FIAE+B1+Chapter+13


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Olivia Wandelear
The gradebook that made the most sense to me in chapter 13 was the Topic-Based Gradebook Approach, in which the main goals were listed at the top of the gradebook, and each student had about 15 assignments listed on the left side of the page. One assignment may cover more than one topic, so a teacher would put the grade that corresponds to each topic under it. These two grades would not necessarily be the same grade, because the student demonstrated a different level of understanding in each topic from one assignment. A project at the end of the unit would have grades across all of the topics, because it incorporated all of them. This makes more sense to me than grading quizzes less than tests, and tests less than projects. The assignment itself should not hold the most weight, but rather, show accurate understanding under each important topic (or benchmark) that the student needs to understand. Likewise, this leaves room for students to show their understanding in different ways. If an essay about themes is weighted so heavily in the gradebook, and I have students in my class who have a lot of difficulties with writing yet understand themes and their purpose and meaning quite well, I can offer them a different alternative to prove their understanding, such as an intricate mindmap, or several Glogster pages, or even a podcast where they explain themes orally instead of written word. This way, my gradebook format is “responsive to students’ learning differences” (171).

Kay Sue Collins
This chapter deals with choosing a gradebook that suits our needs and gives a good representation of student mastery as well as being a good instrument for informing lesson planning. There were several examples given and they all seemed to be very useful. I was especially struck by the concept that you can make a heading for the standard you want the student to reach instead of the instrument used to determine mastery of that standard. In this way you can change the instrument for individual students and still show a fair demonstration of the students’ mastery. I will have to experiment with all of the different ways of recording and find one that fits my needs.

Erika Tingley
This chapter gave many examples of formats that are used in a differentiated classroom. There is no one-way to keep track of grading so that differentiation is accounted for, however there are some key points that should be noted. Personally I found the idea of keeping multiple grades for various parts of an assignment to be an important aspect. Students may not master everything in an assignment at one time, but it may be apparent that they understand certain concepts that are present. Another point that stuck out to me was the idea of listing assignments according to date. This does not seem to be a hard process, but it would allow me to keep track of the student’s progress over time. I believe that I will use both of these ideas when developing my grade book. I want to account for all that the student has learned and to be able to track it so that growth can be seen.

Ben Villeneuve
Chapter thirteen of //Fair Isn’t Always Equal// focuses its lens on gradebook formats. It talks about listing assignments by date, category, and objective. The last one it talks about, after all of those, organizes assignments by topics. This is one of the most intriguing things in the book thus far, because it asks the teacher to not only put grades into the book differently but to actually grade assignments differently. Rather than giving one grade for a whole assignment, the instructor looks at different competencies demonstrated by the assignment and records different grades for each one. For instance, in a writing assignment involving research, a separate grade might be recorded for spelling and grammar, organization of ideas, and quality of research, along with other factors, depending on what unit the assignment is a part of. I might not implement this style of grading immediately, but it will be something to consider down the line.

Courtney Burns
The basic idea behind this chapter is that there is no one gradebook format that is perfect of the differentiated classroom. I will need to develop a gradebook format that works bests for my classroom and which provides clear and accurate indictors of the student’s mastery. One method that I can use in my classroom is to use benchmark and standards as categories of achievement rather than individual assignments. It is perfectly acceptable for each assignment to have more than one grade because in many cases, assignments are tied to more than one benchmark or standard. By using more than one grade, students, parents and future teachers will be presented with a grade which represents a student’s achievement of reaching a benchmark not completion of the assignment. Grades for individual assignments can be kept in a matrix at the back of the gradebook for reference purposes.

Andy Shorey
Chapter 13 discusses how teachers should set up their grade books and how to determine a final grade for students based upon the grade book. IT goes through many different examples of grade book set ups but the one that most appealed to me was the weighted grade book. I think that certain things should be weighted more than others mostly because I don't think students should be punished for maybe forgetting to do their homework a few times and still doing well on their tests. The book talks about how the final grade should show the mastery of material as opposed to just an average. However it does discuss using the median and the mode of students grades to compute grades and i do like that idea. One thing that the book mentions towards the end of the chapter is that if a student receives a C in the first quarter and an A in the second quarter how to grade that. I think that if the student shows that on the final he understands the first quarter material better you can give him a higher final grade based upon the final and things the student did better on the final that he or she may have done poorly on the first time around.

