Chapter 4

This chapter talks mainly about three different types of assessment and they are portfolios, rubrics, and self assessments. Portfolios are used to show a students progress over a long period of time and they contain many works of the student. Say if you were to take a test you could have a bad day and fail the test. The portfolio shows that you had a bad day, but it also shows that you understand the material. You can never judge a person on one thing. It needs to be a series of things in order to get to the truth. Rubrics are also a big part in assessing a students work and allow room for feedback. When a student is given a rubric they know what to expect for a grade on the project and it allows them to work hard to get the better grade because they don't have to guess at what the teacher wants. They know what they need to do and they do it. Some teachers don't like to create rubric because creating a rubric is a long process. The only way to get better at creating a rubric and getting better student work is to make several drafts so that you get clearer. The last part of the chapter talks about self assessment and how it provides feedback to the students and how it allows the teacher to set individual goals for the student.

All of us in the group understand these three things and we all believe that we will incorporate these things in our classrooms on at least a weekly basis. The most liked assessment of the three is having the students create a portfolio of their work. We are all human and we believe that we are entitled to have a bad day and possibly a bad test score. By doing the portfolio we believe that we can eliminate the feeling that students have when they see a low grade on a test. This way the student knows that all the little pieces make up the bigger picture. We all have had a teacher that just gives tests and doesn't do anything else. We all felt ashamed about having the bad grade. With a portfolio you can say yes I did get a bad grade, but I have the ability to fix it and get a better overall grade. We want the student to believe that we are there to help them and we are. We want to see all of the students excel in whatever they do. We also do like the idea f using rubrics. We want the children to have an idea of what they need to do and we also believe that you need to show them examples of what you are looking for. As a group we didn't have a whole much to say about self assessment other than we think that they are important and that they can't be the only form of assessment. We like this because it shows students what they need to improve on! When it was all said and done we all agreed that this chapter was one of the best that we have read since the start of the semester!