, then they will know to spend more time studying for tests. Breaking report cards into categories will help students succeed.

Chris D.
There are so many different formats when it comes to report cards. Inconsistency among the student’s classes is not good for the student, parent, or teacher. One format could be the standard format of assessments and scores, or another format that has progression charts and the student’s personal progress compared to a standard that the students have achieved. There is one main purpose for a gradebook and report cards; it is to be able to show teachers, parents, and the student what the student understands and what they need to improve on. If the report card is not clear on the student’s understandings and areas in which they need to improve on, then the format of the report card needs to change. One of the formats listed in this chapter was the responsive report card. I like this report card format because it is easy to read what the student is being graded on. This report card has no negative comments and gives emphasis to the standards and the student’s personal achievements. I would like to use a report card format like this one to show most of the information I will be grading the students on.