Chapter Seven Post

                   Chapter seven is no exception in that it is a richly covered chapter. It is all about assessment. The first thing that struck me was the assessment cycle models that were presented in the video. I truly believe that as a middle school teacher this is important to keep the assessment cycle in mind to help make sure that your students are actually learning what you want them to learn or accomplish. The one I identified the most with was the identify, assess, interpret, improve.
                     The second thing that I noticed about the chapter was that there are three critical types of assessment that need to be done. The first one is the pre-assessment. Then it's the formative assessment. Then the final one is the summative assessment. All three of these are used, and should be used, throughout so as to always make sure that your students are understanding and on the page you want them to be so to speak. I truly believe too that we as middle school teachers need to remember that all three of these work together.
                       A third thing that stood out to me about this chapter was the criterion-referenced versus norm-referenced grading. Its important to remember the difference in these because if you use the wrong kind of grading than you could be sending a wrong message.  Especially with my teaching style and philosophy I don't want to encourage competition or discourage cooperative learning. This is why the authors even stated that using specifically norm-referenced grading is not recommended for those exact reasons.
                       A fourth thing that I got from this chapter is the power of students being involved in self-assessment. I think this goes right along with my philosophy and teaching style as well.This is because it makes me as a facilitator, helps the students by having them take responsibility, and it lets them have control over their own learning. As middle school teachers, I feel self-assessment is an extremely useful tool that we need to use more often. Students, especially at the middle school level need to take more initiative in their learning and this is the perfect opportunity for them too. An example of this is having them save their papers and grades from nine weeks, etc. and have them calculate their own grades. Another example of this would be to proofread their papers and correct them themselves.
                       A fifth thing that I really liked from this chapter was the chart that talked about testing and alignment with Bloom's taxonomy. I think it is important for us to remember how to challenge our student, especially middle school level, when we are constructing their tests. This is truly a way for us to delve into how their higher level thinking is about what we just taught them. So, in that regard, I absolutely believe that we need to make sure that we are using higher order thinking questions on their tests.
                     A sixth thing that I took away from this chapter is three avenues for assessing my students. The three are what the student says, what the student does, and what the student writes. I truly believe that all of these ways are important. I also think that truly assessing my students will mean that I am using and assessing a mixture of the three. This means that I feel like if I am only assessing one of the avenues, then I am not seeing the other two and I believe that all three work together.
                  Overall, this chapter has so many great things in it that I couldn't even begin to cover it all. I am so pleased with all that I have learned not only from this chapter, but throughout this whole course. I cannot believe that this is my last blog of the semester. It seems like just yesterday I was starting this and now I am done. Also although it may be over, I will certainly take everything I have learned course wide and use it in my future middle school classroom!