As a student in high school and middle school, I remember the idea of assessments (especially those of tests) being incredibly daunting. I had extremely bad test anxiety when in middle school and high school, I understood what I was learning, but the minute that I was left in silence to stare at a piece of paper in front of me with questions and value points indicated on the side, all the understanding went out the window. Many many times, I walked out of a test and as soon as I opened my notebook, I would remember the answer to a question that I had struggled on. Assessment was something that I, as a student, always dreaded, and I was certainly not the only one. I think, that if as a student I had been given more choices and was reminded that if I did poorly on an assessment, that it wouldn’t be the end of the world, I would have moved forward in school with much less anxiety and dread for these assessments.
One of my favorite things in this chapter was the antidote that Wormeli gives in the beginning about Danny, who composed a musical piece instead of writing a summary, because Wormeli knew that if Danny had been asked to write a summary, he would have failed, but Wormeli knew that Danny knew and understood the piece, so instead he was encouraged to do something that would properly show his understanding.
Another thing I loved in this chapter was the part that talks about how teachers should track progress, not just check at the end of the unit or semester. If we track student progress throughout a unit, and check in using conferences or small assignments, we can get a better understanding of what our students do and don’t understand, so we can help them in areas that they struggle with, before the end of the unit assessment.
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