FIAE+B2+Chapter+6



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Abstract
Chapter six of //Fair is Not Always Equal// focuses on how to create a test that actually tests students’ understanding of the material. A test should not be ambiguous or fool the test taker, so the prompts should be very clearly stated. Wormeli also writes that tests should not be timed because by giving a student a time limit they will be put under pressure. Traditional and nontraditional methods should be used as well in order to create a balanced test for the student. Wormeli also suggests to find ways to cut down on errors, such as actually writing out the words "true" and "false" so there is no way to misread the students' answers. Another suggestion Wormeli gives is to have the missing word for "fill in the blank" sections be the last word of the sentence. This makes it easier for the student to understand what the question is asking. In summary, chapter six of the book emphasizes the importance of creating a test that assesses the students' understanding by creating tests that are straight forward, varied, and do not simply ask the student to recall memorized information.

[|Synthesis Cara]

Most of us have taken a test that included a "trick" question or had a time limit. When we are in the classroom, we must remember how we felt when taking tests and remember why we are giving the test. A test should not consist of only one style of questioning. [|Multiple choice] questions are okay to use if they are worded correctly and do not make up the majority of the test. A lot of students prefer multiple choice questions only because they can pass without understanding the information. [|True and False] questions can also be used because these can test a students understanding of a lot of material in a short period of time. However, short response answers should also be included because they allow the student to show how strong their understanding is of a subject while multiple choice or true and false questions give students a chance to simply guess.

Kirsten
Again, like in the MI book, we have an example of a totally ambiguous multiple choice question. FIAE offers a different look at how we can create test questions that actually test our students knowledge, not their educated guess abilities. I think a lot of the suggestions were really obvious, and probably things that we have been saying for YEARS. Like, making prompts clear--when a student only has so much time to answer a question, they can't sit there and brainstorm ideas on how to answer a vague prompt. I like how the example in the book gave a specific question AND allowed students to have some sort of choice in what they wrote about. I could also appreciate the seconds on length and tests being timed. It feels like the longest tests are always the ones where you have the least amount of time to work on them. If students feel pressured to fill out what feels like a never ending packet of questions, they aren't going to take the time to really think about all those carefully planned out lessons you created. They're just going to write down the first thing that comes to mind that sounds reasonable and then move on. If students feel like they have ample time to really get into a question, then I think they will.

Jordan
As Wormeli beings this chapter, he examines what makes a good test question and ultimately, a good test. The key component to this chapter is how to format questions in a way that increases the demonstration of mastery while decreasing the margin of error for students. A clear and concise combination of traditional and nontraditional questions creates a more meaningful assessment than a test that relies solely on teacher generated response. In addition, Wormeli suggests that making the test efficient for students (by having “true” and “false” written out for them, organizing matching into two rows, etc.) and by making prompts clear, there is less confusion about what exactly is expected from the students on the test. One of Wormeli’s main concerns is the student: is the test that the teacher created going to measures that student’s mastery of content accurately? I feel that my teachers were sometimes apathetic towards creating test questions that demonstrated my knowledge of the material; I often found myself asking, “When did we learn this skill?” during a test. I feel that it is important for teachers to take the time to create an exceptional test so that students can work to achieve their full potential. As a future teacher, I intend to be very conscious when making a test.

Sarah
To quote author Rick Wormeli, “every test question should be important enough to ask and clear enough to answer” (pg 75) and that, in essence, is what Chapter Six was about. Too often teachers create test questions that do not primarily address the content. Rather, they design problems and prompts that require an ability to decode the misleading wording and other such sly tricks. By varying the types of questions, keeping the test brief, presenting questions in a clear and direct way, and giving students the opportunity to access their grades in a timely manner, we can enable our students to perform well on tests while genuinely assessing their mastery of the content. One skill mentioned in this chapter that I believe I will use in my own class was mentioned on page 77. The book suggests that students write down their answers twice, one copy to turn in and one copy to keep. When the answers are announced, students know immediately how well they did on the exam. I believe this method provides an instant gratification for the students after hours of studying and also gives them an idea of how their efforts are effecting their grades.

