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Abstract
Student assessments are helpful teaching devices because they help to determine if students know and understand the information. It is important to remember, though, that no one test can provide a completely accurate assessment of any student. Instead, “multiple sources of evidence” are required for a reliable assessment (60). This is the first principle of assessing students. The key is to use different assessment forms that appeal to different learning types. The second principle is to match the type of assessment with what is being assessed. Some methods of measuring students’ understanding are not in sync with the skill or knowledge being measured. It is also important to measuring understanding, not knowledge. Ask a student if they know something and they can respond with “yes” or “no.” Ask them if they understand an idea, on the other hand, and an explanation is required. This involves relating a specific piece of knowledge to everyday life. The third principle involves the form of the assessment. There are two main ways to assess. Summative reviews what has already been learned while formative is ongoing throughout the learning process. It is also helpful to encourage students to self-assess, as this can assist learning.

Synthesis (Rachel)
One of the main topics that almost everybody touched on was the principle of using multiple assessments, or a “scrapbook” to determine a student’s understanding, not just a “snapshot.” This is one of the ideas that really stood out to me as well. The class also seemed to gain a deeper understanding of the GRASPS model and how to use it in the classroom after reading this chapter. Another common theme was the use of pre-, formative, and summative assessment. In general, the class believes pre- and formative assessment to be far more successful at determining a student’s understanding.

Kirsten
This chapter dealt with what is involved in effective and responsive assessment. The biggest and most refreshing thing that caught my eye was the idea of a "photo album" look at what a student knows rather than a single "snap shot." A snap shot is something like a high stakes test, where decisions on what a student is capable of is based solely on one product. A photo album, on the other hand, takes several assessments (which could include some sort of test) and uses that to build a series of "images" that explain what a student knows. I don't understand why assessing students' capabilities has ever been done any other way. Taking one day out of a student's education to determine if he or she knows something is foolish, because there are too many extraneous factors at play.

The chapter also discussed authentic assessment/work, pulling the six facets of understanding, which we discussed in class, to explain that teachers need to move beyond the memorization of facts and procedures to introduce ways to help our students more fully experience what they're learning. One of the ways we can do this is by using the GRASPS frame, which involves the teacher creating assessments that utilize real-world goals, roles, and situations that will help produce more salient works that fits the necessary criteria.

Jordan
The chapter “Considering Evidence of Learning in a Diverse Classrooms” focused on how to properly assess students using the “GRASPS Frame” (Tomlinson and McTighe 70), which include a **g**oal, a **role**, **a**udience, student generated **p**roducts, and performance **s**tandards. They suggest that by working this framework into pre-, summative, and formative assessments, the students will be assessed with a “photo album” rather than “snapshot” of their understandings. They continue by discussing when it is appropriate to use this method and suggest that regardless of the assessment being used, feedback is critical. Without feedback, a student does not understand what he or she is doing wrong and sadly, sometimes the feedback comes back too late for correction. As a student, I was given too many formative assessments and not enough pre- and summative assessments. In some of my classes, I never knew how much of the material I understood until I took the unit exam and the teacher provide no way to measure my personal progress in the class. When I did take the unit test, the only feedback I received was a letter grade and a chance to “go over” the test in class. As a teacher, I feel that I will pre-assess my students and help them measure their personal progress by giving them more summative assessments. By providing them with summative assessments and specific feedback, students will be able to identify their mistakes and correct them before the unit exam and by using GRASPS the unit would overall be more effective.

Jennie
One of the big ideas in this chapter is the idea of making a "photo album" rather than a single "portrait" of a student's work. If we give students multiple ways to test their knowledge rather than just one test at the end of a unit we can get a clearer picture of the way the student learns and if they are understanding the information. If we give them multiple ways to test their knowledge, we can also try to determine the student's dominant intelligence as well. We can use a couple of different types of assessments to see how they can express their knowledge best. With this in mind, I can better understand the way my students learn and maybe I can help them understand themselves more.

Leah
Thinking like an assessor is an important aspect of the backward design model, in this chapter we are given three key principles to guide assessments. Taking assessments over a span of time, like an album instead of a snap shot is the first principle. The Second principle is to match measures with goals, under this principle the author distinguishes types of educational goals: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and dispositions. As future teachers the chapter also encourages us to keep the acronym GRASPS in mind for authentic teaching that relates to student's lives. The last key principle is that "form follows function." What I will take away most from this chapter as a future teacher is to do diagnostic assessment, or to pretest my students. I will also try to provide lots of both positive and constructive feedback frequently to my students because as a student myself I know how frustrating it is to not know what I did incorrectly and to keep making the same mistake.

Sarah
Chapter 5 centered on the correct way to assess student comprehension. The first method discussed was the “Photo Album” model instead of the “Snapshot” which suggests that a teacher take multiple examples of student understanding to create an evaluation instead of one test that would most likely give a false representation. One way to give several assessments are using pre-assessments (to gauge students’ prior knowledge on a subject), formative assessments (to gauge the progressive comprehension) and final evaluations (to determine overall absorption of a concept). A passage I found notable was on page 66 where the author mentioned ways that the word “understand” can be used in different context which overall depletes its clarity when establishing direct goals. Therefore, it is better to use such words as “apply” and “explain”, and if a student can do those two things, they have truly mastered a concept. Overall, Chapter 5 provided practical insight to several very beneficial methods of evaluating student’s awareness of a targeted subject.

