Ch. 9 Making Assessment Meaningful p. 139-145

I have always been a firm believer in journal responses for students to reflect on either their prior knowledge or their current understandings. I have used writing responses in a majority of my classes and I think they give more opportunities for students to reflect on what they want to reflect on. Like it said in the chapter, “almost certainly, not all students were starting at the same place” (p. 140). By not creating any boundaries for students to write about, they are able to reflect and expand on certain aspects that they feel is important. This also allows the reader of the reflections to see what some students are focusing on compared to others, as well as how broad their understanding is or how slim their knowledge base is. It is giving them a basic topic and letting them reflect on whatever they want to reflect on. 

Along with the quote about how not all students start at the same place, the distance they travel during a project is not going to be the same for each student. By establishing anchors, teachers are able to gain a sense of where the students are starting and how far they are going as they work to meet the learning goals. I believe in differentiated instruction because the overall goal of any lesson is to help all the students be successful... not just if they can pass the universal test written for the middle level students. 

I absolutely loved the assessment of the students’ work for Carmel Crane’s class(es). I thought it was an amazing idea to use her graphic and video gaming field friends a call to assess her students work! I completely agree that this experience would be inspiring for the students. I feel that these students would be able to see that these professionals would give them corrective criticism that would only better them and their work for the future. It is one thing to get feedback from teacher(s) and how they grade and critique work but it is a completely different thing to get feedback from actual professionals in that particular field of study, that the students may even be interested in. Such a great way to assess students’ work in real world ways!

I was able to make a connection with the iHistory Podcast Projects by David Fagg and how we were taught to make our own podcast(s) on our topic of choice and the combination of our reading reflections. I felt that this allowed the students to go back and replay podcasts whenever they felt they needed to, which goes along with our podcasts and digital stories, and then the reflective aspect with our reading responses on our blogs. Both of these assignments in our class help us build on to our ability to think constructively and take our learning experiences into our own hands.