Brittany
Tests and assessments are used to explore what each student has achieved for knowledge. Teachers have the important task of creating these tests and assessments so that they correctly reflect if the students have learned the material. There are different steps that the teacher can take to make test taking less stressful for the students. Things such as making shorter sections, grouping like sections together, and putting blanks at the end of the sentence are all helpful for students. Fast turn around in grading is also very helpful for the students to learn from their mistakes. A positive post-test activity is to review the correct answers of the test with the students. The students are more likely to remember the correct material if it is presented to them while it is fresh in their mind.

Leah
As with all parts of this book, differentiation is the key to success and clarity is the lock smith. Well, maybe that metaphor wasn't really that great, but the point is a good test question doesn't come from tricky wording to make sure a student is paying attention, at test question is supposed to assess what level of mastery the student has achieved for that subject. I can remember clearly a teacher who made her test questions "efficient," "short," and "fun." She add our names and common anecdotes from the class, so that the material we were being tested over felt like it could be used at some point in an environment outside of high school. Where as for every other teacher's tests I don't remember their style of questions, and it is highly likely I don't remember the material that was covered on the test.

Corinne
Chapter six is all about testing, and making testing a tool of learning and assessing fairly. The main idea was mixing "conventional testing" with "unconventional testing". conventional is multiple choice, true/false, and short answer. unconventional is making diagrams or illustrating. Multiple intelligences doesn't just apply to learning, it applies to how students best display their knowledge. If you incorporate this idea into your tests, with multiple types of questions, you get a better picture of what they know. This chapter gave a lot of good advice for teachers about creating tests, it stresses writing clear questions, making sure there is time, and thought provoking questions instead of guessing ones. All of the chapter outlines how to make testing interesting, which is something as a teacher I will listen to and try to do.

Ryan Snowman
This chapter discusses way to create good test questions. Some ways to create good test questions include; using a variety of questions and prompts, making the questions efficient for students, making prompts clear and concise, making sure questions assess what you want them to assess, and putting some into questions. These are just a few of the many ways to create good test questions. Using a variety of questions and prompts ensures that teachers get a better picture of mastery and understanding. Making the questions efficient for students is a way to ensure that their assessment experience is not confusing and tiresome. Making prompts clear and concise ensures that students do not have to guess at what the teacher wants for an answer. Making sure questions assess what we want them to assess is important because we do not want to trick students. Finally, putting some fun into questions is a way to incorporate a students name in a test and can make the questions much more interesting. These seem like great and effective ways to make good test questions, ways that I will be sure to use when I develop tests. I had a teacher who put names of students in her questions, and they were humorous, so it was an effective way to relax and ease the pressure of an exam.

Ryan
Chapter six of //Fair isn’t Equal// presents making up test questions and making sure that questions are clear and precise and also a variety of prompts. Students need to know what is going to be on their teacher’s exam and teachers need to make sure that their test does not play games with their student’s success. Also having fun with making assessments is important for the teacher and the student. Ways to do this is include humor in an assessment by having a students name in one of the problems or even adding a random answer to a multiple choice question. As a teacher I will make sure that my assessments are clear and have a variety of prompts and have some humor to ensure that my students understand the content.

Mykayla
This chapter was about how to make good test questions. However, some of the ideas mentioned seem to only make the test easier, like the order in which a teacher puts matching questions. I don’t see why it matters to put the sentences on the left and the words on the right. All it seems to me is that the student doesn’t have to think as hard. One of the ideas I loved in the chapter dealt with short quiz questions. The students write the answer done twice, once to pass in to the teacher and the other to keep for themselves so they can instantly know if they are correct of not. This seems like a perfect idea for math quizzes so they can know exactly which questions they got wrong so they can try to figure out what they did wrong.