Brittany
Assessments are used in the classroom to test if each student reached the learning goal that was set by the teacher at the beginning of the unit. Pre-assessments and smaller assessments throughout the unit will be most effective for the teacher to gauge the knowledge of the students at that point in the unit. Through doing this, the teacher can change the course of the teaching style if they are not grasping the information at that point in time. Teachers can tell if their students know the material when they can transfer the information into a new situation or setting. After reading this chapter, I want to include pre-assessments as part of my unit planning. Through pre-assessments, I will know where my students stand on that topic and we can plan to move forward from there. I also like the idea of doing smaller assessments during a unit so I can differentiate my future lessons so all my students walk away knowing the material.

Ryan
In chapter five of //Integrating// there were many interesting topics discussed. These topics included assessing students, feedback, reflection, and offering choices. Something that I learned from this chapter is that it is important to assess students from a variety of ways and not just use one source when testing. Something that I thought was interesting in chapter five was that teachers should allow students to reflect on assessments in order to get feedback for the future. This will impact me as a teacher to listen to my students and get their reflections on assessments. Hopefully this will allow myself to become a great teacher.

Corinne
Chapter five outlines different ways of assessing that are fair and accurate. What I learned from this chapter was that the main point of assessment is to understand whether students are learning, not just not to give them a grade. This understanding will impact me in the classroom because I will assess my students a variety of ways, so that each has the opportunity to show me what they have learned in a way that would exceed. Some students are better at tests while others excel at projects presentations. I also liked the statement in the chapter about how application is a good way of judging a students assessment. If a student can apply the knowledge in a creative manner of their choice, the student gets a chance to show the teacher in their own way what they have learned. This method of assessment also encourages self knowledge and assessment because the student will understand how they best learn and display information.

Rachel
Assessing students is important because it will help me as a teacher to understand what level of knowledge my students are at before learning about a subject and also how much they understand after. There are many ways for me to assess my students. The most popular seems to be standardized testing, but no one method of assessment is useful in providing an accurate understanding of what my students know. I thought that the examples of journals, observation, and self-assessment to be especially helpful in determining the level of my students’ understanding. Just as there are multiple intelligences, there are multiple knowledges that my students can be tested in. The means of assessment should match the knowledge.

Ryan Snowman
This chapter gets into the “nitty - gritty” of assessment. Assessment is very difficult for new teachers. How are we going to know when the students really understand the material we are trying to teach them? The “photo album vs. snap shot” analogy is helpful in answering this question. It is easier to judge a students progress by examining a variety of evidence (photo album) rather than just analyzing a test given at the end of a unit (snap shot). It is also important to keep in mind the purpose of assessment, which can include summative, diagnostic, and formative assessments (p. 71). Diagnostic and formative assessment is very important to student and teacher success because both of those provide information for the teacher to adjust to the progress of the students. It lets the teacher assess responsively. Assessment will be one of my toughest challenges as a new teacher. Using these methods, along with positive, specific feedback and encouraging students to self assess and reflect, I will be successful at gauging what my students understand and have learned.

Tim
Chapter five focused primarily on different forms of assessment in the classroom and how to use different assessment strategies to help promote learning and differentiate between learners. The authors really frown upon using only one test to be the sole assessor of any one situation, which I also fully agree with. The six facets of understanding the authors created were very interesting to read through and helped pull the rest of the chapter together. The authors then continue to go onto four different classroom assessments such as “offering appropriate choices” and “provide feedback early and often”. This chapter will influence me because it has given me a better idea of what it is for a student to truly understand and process information (six-facets) within the classroom. The chapter will affect my classroom because it has given me different ways to assess students in their studies.

Drew
This chapter offered my first introduction to GRASPS (Goal, Role, Audience, Student generated Product, and performance Standards). Prior to this reading, I had very little knowledge of the GRASPS model. From my understanding, I thought GRASPS was a standard frame to use. However, chapter five clarified that this is used typically in the situation that you have something you really want your students to fully understand. Another very useful section of this chapter was concerning assessments. The “photo albums” approach at assessment seems more valid in analyzing how a student is doing. Given different assessments, students may be strong on some and weaker on others. By limiting the types of assessments we use we limit a student’s photo album of intelligence to a mere snapshot, which provides very little crucial information.

Cara
One style of testing is not a good example of what a student knows or understands. I am terrible at taking tests, even when I understand the material. The “photo album” concept is introduced in the chapter and we as teachers are encouraged to use this when assessing students’ work. In high school, I did well on projects and homework, however. The word understand can have so many different meanings, too, that it is difficult to find one way to measure understanding. Also, the chapter introduced "GRASPS". Again, the author emphasized the idea of making concepts relate to the real world and the students’ lives.

Scott
This chapter taught me that when profiling a student, I need to be sure to base judgment on a wide variety of factors and not a single test (photo albums versus snapshots). It is important that we test whether a student understands something, not just if they know. We should be teaching so that students understand big ideas. I was introduced to the GRASPS frame, a useful tool. I also learned that it is important to assess before we teach so that we can gauge previous understanding of a topic. It is also a good idea when assessing student to offer choices that are appropriate for the subject being covered, and feedback on these assignment should be given early and often. The most important piece to remember is that the importance of effective assessment lies more in being able to properly assess ourselves as teachers. This way we will not make the same mistakes.

Mykayla
Test, quizzes, self-assessments, writing projects, and oral responses are some of the many ways I can assess my students’ knowledge about the content being taught. Which one should I use during a specific lesson? I do not want to give my students so many assessments that they feel over whelmed, however, a photo album style of assessing is the most effective in a classroom. Giving multiple ways to view a student’s understanding of a subject is a wonderful idea, I just not sure I can do numerous evaluations for each content area of my class. I believe it would be more beneficial for the students to simply vary the assessments used each time one is needed. The six facets seem like the best way to determine if a student grasps the idea of the lesson. The type of assessment used to determine this information can vary as long as the student displays his or her knowledge.