FIAE+B2+Chapter+5


 * //Fair Isn't Alway Equal// Chapter 5 Synthesis by Kaitlyn Haase**

Have you ever been bored in class because you did not feel challenged enough? Or on the flip side, have you ever been so overwhelmed and disengaged because you were not at the same readiness level as other classmates? This chapter summarizes the importance of tiering assignments and assessments in order to eliminate those issues that take away from student learning. [|Tiering] is essentially defined as adjusting the complexity and difficulty of tasks based on student readiness. The authors point out that we should always start designing a task at grade-level first, before making adjustments for higher or lower-level readiness. Designing a task starting with lower-level readiness could potentially drop expectations and standards for grade-level and higher-level readiness versions of the task. And on the other hand, designing from higher-level first could set expectations and standards too high for grade-level and lower-level readiness. The authors provide readers with great examples of structures that can easily be tiered; learning contracts, learning menus, tic-tac-toe boards, cubing, RAFTS, change the word, one-word summaries, etc.

In our blogs, many of us wrote about using learning contracts and tic-tac-toe boards in our classrooms. Other structures were mentioned, but those two were most commonly chosen. Some of us shared past experiences of teachers not teaching to our readiness level; whether we were higher or lower than grade-level. We felt as though if the teachers had tiered their assessments and assignments, we would have learned more or would have been more engaged in class. toc

Kassaundra
Chapter 5: Tiering Assessments Before reading this chapter I was unsure of what tiering was when it was referenced previously. Now I understand that tiering means making adjustments based on the readiness levels of the students. When implementing tiering it can be useful to employ Tomlinson’s idea of equalizers, which I think would be beneficial for me to use in my future classroom. This chapter gives many ways for tiering lessons and assignments. The cubing method goes well with Bloom’s Taxonomy or could even go with the six facets. I think this would be a good approach because you know that your students are working towards answering the essential questions of the unit. As a teacher, though, in a high school, I feel like using the cube as a dice might be a little more for younger grades but I would like to explore modifying it so that it would be more grade level appropriate. My favorite suggestions included changing verbs in prompts to make them more motivating and using one-word summaries to spark analysis. As an English teacher I think these would fit perfectly into my classroom.

Bri Douglass
This chapter was all about tiering assessments effectively. I learned to first ask the students to meet the at-grade level standards and then move it up if need be for some students. It also mentioned that to learn new information there are many sub-skills that students must be able to do in order to learn the new material. In my concentration many people have trouble using positive and negative numbers therefore they will continue having problems with higher math. Many students, even my friends in school, had trouble in high school because they didn’t learn to master fractions and using negative numbers. As a teacher I have to tier my assignments so that all students are challenged but also make sure that they are meeting my unit goals. To help them with skills, I would review what they need to be able to use in the unit and continue assessing that they understand these skills. I won’t my students to learn one thing and have to continue using this knowledge throughout the year. I believe all to many times knowledge is learned and used to pass a test and that’s it.

Charli Sayward
I was able to learn many ways of tiering, which means to change how challenging a task is. Some ways to increase the challenge level of a task are to relate the learned material to other concepts, and to make connections to the real world. The learning contracts were my favorite way of tiering because it allows the student to work with the teacher in deciding how and when things will get done. I find this a great way to keep students motivated and on track. The tic-tac-toes boards are another idea I would like to use in my classroom. It gives students a list of activities to choose from and allows the student to decide how they are going to fulfill the requirements. This reminded me of the jeopardy games my math teacher used to have my class play. We were able to choose which category and level of difficulty our questions would come from. Instead of a game, I will create a tic-tac-toe board for my students to choose from when working on projects.

Matt Towle
This chapter discussed ways in which to tier, or scaffold, lessons and assignments. One of the concepts the chapter stressed early on was that teachers should be tiering based on readiness, not based on the usual learner interests and profiles. Students won't always be interested so you have to work on that separately form their ability. The tiering option I found to be the most useful was the RAFT(S) design. I think this design would be the most effective because it allows students to choose what project they want to work on without publicly grouping students based on readiness. If the teacher can coach students to choose the project that best fits them then there is no need to worry about students feeling more or less intelligent based on the group they are assigned.

