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Mel Christensen
Assessment of students’ knowledge, skills, and understanding must be thorough and present a multifaceted view of the students’ learning as well as reflecting the goals of the unit being assessed. The analogy of using assessment to create a photo album of a student’s progress rather than a snap shot reflects what should be the purpose of assessment: to evaluate the growth of a student over time. “Snapshot” assessments can create a lot of stress for students and are often not the best indicators of whether or not they have mastered a subject. These types of assessment are ineffective for educators as well because they do not reflect student progress over time or potential proficiency in areas not reflected on the assessment. Giving students options of format, product, or performance for some assessments allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in the way that is most effective for them. When students have structured options and multiple chances to prove their mastery of a subject they are able demonstrate their understanding in more depth. This approach to assessment also gives the student more control over the assessment process and may help to relieve any anxiety they might have about assessment. Students should be encouraged actively be a part of the assessment of their education. In addition to communicating to the teacher about what forms of assessment work well for them, students should practice assessing themselves. Student insight should be very valuable to teachers; it is a way to unlock what might be holding a student back or help students with setting personal goals. Students can learn a lot about themselves by reflecting on what they have learned, their work, and their work habits.

Leigh Welch
The first focus of this chapter is on assessments. It goes into great detail about the different kinds of knowledge, which we have to know if we are going to assess them. Some examples would be declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and disposition. Declarative knowledge is what the students already know and should understand. Procedural knowledge is what students “do” with the knowledge they know, or what they should be able to do. Lastly, Disposition is what kind of feelings the students already have about the content. Preexisting feelings can take their toll on the teacher and the student. Another aspect of teaching brought forth in this chapter is that assessments need to be used for action. Like in Fair Isn’t Always Equal, the authors agree that pre-assessments mean absolutely nothing if you do not use that information to then guide you in your lessons, and differentiated instruction. I think these topics will impact my classroom in the most direct ways. I plan to give pretests introducing a chapter and then go from there, using the information I gather from the pre-assessment to help guide me in what lessons need to be taught in more depth than others. I always want to do pre-assessments of other kinds to find out information about my students so I can use what I collect to better determine who should be able to work together on group projects, who can sit next to whom without getting distracted, etc. I agree with the readings completely when they say that assessments mean nothing unless you, as the teacher, take action with the information they provide you with.

Paul Santamore
The chapter begins by looking at how backward design aids teachers in providing their students with the best possible assessments. Backward design is a perfect tool for doing this because it makes the educator think as if he is the student first before asking the student to learn certain content. From this theory should stem a feeling of accountability as the teacher for how your students do on your assessments. Your assessments should be more of an album of learning than a snapshot of a few important concepts. This is critical, because in real life, the student must understand many concepts, an album, rather than one concept or thought, a snapshot. As teachers we must match what is being assessed with the best kind of assessment for that. For example, if I am assessing names and dates for a history test, I should use multiple choice or true vs. false statements to assess knowledge. Most of the time, as a teacher, I will look to not work on such small tidbits of understanding. I will always shoot to make my students understand and put to god use the larger, enduring understandings from my units. I will use the GRASPS Frame in my classroom, because I believe that it provides a wonderful base for educating students on the social sciences. Finally, I will offer prompt feedback and constant input as to how my students are succeeding as well as how they can improve their efforts to better themselves. By doing this I will hopefully inspire my students to reflect upon themselves outside of class, which will make them better learners as well as better participants in society.

Carinne Haigis
This chapter was, in essence, about the necessity of diversifying assessments to gain a better understanding of exactly what the students have learned from the unit. Towards the end of the chapter, two examples were given of how to assess what students have learned from a unit on nutrition based on application. Of these examples, the authors write: “…in both examples, students are asked to apply their knowledge of nutrition to a real-world situation and include an explanation. They are required to use what they know in flexible ways to meet a goal for an identified audience” (Tomlinson, McTighe 69). I really appreciated this model for assessing. One of the most common complaints a teacher receives from students is, “when am I going to use this in the real world?” By choosing to assess students by having them apply their knowledge to a real world type situation, the teacher is perfectly demonstrating examples of times where this knowledge will be useful. As a strong opponent of standardized tests, I was especially glad to see pieces of this chapter that show how inaccurate these sorts of tests can be. On this subject, the authors write: “The pressures to improve test scores can lead to a narrowing of the curriculum toward the tested topics and an overemphasis on ‘test prep’ at the expense of meaningful learning” (Tomlinson, McTighe 60). When a teacher “teaches to the test” and his or her specific learning goals are merely to have the students be able to answer the questions on the standardized test, he or she is doing the students a severe disservice. While standardized tests are important, they should not be used as the ultimate determiner of student mastery. This leads to the “narrowing of the curriculum” described by Tomlinson and McTighe in this chapter.

