UbDDI+Chapter+8+Block+2

UbD/DI Chapter 8 Synthesis by Kelsea Trefethen Chapter 8 of UbD/DI was focused on assessment. The chapter stressed that there are two parts to assessment and those are grading and reporting. There are, without a doubt, many ways to grade, but how do you decide which way is right for you and your class? The book and most of the reflections below seem to express an importance in focusing grades on achievement. Most of my colleagues felt that [|grades should be used to encourage students, not discourage them.] One of my peers even questioned the importance of grading, or "labeling", at all, but did note that feedback and assessing were crucial. Now that we understand that grades should be a form of assessment of achievement and feedback, [|how do we grade?] A few of my colleagues were surprised that the book mentioned grading with goals in mind; isn't that obvious? Rubrics, checklists, or some form of criteria are crucial to grading. Set criteria allows for easy, fair grading, and evidence of fair grading. The book mentioned two times when grading is not necessary. One is during pre-assessment, since the students haven't even learned anything yet. The other is formative assessments, because that would only represent partial learning. toc

Kelsea Trefethen
Chapter 8 of UbD/DI basically answered the questions: What are appropriate grading practices? And how do I keep differentiation in mind while grading? The book gave 6 key principles for grading and reporting along with other grading suggestions. I agreed with most of what the chapter said but the one principle I had a hard time agreeing with was the sixth one. The chapter expressed that achievement should not be included with other grades. The chapter claims that when students are graded on a wide range of areas “three students could earn the same grade for very different reasons.” I don’t see what the problem is with that. If a student hands a project in late the should be docked point regardless of how well the project was done, likewise if a student turns a project in on time but the work is incomplete they should be docked points. I guess I can see where it is important to highlight the actually achievement of the assignment itself, but I think ultimately it really does all fall into one grade. Usually, each are of grading is highlighted with it’s own score and then those scores are combined for a final score. Students will be able to see what they scored for strictly achievement in that sort of a rubric. This chapter reminded me of a very frustrating experience I had in high school. I had two different teachers who, I believe, graded very unfairly and unrealistically. Essentially these two teachers never gave 100% grades except for on quizzes and tests. All homework assignments were given a 90 out of 100 is they were completed. I remember a specific instance where the assignment was to cover our books. I came in the next day with my book covered and he gave me a 90. I questioned the grade asking if it was 90 out of 90, he told me know it was 90 out of 100. I asked him how I could have covered my book better to receive full credit and he told me I could not. In these two educators mind the average grade for most students in the class for homework assignments is typically a 90%. So instead of grading everyone’s’ homework, they took the lazy route and just gave everyone a 90%.

Leanne Fasulo
The eighth chapter of //UBD/DI// continues on the topic of grading and suggests the best ways they believe to do it. Teachers, who practice the differentiated instruction theory, find that the developmental differences between students is not a problem, but just a fact of life. However, report cards and grades are just reminders that children have been standardized despite their differences. It is easy to understand how lessons, and units can be differentiated, but when it comes to tests and grades it can become a little confusing. The book gives some good examples on how to grade students in the most accurate way possible. The first suggestion is that grading should be based on specified learning goals, and standards. If a teacher is working with the UBD method this one should come pretty easy. Another idea is that grading needs to be done with a criteria or rubric. This way a teacher can use the rubric and know that they are not just grading assessments on which one was the “best”, but on how well they met the criteria. I feel that as a teacher I will most definitely have a rubric when grading. This way if a complication comes up I will have notes to support my decisions, especially if a parent gets involved. It will also help me from being bias and all students will be graded on the same format allowing them an equal chance. I also know that even though the UBD method can be a lot of work it will help with reaching all the important standards. It is the best way to organize assessments and lessons to make sure students are learning everything that they will need to know.

Johnny Buys
Tomlinson and McTighe set up the proper approach to grading under the guidance of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction. They first note that grade has two parts: “assigning symbolic letters or numbers at the end of a specified time to serve as a summary statement about evaluations made of students’ performances during that portion of the learning cycle,” as well as, “reporting the evaluation(s) to students and parents” (129). These factors involve factors like communicating with audience, feedback that promotes understanding, and future learning success (129). Following this understanding of grading, Tomlinson and McTighe detail six guidelines to effective grading; the first of which is, “grades and reports and should be based on clearly specified learning goals and performance standards” (129). As a future teacher, creating clear guidelines is pertinent to fostering student success. The authors also argue for valid evidence used for grading (130). Without valid evidence the teacher has no right to distribute the grade or demand evidence from students. “Grading should be based on established criteria, not on arbitrary norms,” argues against curve grading for bell curves in favor of J-curve (130). They are also hesitant to use mean averages due to their lack of resistency (132). Tomlinson and McTighe encourage that “not everything should be included in grades” (131). This principle is effectively commented on saying, “grades should be derived largely from the results of summative assessments carefully designed to allow students to demonstrate accumulated proficiency” (131). Finally, Tomlinson and McTighe encourage teachers to remember that “grades reflect an unknown mixture of multiple factors” (133). Grading should always be reflective of consideration for understanding.