Darcie Simmons
This chapter discusses the idea of “teiring”. Teiring is a way of “ ‘ratcheting’ up or down the challenge level” (p.56). In other words each student will be at a different level in your classroom and it is your job as the teacher to adjust the challenge on students to have them learn at their level. I found that the two most (I thought) informative ways to do this were learning menus, and learning contracts. Learning contracts can be set up with the teacher and student, and the student is able to work at their own pace and on skills that they, and the teacher, feel need to be worked on. Student menus are a good way to provide teiring in the classroom. Because the students are provided with multiple choices, each of which get more challenging as you read down the list of options. This is helpful for the teacher, because with these options the students get to choose which level works best for them, but it also meets the understanding and knowledge part that the teachers want their students to learn.

Ryan Pelletier
In order to have successful tiering in the classroom you must be able to change the complexity of certain tasks every day. This demonstrates the student’s ability to think deeper about a task, which they otherwise would not have. You can successfully do this by manipulating the information, instead of just providing the students with it. The book has different examples of manipulating information. As a health teacher I could have students think deeper by having a daily question that is relevant to the topic. It will be personal, but I will try to have questions that will hopefully make them relate the material to their personal lives. They can write all their answers in their own journal, that they can keep at the end of the class for them to be able to reference.

Lyzz Stevenson
**Chapter 5**: In this chapter we learned about tiering assessments to challenge students if need be. There were several examples of tiering given in the chapter that could make an assignment or assessment more complex or challenging. Tiering can also be referred to as scaffolding. This is important to do in a classroom as students will grow and use the skills and knowledge learned and apply it to other subject areas. I think that I will use a learning contract in my classroom to show students that we are on the same level of respect and learning. Another thing that I could use in my classroom is the tic-tac-toe activity square. This will help keep me teaching to all kinds of learners using the multiple intelligences.

Alyssa Wadsworth
I liked the idea of starting tiering of assignments and assessments at the standard level and work the students up from there. I have known teachers to start below the standard, and reach the grade level standard by the middle of their class, but if they had started at the grade level standard, the students would have been higher than they were by the end of the class. I have never really heard of tiering but the concept makes sense and impacts me as a teacher because I can easily apply it to my class. Due to the fact that I have not heard of the term, I did not know how to succeed in using it but because I do now, my students will be able to reach a higher achievement than if I had them working toward a standard rather than //from// a standard.

Kelly Steinhagen
This chapter gave good insights as to how assignments and assessments can be tiered, also known as altered to meet the readiness of each individual student. It suggests planning for the on grade-level tier, as to avoid lowering overall standards/essential understandings. This is effective because it leaves room for advancement if there are students that need more challenging assignments, as well as room to break down the understandings so that struggling students can begin to grasp the ideas. I also liked the idea of having learning contracts so that students can individualize projects and give themselves a reasonable time-line. If I were to use this in my classroom, then students will have to take responsibilities for themselves and be innovative thinkers. I would just want to avoid any of this seeming like I am singling out students to do harder/easier work, which might be a misconception that could stem from observant students.

Megan Wallace
In this chapter I learned what tiering meant. I had a vague idea before but never knew exactly what it meant. Now that I know this I realize that a lot of teachers already do this without even thinking about it. Not every student will come into my classroom on the same level. I will have to adapt in order to best help and teach all of them. I plan on starting out at the grade level the students should be at and then making the tasks easier or harder depending on what they need. My students will also most likely come to me on different levels from each other. I will use tiering to challenged and push them all to be their best.

Justin Stewart
Chapter five talked about the concept of tiering. Tiering is used for adjusting the challenge level in assignments. Not every student will be at the same level in the classroom, so this will give all the students a chance to learn the material at their own level. The best classes I have ever been in gave the ability for each student to work on their own level of work. This doesn’t mean that the students were able to slack off if they wanted to but they also weren’t required to do work harder than they were able to do. Tiering is an important skill that I hope to incorporate in all of my lessons and assignments because it will give everyone, no matter the skill level, the ability to do their best work. By encouraging students to work at as high a level as they can, I hope they will push themselves to achieve as much as possible.

