Chapter 8 Abstract and Synthesis

Abstract (Ted):
Chapter 8 of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction was about grading and reporting achievement. Grading serves two primary roles in our classroom: simplifying students’ work into a single summarizing letter and letting parents, students, and administrators know how students are doing in the classroom. The chapter contends that for grades to be useful, they must meet 6 guiding principles for effective grading and reporting:

• Grades need to be based on learning goals and performance standards
  
• Evidence used for grading should only measure the goals and standards being targeted, so avoid relying on extraneous variables
  
• Grading should be based on an established criteria, ruling out grading on bell curves or mandatory grade assignments.
  
• Grading and assessment should not be confused – while everything should be assessed for learning, not everything needs to be graded
  
• Grading based on averages is a poor indicator of student learning
  
• Achievement is the main item to report, so keep it separate from unrelated items in grading
  

The chapter goes on to say that differentiating instruction is very important, so grading two different types of learning can be difficult. Therefore, it becomes important to report standards and differentiation rather than one or the other. The three items that the book suggests reporting are achievement of goals, progress towards goals, and work habits. The reporting systems the book endorses are ones that capture these three traits, although it concedes that many districts require report cards and more traditional practices.
Synthesis:
The entire class seemed to agree on the three items that the book suggests reporting: achievement of goals, progress towards those goals, and, to some degree, work habits. We were all focused on the student reactions to grades and trying to downplay the importance of grades relative to learning in our classrooms, which is one of the things that the chapter supports. I found a website that mentions these same topics – downplaying the importance of grades in students’ eyes – along with offering valuable information on other practical elements of grading in our classrooms. It offers yet another six functions of grading, mostly ones that hadn’t been discussed in great detail in the chapter.
The reporting of grades to students and parents was another topic we worried about when it came to our own classrooms. We mostly all supported the standards-based grading and reporting rather than mere activity-based grading. It’s clear that the rest of the country, at least outside the field of education, is on the fence about standards-based grading. I found a page from an Iowa administrator resource site about a shift to standards-based grading encouraging administrators to have faith in the new system, reminding them that research will continue to support standards-based grading.

Chapter 8: Grading and Reporting Achievement

Chapter 8 of Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction dealt with grading and reporting achievement. It is perfectly reasonable for parents to want to know how their children are doing, as much as it is important for students to receive informative and helpful feedback on their work. The chapter emphasizes that it’s important, however, not to let the grade get ahead of the assessment. The purpose of assessment is to measure a student’s achievement. While reporting and recording this has value both when examining a particular individual’s development and looking at statistics about achievement, the main value of assessment (to teachers, anyway) is to know what needs to be done better. Of course, grading is the part of assessment that teachers face the most pressure about – it is grades, after all, that determine if a student goes to college. That is why the principles of grading are so important. Grading with valid evidence on established criteria is important so students can understand the fairness of grading, rather than succumbing to suspicions of favoritism or arbitrary randomness. The warning to stay away from raw averages is also valid. The emphasis on reporting systems that support standards and differentiation is good for students because they get assessment of their achievement that suits them, rather than judging a dog by horse standards, for example.

Chapter 12: MI and Cognitive Skills

Chapter 12 of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom focused on a series of topics such as memory, problem solving, Blooms levels of cognitive complexity, and other ideas. The section that stuck out most to me was the one on Christopherian Encounters – those special rare moments when you suddenly realize that something you’ve been sure about was a misconception. Those moments are rare, but I honestly believe that that is the most helpful part of learning something new. I really appreciate the value of the tables in this book, and the table on Bloom’s six levels of Educational Objectives was really helpful – it’s good to think about how you can get things to stick in students’ minds not so they can rattle them off, but so they understand them. The memory section was really good too – making sure that students can pass a test is one thing, but to make sure students fully understand and can use information is another story entirely.

Chapter 11: MI and Special Education

It was really cool to hear special needs reframed as a growth paradigm instead of a weakness. I hadn’t really thought about how intelligence difficulties besides linguistic and spatial aren’t regarded by the majority with the same severity as those two. The table 11.1, which emphasized translating the traditional views of special education to a growth paradigm, was really interesting. I particularly liked the part about maintaining the individual’s integrity. Figures 11.2 and 11.3 were really eye-catching and absolutely fascinating. The high achieving people were really amazing to think about, and the suggestions for dealing with difficulties in different fields by empowering different intelligences were really helpful. I really hope that knowing this will lead to fewer referrals to special education classrooms, because I feel that isolation, in most cases, is bad for everybody involved and self-esteem is vital.

