FIAE+B2+Chapter+9

toc

Abstract: Throughout chapter 9, Wormeli focuses on the assessment of students and the grading of their work. Ten approaches to avoid when differentiating assessment and grading were identified in this chapter. This chapter offered useful solutions to problems we are most likely to face as teachers, especially when considering the task of grading and assessing. Wormeli brought to attention the idea of not grading homework. When we don’t focus on a numeric grade, it allows us as teachers to [|assess students ability] through their work. From chapter 9, I gathered that when students hand in class assignment or homework that have been completed with errors, if they are giving their best effort then they should not be penalized for their mistakes. Instead, they should be provided with positive feedback on how what to improve and that way they can make revisions accordingly.

Synthesis: For the most part, we were all in agreement of the ideas read through chapter 9. A majority of us decided that it is very important to give students the opportunity to show their teachers what they know and what they are capable of. By grading every assignment, and focusing on individual work, students may not be getting a [|graded or assessed] on their true understanding of the curriculum. A few of us brought to attention the fact that if students are mainly focused on the grade they receive, they may not be overly concerned with developing a true mastery of the subject. With that said, another issue mention by a handful of students is the idea of homework being entirely neglected if teachers chose not to grade assignments. Some of us feel that by throwing a grade on all work gives purpose to the assignments and forces students to give their best.

Tiarra
Chapter nine deals with what we as teachers should avoid in grading and assessing our students. While many of the points made here seemed relatively obvious to me there were a few that I particularly liked hearing. For instance I cannot even begin to express how many times I’ve been stuck in a group in which I or only a couple of the members do ALL the work. The first thing you do is talk with the member or members who are slacking about how they could better contribute to the work, but if that proves ineffective you have to decide between telling the teacher and possibly getting marked down for poor group participation/management skills, or take on all the work yourself and let others ride on your success. I wouldn’t, however, mind group work at all if we were being graded on an individual basis that allows each person to take responsibility for himself. I also appreciated the argument for using effective and relevant assignments to allow students to make up points. I think we’ve all been in classes in which teachers will ask silly, trite little questions at the end of a quiz to allow their students bonus points, but this method is highly ineffective. If bonus points are used AT ALL, then they should be used to advance student learning by allowing teachers to reevaluate students for what they may not have understood the first time around.

Jen R.
Chapter nine of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// deals with what teachers should avoid doing while assigning work or grading assignments. Ten approaches to avoid when differentiating assessment and grading were identified throughout this chapter. This chapter offered useful solutions to problems we are most likely to face as teachers, especially when considering the task of grading and assessing. Upon reading these suggestions, the one that had a lasting impact on me was to avoid penalizing students multiple attempts at mastering material. From this section, I gathered that when students hand in class assignment or homework that have been completed with errors, if they are giving their best effort then they should not be penalized for their mistakes. Instead, they should be provided with positive feedback on how what to improve and that way they can make revisions accordingly.

Will L.
This chapter focuses on how teachers grade students and their homework. Much like in the last chapter, differentiated assessment is encouraged with each teacher. The idea that homework should not be used to assess student mastery seems a little off. Even though no student enjoys doing homework, I still find that it’s a pivotal part of education. I feel that grading homework shouldn’t be so heavily weighted, but grading it should still happen. It’s one of the only ways that students can use to prove to themselves that they’ve begun to master the content. It puts them in a firm place as to where they stand in their learning process.

Danny K.
Chapter 9 of FIAE covered ten things to avoid when differentiating instruction and assessment. I am a little confused with the first approach on page 113 which says teachers should “avoid incorporating nonacademic factors, such as behavior, attendance, and effort, into the final grade.” It says that it will explain this in the next chapter. I have questions about avoiding this and if nonacademic factors include participation, which I believe should be taken into factor when grading students. Number seven stated to avoid group grades. I will try to avoid group grades because group grades do not really tell us anything about a particular student and what they have learned.

Grace K.
Chapter 9 offers advice about how to avoid some common missteps in grading and assessment. The first two recommend that teachers avoid incorporating nonacademic factors into a final grade, and avoid penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery. This goes back to the idea that the important part of standards-based education should be that students master the curriculum, not //when// they master it. It also stands to reason that we would offer students multiple opportunities if we are offering constructive feedback on their assignments – how else would the feedback be worthwhile to give or receive? Along this same line of thought, Wormeli suggests avoiding extra credit to help students boost their grade, and instead focusing those good intentions on redoing work until it meets the standard. Chapter 9 again reinforces that pre-assessment should never be graded, and grading of formative assessment should usually be avoided, as well. Two other suggestions in chapter 9 that I connected to were that teachers should avoid giving group grades, and that teachers should avoid putting a zero in the grade book for missed work, because neither of these methods leads to an accurate view of a particular student’s level of mastery. Overall I agreed with most of the suggestions in this chapter and can see implementing them in my own classroom.