Linda McLaughlin
//Chapter Five: Tiering Assignments// Before reading this chapter, I didn’t really know what it meant to tier an assignment. I learned that tiering an assignment is adjusting “assignments and assessments according to students’ readiness levels, interests, and learner profiles” (p.56). However, we should not tier every aspect of the lesson. The chapter gave many examples as to how to tier assignments effectively. This impacts me because I’m still not sure how to tier assignments. I have a vague idea, but I’m very unsure. This is going to impact my classroom, because I’m not going to use it until I’m sure I can use it effectively. Therefore, I have a lot of work to do to be sure I’m comfortable with this concept.

Jenn Baum
Chapter 5: Tiering Assessments Before reading this chapter, I would have guessed that tiering was a way of changing the lessons for some students, making it easier for them to do well in the class by having simpler or more challenging assignments. In some ways this is true; as educators we have to adjust some lessons in order to ensure that we are challenging all of our students at the appropriate level of difficulty. This means that we can tier our classes and make some work more challenging, while breaking down information into smaller bits in order to allow students who are below grade-level readiness to digest the material easier. Instead of lowering your expectations for these students, however, it would be much more effective if you set their standards to grade-level readiness so that way all students achieve the goals that you have set forth. I feel as though some of my high school and middle school teachers watered down the material for some of the students in my classes, while not challenging students like myself who understood the material better. One way to motivate students would be to have them sign learning contracts in which they are able to customize the pace of their learning, but still achieve the same goals as the rest of the class. Using different, more engaging verbs to interest students for different assignments is another way to help encourage students to want to learn.

Taylor Kemp
This chapter is all about tiering assessments. It suggests that this be done for students that are not on grade level ability, whether it be below or above. When this is being done it should not change the objective of the assignment or what the goal (end result) is desired. While doing this, you should start your plan at the expected level and then adjust up or down. Also another thing that was present in this chapter was learning contracts. These are a set of differentiated plans made for a student by a collaboration of teacher and student. The end goal is the same but the journey is different. Both of these practices I'm sure I will implement in my class. Tiering is something that will have to happen. Not every one will be at the same level, so as a teacher it will be my job to help get them there. = =

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Kaitlyn Haase
Chapter 5: Tiering Assessments In chapter 5, I learned about tiering assignments based on student readiness level. There are many examples provided of structures that are “easy” to tier. In my opinion, this does not seem to be an “easy” idea at all. There were however, some examples that I really liked. I liked the idea of Tic-Tac-Toe boards with the student choice option in the middle. I was given an assignment with options in that structure in the past and it was very beneficial. A second example I really enjoyed learning about was the learning contract between teachers and students. These contracts created individual goals and expectations for the students of all readiness levels. The author wrote about some teachers who get intimidated by their first time tiering that they stray away from it. When I become a teacher I hope to persevere even if my first tiering experience does not work out.

Olivia Norris
In chapter five of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, the idea of tiering was discussed. Tiering is a way to adjust the difficulty level in the classroom. After reading this chapter, I know that when I become a teacher I will want to make sure that I am able to use tiering as a way to reach out to my students who need a higher level challenge or a lower level challenge. I know how frustrating it can be to sit in a classroom and complete an assignment effortlessly, and not feel stimulated by the material. With that, I know how hard it can be to listen to a teacher explain topics and assignments that seem so demanding to me, and everyone else seems understands the teacher’s expectations. When I become a teacher, I hope that I will be able to adjust my tiering so that all of my students feel they are getting the best possible education.

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Erin
I learned the definition of tiering in Chapter 5: Tiering Assessments. I had never heard the term before, but now I know that tiering is "how teachers adjust assignments and assessments according to the students' readiness levels, interests, and learner profiles" (p. 56). I also learned that in order to start tiering, the students have to master the standards of the material first. I cannot simply make the assignment harder thinking that my students can handle it; I need evidence. I also need to stay on track because tiering opens many other doors in any topic, so I might rant about something unrelated. When preparing tiering lessons for my class, I will take the advice of the book and write out everything that the students will need to master the more difficult lesson. Also in the chapter were many examples of structures that can easily be connected with tiering. I was really interested in the cubing and tic-tac-toe boards. The tic-tac-toe board gives the students options, and the cube method keeps the students on their feet.