Christina L Quach
Chapter 8 of UbD focuses on grading. Tomlinson and McTighe talk about when a teacher should not grade a student. While doing pre-assessments or formative assessments they say students should not be graded. This is because the teacher is assessing what they know before being educated, or the partial amount of content knowledge that they have acquired. Another way that many teachers have graded is to combine grades that do not have anything in common so that they can give the student one grade. This means that the grade a student gets per semester, quarter, etc., is based not only on what they have learned, but also it is combined with things like participation and attendance. One student’s grade can fall down because of attendance when another student who does less work is there every day and receives the same grade. Also the authors discuss grading students based on how much they’ve learned. All students come to class with knowing either little, a lot, and every spot in between about the subject. A student who knows it all could get a high grade while learning nothing. A student who knew nothing at the beginning, but still has not acquired the knowledge of the know it all student would not get as high of a grade. That is why it is important to grade based on the students progress. I think many students would try harder if teachers were grading based on progress. If a student feels like they will not know as much as other students, they might not be as willing to learn as much as possible. The part about not grading pre-assessments will be important as a teacher. They are meant to see where a student is so that they can receive help.

Kyle Kuvaja
Chapter eight of //Integrating Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction// discusses how grading can be effective in a differentiated classroom. This topic is important because many teachers feel that it is difficult to be encouraging to students and still be an effective evaluator. Tomlinson and McTighe believe that grades should mainly be giving excellent feedback to students, parents, and others. The authors then transition into discussing six important principles. They believe grades should be created with goals in mind, grades should be based on valid evidence, teachers should grade when students have criteria, teachers should not have a class composed entirely of graded work, there should not be any grades based on the average, and make sure that grades reflect achievement only (133). Once these six principles are in effect then the grades need to be reported efficiently. Tomlinson and McTighe feel that it is important to report achievement, progress, and work habits. The end of the chapter is about finding ways other than report cards to evaluate students. As I read the chapter, I had a thought in the back of my mind that in a few years the information will not be all that helpful. We have been learning that Maine schools intend to get rid of grades by the year 2017. I suppose that it will be useful for the sake of knowledge. One interesting part of the chapter involved the authors advising against grading based on averages. I remember that many teachers would grade on a curve over the years. Now that I think about it, this goes against the whole direction that the schools are trying to go in. Many schools want to get rid of grades and teach students to meet certain milestones. The curve helps students that may not have fulfilled certain requirements.

Richie Johnson
Chapter eight of //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design// highlighted the basics of grading. I found this chapter to be terribly interesting as grading is an aspect of education that I really don’t have my grips about and consequently spend a lot of time pondering. Over the years I have witnessed plenty of examples of poor grading that, even before my process of learning about education, I knew were wrong; I am pretty sure that I have a strong idea as to what constitutes poor grading. However, I am not entirely positive about what represents “good” grading. There are many instances where I have felt that a teacher graded appropriately, or where I have liked a teachers approach to grading, but ultimately I am unsure about the whole thing. I appreciated most of what Tomlinson and McTighe had to say in this chapter, and know that when (if ever) I have to grade a student or a class, I will refer back to this book in order to do so. But, I am not sure that I like the idea or notion of grading in general. For some reason I cannot seem to get past the thought that grading is a form of labeling. Assessing is undoubtedly important, and feedback is undoubtedly necessary, but labeling or “grading” as an end to it all seems loony. A friend of mine told me about a teacher who she has that, on the first day of class, gave every student a paper with an “A” on it, and announced that this was each student’s grade unless they demonstrated otherwise throughout the class. I sort of like this idea, but I am not able to really render any thoughts as to why. In another case, I had an English teacher my senior year of high school (who I thought was amazing) who did not ever grade anything throughout the entire year, but instead gave huge amounts of feedback. If the assignment was to write an essay, each student would do it over and over with the teachers assistance and feedback, until the paper was thought (by the student) to be the best of their ability. At the end of the year I was assigned an “A” on my report card for his class. I liked this experience, but again am not able to really deliver any reasons as to why.