Chapter 8: MI and Classroom Management

Chapter 8 of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom discussed using the multiple intelligences as a means of managing classrooms. Many of these techniques I’ve seen used before – the summer camp I worked at made extensive use of kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal techniques for getting the attention of students. Managing individual behaviors is one of my fears, and I hadn’t thought of many of the ideas given in the chapter (Some of them would have come in very handy over the summer)! The chart that the chapter supplied was really a great summation of what the chapter was discussing. Aggressive, withdrawn, and hyperactive children have always tested me and made me doubt my ability to help them, but now that I know more than one outlet for dealing with it, I feel a lot more confident.

Chapter 5 Abstract and Synthesis

Abstract
Chapter 5 of Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design focuses on considering evidence of learning in diverse classrooms. The chapter starts by pointing out three key principles of effective assessment. The first assessment principle deals with looking at assessment as a photo album, rather than a snapshot. This means that it's better to have a wide, deep assessment sample rather than a single item of assessment. It was once said that "genius relies less on flashes of brilliance than it does on just plugging away." Photo album assessment means that there is more than one form of assessment for each content standard, and they should come from different intelligence areas. The second assessment principle demands that the assessment measure be matched with the goal it is assessing. This is the traditional "apples to oranges" argument. Educational goals can be divided into declarative knowledge (facts and knowledge), procedural knowledge (skills and techniques), and dispositions (attitudes). An assessment measuring dispositions or procedural knowledge will not effectively assess a student who has been instructed with declarative knowledge only. The assessment should always align with the goal being measured. The third assessment principle (which is brought up later in the chapter) demands that the instructor should know why they are using each type of assessment in each case, be it summative, formative, or diagnostic. I found a website that further explains these types.
The chapter makes it a point to further the distinction between inauthentic work and authentic work, ensuring that assessment have a real-life sense of importance to students. The chapter also introduces the GRASPS framework for assessment tasks. This means assessment should have:

• Goal relating to the real world
  
• Role with meaning for the student
  
• Audience from the real world
  
• Situation relating to the real world
  
• Products and Performances that are student generated
  
• Standards to judge performance success (page 70)
  

The chapter then makes it clear that diagnostic assessment is important to teaching. It says that students should be given choices in parts of their assessment, and offers a Tic-Tac-Toe board allowing students a lot of choice in their assessments. The next point the chapter makes is that teachers should make timely, specific, understandable feedback that allows for adjustment. Just as important as teacher assessment is student self-assessment and reflection. Giving students metacognitive abilities helps to solidify learning. A really good website explaining the importance of self-assessment to critical thinking can be found here.

Synthesis
The elements of the chapter that most people pulled out were the three assessment principles and the GRASPS framework for assessment. Everybody understood and agreed that the assessment principles would lead to better evaluation of students' understandings. It seemed to be a very common-sense sort of reading - we all agreed that a student with a certain intelligence preference would better express understanding in an assessment style tailored to that intelligence. The photo album assessment principle strongly stood out in agreement - we all noted that a single impression of a student's understanding will show less about that student than a long-term and comprehensive selection of assessment. The GRASPS framework and assessment principles will be very helpful in our classrooms in guiding our assessment decisions.

Chapter 14: MI and Existential Intelligence

I was really excited to read Chapter 14 of MI in the Classroom, because I’ve always related as an existentially involved individual since before I became heavily interested in music or literature, and have always kept existential concerns at the forefront of my thoughts. It probably didn’t hurt that my human behavior teacher in high school preemptively included this as one of Gardner’s intelligences. I’m glad that the chapter did not dismiss Existential Intelligence as ridiculous, even backing it up in fields like math and science. I really hope that study of existential intelligence develops further. To my own experience, people who identify as existentially intelligent can feel alienated by a curriculum that could seem useless not only to real life, but to something larger than life. There’s a reason many existential thinkers have pushed away from schooling, or sought to educate themselves.