Chapter 8 UbD/DI: Grading and Reporting Achievement

The Eighth chapter in UbD/DI talks about the difficult task of grading and reporting in a differentiated classroom. The chapter discusses 6 key principles to grading that everyone in the class picked up on. The first one was that grading and reports should be based on learning goals and performance standards. This is so students can see exactly what they're being graded on for each assignment and create better products. Principle two is that our evidence for grading should be valid. This would mean we are not taking other factors into account that could skew a student's grade. Principle three states that grades should based on established criteria. This goes along with the first principle in that in helps students realize what exactly they are being graded over. The fourth principle discourages teachers from grading on averages and especially on bell curves. The book suggests that the J curve is a much more appropriate system to use. Principle five says to focus on achievement and report other factors separately. This is referring to some teachers who include things like participation and such in their grades. These things may have nothing to do with how well a student demonstrates their mastery of a subject yet the are still graded and can have an impact on a students final grade if included. The last principle that is discussed about grading is to focus on the achievements students are making and don't get caught up in the grading process. Ultimately we as teachers will be able to determine what grade a child deserves based on what we have viewed them accomplish with our time with them. The chapter ends by discussing how students grades can effect their motivation to learn and how they view themselves so it's important for our grades to not simply be a letter or a number but we need to give them some positive feedback an make sure they continue to have a desire to learn.

I think that overall the class liked this chapter. For a topic as tedious as grading the authors did a pretty good job making it into something worth reading. Almost everyone in the class commented on something different that stood out to them in the chapter which I thought was interesting; we all saw something which was important to each of us and there was very little overlap. Some people talked about how it made them think back to their own days in high school and reflect on how they were graded. Almost everyone like how the different parts were broken down into the principles and each was explained as to why they were important. I think that after reading this chapter everyone had a really different outlook on grades then prior to reading it, and whether or not they take it wholly to heart I believe most of the class will take at least some of the principles and apply them in their classroom.

Integrating UbD/DI Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of UbD/DI talks about effectively assessing a students work and how does a teacher test for true understanding. It begins by giving three basic principles which are; consider photo albums versus snapshots, match the measure with the goals, and form follows function. Viewing a students progress over time is analogous to viewing a photo album rather then a single snapshot of a person, you get a better idea of who they are with the album. There are three types of educational goals that are distinguished when it talks about matching the measure with the goals and they are; declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and dispositions. The book discusses the challenge we have as teachers to assess for understanding, since understanding can be used in many diverse ways. One way this chapter suggests to frame assessments is through the GRASPSs model which stands for goal, role, audience, situation, products, and standards. The three types of assessment strategies which should be used to assess students include diagnostic or pre-assessments, formative assessments, and summative assessments. Providing feedback for students early and often was key to promoting their understanding of the material as well as providing them opportunities to self-assess and reflect.

I think the class, as a whole, liked this chapter because it gave so many different examples of ways to assess students instead of through standardized testing. One of the things many people commented on was the GRASPSs model because they liked how it let students apply it to a real world situation. Everyone also agreed with having the photo album view of a person's work rather then a snapshot because we felt that you couldn't get an accurate measure of someone from one example of their work.