Kalib Moore
Chapter 8 of //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design// discusses grading and reporting students’ achievements in the classroom. Tomlinson and McTighe identify six principles to effective grading and reporting. Essentially, Grades should be based on learning goals and performance standards and based on established criteria. Grades should not be an average but a collection of sources for evidence. Everything should be valid, but not all information needs to be included. And above all else, grading and reporting should be focused on achievement. (Tomlinson & McTighe 129-133) This is something I would want to integrate into my classroom, because I think that it is important to encourage students with grades, not put them down. Tomlinson and McTighe point out that a child struggling with his grades will continue to struggle with his grades because he will never have the confidence to use his abilities to succeed. Another part of the chapter I found interesting was the part discussing different ways to report grades back to parents and students. The authors say that the best way is to use multiple tools as a reporting system to both parents and students. With multiple forms of feedback both the parents and the students are going to be more aware of how the student learns. This is something that I would want to integrate into my classroom because it is harder for a student to figure out what he earned in the class based off of a number or letter. The student wants feedback as to what he or she excelled in or in what areas he or she needs improvement.

Tyler Oren
Chapter eight of //Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design// detailed grading with differentiation in mind. First, authors Tomlinson and McTighe discuss appropriate grading and the procedures that follow successful grading into six key principles. The first principle recalls previous chapters and the principle of backwards design and its role in creating clearly defined standards for goals to display before even getting into the assignment. Simply put, the grade should reflect the student’s level of mastery or understanding of the key concepts covered in the unit. Principle four stuck out notably from the rest, it stresses that teachers do not grade every single assignment that passes from student to their desk, the goal of instruction is that a student grows and learns, good grades should come second, use assignments that assess formative understanding for just that, assessment. Teacher should use these to learn themselves about the abilities and level of preparedness of their students and design a curriculum based off that. Once Tomlinson and McTighe discuss what they consider appropriate and accurate grading they move on to introducing differentiation to their principles. Tomlinson and McTighe stress the importance of ideas expressed back in chapter five of using a photo album of assessment rather than a single snap shot that never really shows the full story or progress of a student.

Evgeni Bouzakine
Chapter eight of the UbD/DI deals with ways to grade your students. There are interrelationships between the backward design, differentiation, and grading. The chapter has six principles that we should all take into consideration when grading. The one that stuck out the most to me was that grading should stick to specific criteria. I do not know how professors grade papers without a real rubric. The grading is all over the place. But if there is specific goal that is met, it is easier to grade students this way throughout the year. Students want to know what is expected, and as long as they know that, then they will try to fit those criteria. Grading on a curve sounds like every teacher out there I know. Personally the curve has helped me through a couple classes that were difficult in High School. I know there is a benefit to this style of grading. Even though it is not the preferred method in the book, I will still use various ways of grading kids. We want our student to know how they are progressing in the classroom. It is not fair to our students to think they are falling behind or are not doing well in the classroom. We have to give the students some kind of feedback. Timely feedback would be more preferred rather than longer periods in between.

Brittany Blackman
Chapter 8 explains how to grade while keeping UbD and DI in mind through six principles. The first principal says that the grades you give out should be based on the goals you established in the beginning. I don’t really understand how //else// you would do it. Principle two says that we need to eliminate anything that might conflict with the students’ ability to demonstrate their mastery. In other words, it isn’t fair to give a student a poor grade because they didn’t write legibly. I think a lot of places are starting to do this anyway. The most prominent example would be allowing students more time when they need it. The third says that we should stop grading on a bell curve and start grading on a J shaped curve. That way, more students have the chance to do well. I’m not sure if I really understand what they mean by this. I would need to look into it more. The fourth says that you shouldn’t include formative assessments in the students’ final grades. I do believe the book talked about this before, but maybe it’s just so obvious I just think that. Of course you shouldn’t include formative assessments in their grades! Formative assessments are done so the teacher can see how the students are doing and change their instruction accordingly. You wouldn’t receive a fair judgment if the students knew it would affect their grade. The fifth principle says you shouldn’t average all of the grades in order to get the final grade. I thought this was very interesting, and ironic. I have never heard of anyone doing something like this until the other day. My math professor (Nick Koban) explained how he does grades just yesterday. He said if he looks at all of your test grades and quizzes and final, and you mostly have A’s and B’s but one test you have a C or D or even F, he will look at your final and see if you have proven you know that material now. He said he understands that sometimes you aren’t at the top of your game, and it isn’t fair to let one bad day weigh down the rest of your grades. If you clearly know the material on the final, he will give you at least half points back on the test you bombed. I think this is an amazing idea. It isn’t fair to penalize children for having a bad day.