Bianca Stoutamyer
“Multiple measures are essential because no one test can do it all. Therefore, not test, no matter how good it is, should be the sole criterion for any decision,” this one statement is the most important knowledge about assessment that a teacher can have (Page 60). Being able to assess certain types of educational goals require assessments that are not in a test or quiz format. I would use the three types of educational goals in my classroom because it allows for me to separate and assess my students knowledge of vocabulary, lab procedures, behavior and participation into three groups; declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and dispositions. I also particularly liked Figure 5.3 on page 68. This figure gives the reader examples of inauthentic and authentic work. This will come in handy and be useful for me when I first start creating lesson plans. Sometimes though we want to challenge our students we may find that instead of challenging them we are giving them busy or inauthentic work and this figure would help me stop myself from creating bad habits and more importantly bad lessons. Though as I continue to create lesson plans this figure may become obsolete because I no longer have to check to make sure my lessons are authentic because I will have already been creating authentic assignments. Most importantly as a teacher I want to make sure that I am never teaching to a test but that I am teaching my students to be able to understand concepts and to make connections between concepts in class and the real world. As a teacher these resources are helping me become the teacher I want to be.

Jason B
It is important for teachers to assess the students so that the teacher can know what the student has learned. It is also a good way to find out what the student knows at the beginning of year before the teacher starts to teach them. The problem is that as a country, we chose to use standardized tests as our main method of assessment and we use the data from these tests to make high-stakes decisions. When I become a teacher, I will be sure to use a variety of assessments and look at assessments as a “photo album” rather than a “single photo.” For example, I could have the students present math problems to the class as a review for a test. This would show me if the students know the material, and it would help them with their presentation skills. Based on the student’s performance, I could provide positive feedback that also helps the student learn where they need to improve. As a teacher, it will be important for me to provide feedback that will tell the student what they did well on, and where they need to improve. It would be useless for a teacher to tell the student to keep trying or they did a great job. There is always room for improvement, and it is the teacher’s job to recognize what the student did right and what they need to improve on. It is also important to provide feedback in a timely manner. That way the material is fresh in the student’s mind, and they have time to refine, revise, and practice the new material.

Kellie Sanborn
I very much enjoyed the application of backward design into assessment. Assessment seems to have earned a terrible name for itself in today’s society. If you had asked me when I was in middle or high school what assessment was, I would probably have automatically thought of standardized testing and repeating information and basic knowledge that I was supposed to have learned. I think that a lot of this can be chalked up to the fact that standardized tests tend to be the only thing referred to as “assessments” in front of students, but a lot of it is because sometimes students don’t really seem to realize that assessment is happening when it is done in more effective ways. The example in the book, for starters, is a perfect highlight of a means of assessment that doesn’t feel like assessment. The example used different ways that a health class could apply the knowledge they had learned in a project. Since these project examples involve problem-solving and use of knowledge rather than just repetition, it seems as though it would feel less like assessment to students and more like a fun problem to solve. I think that by taking the pressure of the classic form of testing off of students, it becomes less of a high pressure situation and therefore allows even students who don’t test well to succeed (or to give an accurate reflection of their content knowledge and ability) in assessment. This also allows students to demonstrate more than just knowledge, but further ability.

Allison Reynolds
I have been part of classrooms and never understood how a teacher figures out how to grade. When reading through this section, it made it very clear how great teachers look at assessing assignments. Out of the three principles, I knew mostly about the first and the third one. They spoke about long-term assessing and the different types of assessing respectively. The one I learned most from was the second one, matching the measures with the goals for the lesson. I like the idea of measuring dispositions to a subject because that can give me a feel for how my students are applying the subject to what they enjoy. Students have to have an appreciation for something in order to want to learn more about it. This will be interesting in my math classroom because so many students hate math. I want them to have an appreciation of the subject so they can better understand it. This, for me, leads to thinking how to apply the six facets of understanding. I think that the explaining, applying, and empathy parts will be simple for they all go with learning the subject and seeing how it is applied in the real world. The interpreting, perspective, and self-knowledge will be a challenge that I find very intriguing. I want students to be able to connect this and be able to tell stories using math. I want to tell stories and have students be aware of what is around them and get them excited to learn more. I am really excited to try and use the six facets in my class in order to see what students are learning. The other part of this section I took the most from was discussing how to handle differentiating an assignment. I would use the tic-tac-toe idea in order to make sure that students are getting most of the big ideas in the project. I am glad that the book gave an example about how to grade these, because I was worried about handling the differences. This will be interesting to use in math because the MI’s will really be shown through this process.

