Chapter 8 - Effective Assessment

I love the story this chapter starts out with the story of Danny’s success. I think that this example starts to answer some of my questions of how I can use differentiated instruction effectively. What I like so much about Danny being able to use his guitar, as his final assessment over the Outsiders is that this teacher pulled creativity into her classroom effectively and it produced a very positive outcome for the students. I like how the teacher said that he wanted to know if Danny understood the book. I think that is something that is so important when testing in any way, shape, or form. I want to see what my students understand, not how many bubbles can they guess on or try to fill in the correct ones. I really like what Danny did because it shows that he didn’t just quickly read the book and then forget about it. He did some critical thinking and was able to express the book in a different way that showed the underlying meaning the book got at. I would love to read this passage to my students if I ever have them read The Outsiders and show them how they can be creative yet effective at expressing the book.
I loved the passage that said: “assessment should promote learning, not just measure it”. This is now my new favorite quote and a great mentality to keep in mind. Another quote this chapter had that I don’t think is as easy to follow is: “Good assessment is rigorous and therefore motivating.” I can think of some student that I know that the second they see work that is any bit challenging, they shut down. If work is rigorous for them, it is not motivating. I think a better quote would be that good assessment is rigorous yet captivating, and therefore motivating. The hard challenge for teachers is to find a way to captivate and manipulate students into doing something by making it seem worthwhile to them and worth putting some effort into. That is the key; otherwise you will always have those 5-7 students who refuse to do any hard work and just whine saying that it is to hard. They won’t be motivated easily.