Jennie
I found this chapter very helpful. Just having the ideas for the nontraditional test questions (drawings, performances, diagrams and analyzing a real world situation) and traditional questions (true/false, matching, fill in the blank, and essay) was really good. The idea of times test has always been a hard thing for me. I, myself, was never any good at them. With a time limit hanging over your head, its hard to concentrate on anything other than the clock.

Drew
Tests are not something I typically reflect on over a cup of tea. Of course, I am not in the shoes of a professional yet. I am working on it, but I'm not quite there. Despite that fact, I was very intrigued by this chapter. It made me think of tests that I have done in the past. Lengthy tests were always very difficult because they did not offer me much time to think to myself about how I wanted to answer individual questions. My focus was more on getting the test done in a timely fashion while answering in mediocrity. I can see now how it affected my scores as well as how it affects all students. Clarity is also very key. A vague question is what it is-- difficult for the student to interpret. Is it fair to ask a question that is hard to answer not on the basis of the knowledge and understanding needed but instead on the fact that it is difficult to comprehend? Tests should be made easily and conveniently for students to answer, not difficult to dig through, and not on a short time period. Time, length, and convenience are all very important factors in assessments.

Tim
Chapter six was all about creating successful, efficient tests while avoiding questions that could potentially confuse students. I fully agreed with Wormeli when he mentioned multiple-choice tests having “no life in a successfully differentiated classroom.” In no way does a multiple-choice test fully gauge a student’s mastery or knowledge of a subject. It doesn’t allow students to think outside of the box or exhibit their entire set of test taking skills. Wormeli had some very good ideas on how to keep a test running smoothly and avoiding confusion on both the teacher and students part. (Like by formatting the test to prevent the test taker from having to flip the pages back and forth causing unnecessary confusion). The chapter also made sure to mention that as a teacher, you have to make sure that the questions you ask do not stray from the goals of the curriculum. This chapter will definitely affect my classroom and the way I conduct myself within the classroom, the chapter was able to clarify many areas of test formatting and questioning that I will be able to use in the future.

Rachel
Out of every chapter, I think that chapter 6 made the single greatest impression on me. I remember past tests I’ve taken, where teachers seem to be trying to trick students with their questions. This chapter gave me so many great ideas and techniques to use in my classroom. One piece of advice that stood out to me is that I should be determining a student’s mastery when giving a test, not their ability to guess. This chapter made me excited to teach.

Cara
The author lets the reader know that it is effective to include both traditional and non-traditional questions in tests. A lot of my high school teachers actually did this. The tests I’d take would include multiple choice, true or false, short response, and essay questions. Sometimes all of these were in one test. The reason I liked multiple choice was because even if I did not know the material, I could still eliminate answers and pass the test with flying colors. This is not a good thing because there’s no way that I would retain that knowledge, because I simply guessed! Essay and short answer reponses are a good way to know what a student knows and what they do not know because the answer is not right in front of them. The little suggestions, like actually having Ts and Fs on true/false sections of a test, were helpful for me to read. I like the idea of including two special questions for students. My physics teacher would ask us on a test, “What did you study that was not on the test? Create your own question and then answer it.” This was great for me because I would study so hard using the study sheet the teacher gave us and a lot of what I had studied was not on the exam. This way, students won’t feel like they ‘wasted’ their study time.

Scott
When designing tests, it's important to mix both traditional and not-so-traditional questions and prompts. Interpreting questions would are good examples of constructive response sections on a test. When making a test, act like you are the test taker, the assessment should test how well a student knows the content, not their stamina. A test should not be assessing how well a student takes tests. Avoid giving timed tests, in most cases the restrictions impede accurate data collection since students have anxiety about when time will be up, it becomes a test time management. The most accurate assessments of how well students have learned content are small and given over time. the most important lesson to learn from this chapter is to make test simple and efficient. Students should not get bogged down by the intensity of our questions, and we should not feel burdened by correcting the tests we give.