Tim Grivois
My gradebook must be something I’ve never seen before, because it needs to accomplish so many different things for me. It needs to accurately reflect the effort and mastery put forth by my students on a case by case basis. I am starting to believe more and more this is going to be somewhat impossible, but I will try my hardest. I believe I will be structuring my gradebook longitudinally because I like to see growth over time, and personally, it will be the easiest to keep track of in a traditional academic climate, which I will most likely be placed in. The structure of my gradebook needs to reflect my academic personality so that when it is assessed by administration, they understand what type of teacher I am. For my own selfishness, my gradebook needs to reflect the performances of my students on a level that is easily definable and justifiable by myself in the event that I need to explain it to parents or administrators, or the students themselves. I never want to be stuck in a situation, as I have witnessed, where students or parents have questions about their performance, and the teacher cannot answer them because of poor organizational skills.

Kyle Rines
If there is one thing that you as a future teacher can grab from this chapter it is that there is no one singular good way to format a gradebook. The chapter discusses how to organize your gradebook by date, category, names, and objectives. All of these ways are effective and it is really up to you as the teacher to decide what kind of format to use. I would choose to organize my gradebook by names, so that I can see each student's progression, recession, and all of their work.

Josh
This chapter talks about the importance of having an organized grade book in order to grade for mastery. While there were some different styles introduced, some more complex than necessary, I feel that the best way to organize the grade book is by date. Doing it any other way forces you to space out the grade book in such a way that there is room to add assignments that may get added later. Another important thing to remember is that a lot of schools have adopted the Power School program or some variation of it so the grades are all computerized. This is even more of a reason to keep the grade book in order by date, the computer can sort it the other ways if someone wants to see it set up differently.

Kasey Darnell
This chapter discussed different ways to format a gradebook for the differentiated classroom.There is not one "right" way to do it. Teachers can use a variety of options, as long as it is an accurate rendering of student mastery, it's manageable, and is easily understood by others. Some options are grouping assignments by standards, grouping by category, grouping by topic, and listing assignments chronilogically. Listing assignments by date seemed most appealing to me, not only would it show student achievement over time, but it would be helpful when a student wants to know what they missed if they were absent. Also, I liked the idea of using color coding to differentiate between homework, quizzes, tests, and other assignments.

Caitlin Alexander
Gradebook formats seem to me like a very tedious topic to discuss, but nevertheless one that is important overall to the success of the teacher and the student. I believe that the best form of gradebook format is by grouping the assignments by category or weight. By doing this the teacher can instantly see which forms of assessment the student is excelling or struggling in, and can therefore see if there are any problem areas which may need to be addressed. Some of the other formats I found to be too complicated, such as the topics based gradebook. Having to keep a key for each individual type of assignment, or each assignment in general, seems over-complicated and confusing, and does nothing that the other different types of gradebook formats could do separately.

Dylan Stefani
Grade book formats can be organized in many ways. Through listing assignments by the date, category, or objective, teachers may find themselves just adding in one grade for each assignment. This does not show the learning curve of the student. By taking the overall grade and breaking it down to what you graded on the rubric, students will be able to make an adjustment to their work habit. They will be given more than one grade. This in turn will allow students to see that they need to participate more or focus more on the content than the product. Specific detail is always better then an overall analysis.

Heath
How to store the data collected on a student’s performance? This chapter provides a few different strategies for organizing your grade book. I believe the best way for me to organize my grade book will be by date. This will allow me to spot trends in student performance and reinforce the positive changes or investigate why a student’s grades have dropped. I might incorporate a grouping by category also filtered by date.

Shila Cook
In chapter 13 the importance of grade books is introduced. I agree with the chapter when it suggests that grade books should tell us about each individual student. I feel like the best way to do this is to keep my grade book really organized. I agree that by having an organized system that you do not deter from that system. The other thing that I believe in is change. I don't think that we should keep our grading system the same throughout all of the years I teach. My system needs to change as my students do.

Dan Horne
In this chapter the book talks about the importance of having an organized grading system. Honestly the best bet for me is to invest in an online grading software so that I wont lose my physical grade book which is likely. But other then that I believe that staying organized and keeping the grades organized by assignment and date will keep it the best organized.

Tyler Brookings
This chapter discusses some ways to organize grades may be by objective, by weight, or just by date. As a abstract, I am in no way organized so hopefully I can pull it together for the gradebook. I believe I am going to try many formats before finding the right one. The chapter discussed many ways to go about organizing the gradebook, but I do believe organizing by objectives is a good start, and then maybe incorporating a date system as well. I taught a gym class last semester and I kept my gradebook by name and date. However, Im not sure this will work with assignments very well.