The whole time I read this chapter I felt like I was back in practicum all over again. The backwards design model, project based assessments, and essential questions are all techniques that I have been practicing for the past two years. It is a very nice feeling to know that my money is well spent on my college education because my professors are up to date on the newest ideas.
One of the major shockers in this chapter was that they recommended using tests as an assessment technique. I guess parents and community members might frown upon schools without these traditional pieces, but I really do not like them as a major assessment. Most students do not test well and it is unfair to judge their conceptual knowledge on a test. I do kind of like the idea of little quizzes maybe before or after a class to gauge students’ abilities with specific skills, especially in a math classroom. Math has a lot of skills that need to be learned, like adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers, multiplying fractions, simplifying equations, etc. These skills are important to a student’s ability to meet the standards and can easily be tested with quizzes. However, these quizzes should not be counted for huge portions of students’ grades because the skills are not the most important part of the class; the conceptual understanding is.
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