Posted: January 1st, 2020

Follow the guide carefully due May 21 monday

Guided Response: Review and evaluate at least two of your peers’ discussion postings. Does the assessment choice and rationale for assessments effectively meet diverse learner needs without being biased towards language proficiency, learning style preference, or cultural background? Provide suggestions for how to collect and analyze the assessment data based on the identified assessment strategy. In addition, propose at least one solution for students whose assessment results indicate a lack of progress.
It need to be two reponds and please put the students name next to there reponds. Separate responds 

 
Peer 1: Kimberly

Assessments are the prime discussion of most education topics in our society today. We see both positive and negative reactions to how big a role our assessments play in schools nationwide. We hear teachers, parents, community members speak of how all students are doing in school is learning how to take a test. I would argue that while assessments are a driving factor, it is the content in which it assesses that matters. The actual test is just a piece of paper with questions, but the student’s ability to figure out how to answer these questions will play a large role in their success in the 21st-century workforce.
In the video it is stated, “Assessments often get a bad rap, this is because some people often believe it is good to teach to the test and not teach to the individual student (Koschmeder, 2012)”. Differentiation should play a large role in the administration of assessments. In the past, the teacher would lecture and at the end of the unit, students took a test. Regardless of whether or not they mastered the material, they were given a grade and everyone moved on the next concept. Differentiated assessments change the dynamic and defend the quote above by diving instruction to the individual student and their needs. Teachers in a differentiated classroom give students an assessment before, during and after the learning takes place. This model drives instruction by showing the teacher actually what each student needs before the learning begins. The teacher has a clear picture of what the students already know and in turn what they still need to learn. The formative assessment, which takes place during the learning process gives the teacher the insight on how it is going. Are the students understanding? Do they need more clarification or the instruction in a different medium to understand? The formative assessment stage is the prime time to look for any barriers within students and find a way to overcome them so students can reach mastery. The summative assessment is the model that was used alone in most traditional past classrooms. It is the end of unit test. While the summative is still used, the difference is that when the pre and formative assessment are used, the summative becomes more meaningful as the students have already had the individualized instruction they need. My principal once told an example in a staff meeting that each teacher gives their student a hypothetical backpack and the task of hiking a mountain.  pre-assessment, the teacher goes around and looks in each kids backpack to see what they still need to be prepared to get up the mountain. Later on, the teacher looks again (this is the formative assessment), to see what they still need. Then the summative assessment is whether or not the student has what they need to get up the mountain. I thought this was an interesting way of looking at differentiated assessments in a non-textbook kind of way.
One assessment I use frequently with my reading groups is the pre-assessment strategy of Ponder and Pass (Chapman & King, n.d).  I have an anchor chart, that I draw a chart on with 3 sections, What do I already know, What do I want to learn, and what questions do I have on the topic. I pull my intervention groups 3 times a week, so on Monday we create the chart and do a pre-read of our story. We talk about what we already know about the topic and fill in this part of the chart before reading. After reading the text once we fill in the other two sections. The students take the books home to read again on Monday night and Tuesday. When they return to me on Wednesday, we revisit our chart and students discuss with each other and see what questions we can answer. I always allow students to add more to the chart if they thought of something later on. aI actually encourage this because I want my students to realize learning doesn’t stop when you leave the classroom. We repeat the process again on Friday they return and we address everything on the chart. I usually write in one color each day, so we can see the changes in our ideas and give the students a good visual.
References:
Casey Koschmeder. (2012, June 23). What is Differentiated Assessment? (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. [Video file]. Retrieved from What is Differentiated Assessment?
Chapman, C., & King, R. (n.d.). Differentiated strategies for assessment (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Retrieved from https://differentiatedstrategies.wikispaces.com/Differentiated Strategies for Assessment
Puckett, K (2013). Differentiating Instruction: A Practical Guide[Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Peer 2: Jennifer

Explain the role of assessment as it applies to theoretical foundations of differentiated instruction. 

The role of assessments is to gain information regarding students’ readiness, abilities, prior knowledge, and understanding of a topic. Assessments should be utilized before, during, and after lessons to determine what a student already knows, if they need assistance in understanding the topic, and how much they learned (Tangient, 2018). Assessments given throughout a lesson also gives teachers the opportunity to make adjustments as needed so the learning is meaningful to all students.

Write a page paper – Describe how assessment can be created that evaluates a student’s true knowledge without bias towards language barriers, learning differences, or cultural differences. 

An assessment can be created to evaluate a student’s true knowledge by allowing them to communicate their thoughts, feelings, prior and current knowledge in their own words or way. Examples are allowing a student to write a summary of their understanding of a topic; giving students choices of how to complete an assessment that best fits their interests and learning styles; and allow valuable discussion to take place as a class so that everyone learns and gains others’ perspectives.

Choose one differentiated assessment strategy (either pre, formative, or summative) from the course text (or from the recommended websites or video) and present a rationale for using the assessment to meet the needs of diverse learners and how it will be used to drive future instruction. 

I think formative assessments create the best possibility of meeting the needs of diverse learners. Formative assessments are ongoing “observations, summaries, and reviews that inform teacher instruction and provide students feedback on a daily basis” (Dodge, 2009). Teachers can utilize formative assessments to determine which students need extra assistance, or who need to have more challenging options. They can also use formative assessments to make adjustments to the current lesson, and future lessons to meet the needs of more students.

References
Dodge, J. (2009). 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom. Broadway, NY: Scholastic.
Tangient LLC, (2018). Differentiated Instructional Strategies. Retrieved from https://differentiatedstrategies.wikispaces.com/Differentiated%20Strategies%20for%20Assessment