Megan Hoffman
The focus of this chapter was on how to determine evidence of learning through various methods of assessment. The backwards design model places the importance of evaluating learning //before// planning the actual lesson, which I think is a really intelligent way to go about things. The whole point of teaching is making sure the student learns the material, and using various forms of assessment is the key to knowing that each student has learned what they need to move forward. In my classroom I want to use many forms of assessment like visual projects, essays, and journaling because it makes class more interesting and it breaks up the monotony of paper tests. One important point that the author brings up particularly resonates with me, he says “There is nothing inherently wrong with standardized tests. They provide useful and comparable data about student achievement levels on easily tested content goals. However, the problem occurs when the results of a single test are used to make high stakes decisions” (Page 60). Personally I have a huge problem with the standardized testing craze taking place in the United States today. It places many crucial choices on the results of a test, from a school’s funding to entrance in many colleges and it even determines placement in our armed forces. To me, this is a travesty that has gone on way too long. Not everyone learns the same, so by putting a blanket test on students it singles out the ones who can be brilliant minds, but horrible when it comes to the pressure of a standardized test. That is just plain unfair.

Kaite Bukauskas
Carefully planned assessment taking place prior, during, and after teaching a unit can help a teacher understand what students did or did not learn, to what extent did students learn, and what ways can the lesson be adjusted to make the teaching more effective to better meet student needs. Backward design supports assessment strategies by emphasizing the need to ‘think like an assessor’ and plan Stage 2 before Stage 3, which is to determine acceptable evidence before creating the teaching and learning activities. There are three key principles to guide assessment: consider photo albums versus snapshots (assessment should come in a variety of forms so that a complete picture of the students’ learning is depicted rather than a single ‘snapshot’ of their learning), match the measures with the goals (it is crucial to consider the Stage 1 information to guide the planning of the desired results), and form follows function (summative assessments summarize what is learned, diagnostic assessments precede instruction to check student prior knowledge, formative assessment take place during the teaching process of the unit). In my experience in the health classes at the middle during field experience, several forms of assessment took place. The one that stood out to me was the diagnostic assessment of the 8th grade class. The school purchased a unit from an agency which sends an assessment pre and post test, as well as the books/activities/lessons/DVDs to be used in a unit, and asks the teacher to have students fill out a survey to determine where the students were at the beginning of the unit, and how much improved their content knowledge is at the end of the unit. Doing this will help the agency to make improvements to their curriculum, and will help the Mount Blue middle school decide whether or not they want to repeat the purchase of the curriculum the following year.

Chris Whitney
Chapter 5 of the Understanding by Design book focuses on how to properly test students to see what the have learned at the conclusion of a unit. The book uses an analogy of a single photo compared to a scrapbook of photos when it comes to assessing students properly. This chapter argues that just like in picture taking, multiple assessment uses will help to create a better picture of what has a student has learned just like a picture album will better show an event then one single picture. The chapter also describes other reasons why putting more importance on one certain test can be harmful to students development. When so much importance is put on one test, the curriculum can get adjusted to just help students pass that one test, and they miss out on the big picture. In a world where results on personal achievement need to be clear, neat, and produced quickly, its no wonder why some students are not getting as much attention in the classroom as they should. Teachers are starting to put more emphasis on using multiple intelligences to teach material, so they should also start focusing on using different gauges to assess that material.

Ashton Carmichael
In the chapter, the authors use a photo album as a metaphor for assessment. This metaphor works really well as assessments should document students throughout time, not just give a glimpse at what the student is like. Often, in photo albums, you see more than one photograph from a particular event; the same works in assessment, sometimes, teachers need to take more than one snapshot of what the student can do in a certain area. I believe that teachers should use different forms of assessment, that capture what the students can do and how they understand. As the authors said, we do not have to multiple pieces of assessment every time, but having these different “photos” helps us get a clearer look at each student. Also, giving students options when it comes to projects can help both the students and the teacher. The student will be able to chose a project and will be more apt to work harder on it because he is more interested, the teacher will be benefited because the student will do their best, giving a clear assessment of what the student knows. The authors pointed out four different types of understanding. They broke down the different aspects into categories: use, empathy, transfer, and meta-cognitive. The authors state that these facets are only indicators. That is, they “sever as indicators of how understanding is revealed” (Tomlinson 66). I like the idea of using these four types of understanding for assessment purposes. If the brain understands in different ways, then why shouldn’t we, as educators, use all the aspects of the brain?