Justin C.
This chapter talks about what we, as teachers, will want to avoid when it comes to differentiating assessment and grading. There are 10 approaches to teaching that the book talks about deeply enough to influence us not to use them in our classrooms. The one practice that stuck out to me was that we should attempt to avoid grading homework. In all of my high school math classes, homework has been a piece of the final grade. Coming into math classes in college, homework assignments are just for us to practice on our own outside of class; they are not required pieces. Since it has been put into my head that homework has always been a piece of the grade, even if I feel I have a good handle on the material, I will still do the work. I feel as though it will be hard for me to not include homework in the grading process. In working on my first lesson plan and outlining the unit, homework was not included. I feel as though even if it is not spelled out on the syllabus, I may fall victim to incorporating it. Based on the information provided in the section, I will find different ways to encourage students to do the homework and not have it be graded.

Kaitlin T.
The concept introduced in chapter nine is something I've always kind of laughed at. I can honestly say that if I teacher told me that he or she wasn't going to grade my homework assignments, then I wasn't going to do my homework assignments. I'm guilty of neglecting homework even in college because I knew it wasn't going to be scored or collected. Why do //that// homework instead of completing homework that will actually effect my GPA? At the current moment, I feel like I'll score the homework assignments I give my students, though I don't feel like there will be many. Homework won't count for much of the overall grade, maybe 5% - 10%, just enough to keep my students honest and completing their work. Hey, if they're anything like me, they won't actually do their homework unless I promise to score it. In addition to scoring my students work, they will always receive plenty of feedback to help them improve and progress through their learning.

Dan B.
Chapter 9 talked about 10 things teachers should avoid when they are grading. I really agreed with the one that said that you should not grade homework. In my opinion homework is where the student is trying to master the material, but they have not mastered it; you should not grade something that a student has not been able to master. If a student is learning a complicated item then you should not expect them to have it mastered that day, it will take time and practice, which is what homework provides. You should not grade something until the student has had the time and opportunity to master it. I disagreed with the part that said you should avoid all bonus point opportunities. I agree you should avoid some bonus point questions such as "what is my favorite color?" but I think if you put a problem that is a little bit more challenging on at the end of the test and the student can do it they should be given extra point; they show that they not only mastered the material expected, but they also went above and beyond and mastered a more difficult concept.

Jonathan B.
This chapter offers helpful tips when differentiating assessment and grading. Above all, grades should be accurate indicators of student achievement. The author suggests that teachers do not penalize students for multiple attempts at mastery, that homework not be graded (since it is basically a formative assessment), and other grading methods that do not reflect student mastery. These are mostly technicalities that are purely grade-motivated that distort the picture even further. How does extra credit show student mastery? Group grades can make individual student achievement rather nebulous. From my perspective, this all sounds good at first. I agree with the concept of making grades as objective as possible, and see the virtue of “streamlining,” as this book seems to advocate. The issue I see here is not in the philosophy, but the actual implementation of these systems. If all “penalties” like zeroes are eliminated, how will students be held accountable for not performing, even when given all the necessary resources and the best teaching? There are a few strategies that make sense which I would like to use in my classroom, like avoiding grading on a curve and penalizing multiple attempts for mastery.

Grady B.
In reading this chapter, I was forced to question, once again, aspects of testing and grading that I had always taken as both standard practice and fair. This debate began on the first page of the chapter, when the author discussed why teachers should offer full credit back for tests and assignments. I am almost certain that I have never encountered this philosophy at any point in my education, at least after elementary school. The author’s argument, however, is pretty compelling. His analogy between toddler and adolescent development especially struck me as intuitively true statements. Additionally, if one approaches teaching from the side of mastery, as the author does, it makes more sense to allow a second chance to demonstrate that mastery has actually been achieved. While I initially had misgivings about the last point, I found the strong suggestion that homework should not be graded to be something that I immediately and absolutely agreed with. I immediately thought back to a high school math teacher, who not only graded homework for completion, but actually graded it on //correctness//. At the time I saw this as patently unfair, and I am glad that this belief is shared by the author.

Chris D.
This chapter of Fair Isn’t Always Equal talks about ten things to avoid when differentiating assessment and grading in the classroom. The first thing that stuck out at me was the second suggestion which said to avoid penalizing students’ multiple attempts at mastery. While I do like the idea of doing this, I don’t think in today’s society teachers could allow this of students. It allows for students to not bother studying for a test or complete a project the first time around and instead allowing them to redo the entire thing up to full credit. The message that we’re sending to students by doing this is that it’s okay to not be on time with assignments, which is not how it works in the real world. I like the alternative method of allowing students to retake the exam yes, but to give full credit is unreasonable in my opinion. Something though that I can agree with is not awarding extra credit assignments for students who want a better grade. One reason I wouldn’t like doing this is because even though the student is doing the work, I have to create an entire new rubric for which to grade the student’s work which takes up more time than needed. Extra credit assignments also have a tendency to not have any parallel to what the goal of the original assignment was, so allowing students to do this wouldn’t show me if they’ve really mastered any mathematical concept. Bonus points on homework assignments, quizzes, and tests are something I will actually consider. The reason for this is because these bonus points will be earned by demonstrating complete mastery of the skills that have been taught on a rather difficult and challenging math problem. Of course, this would be optional and there would be no consequences for students who don’t wish to do this extra part of an assignment or assessment. Even if the student got the problem wrong it would show me just how close they are to completely mastering a skill or concept, which is what I intend to do.