Chapter 3

This chapter talked a lot about assessments and how to plan assessments. One of the main points in the chapter was that students achieve more when they have a clear picture of the expectations. This chapter also related a lot to stage one of creating a unit. It talked about in what order a teacher should plan assessments. The order that the book suggests is to first plan summative assessments, then pre-assessments. The last step is to plan formative assessments. The book also suggests that a teacher should plan for frequent formative assessments. The author says that the important thing is that the students learned the material. This is where the chapter connects to stage 1. The chapter talks about essential questions and understandings. The chapter then goes on to talk about making assessments authentic. I learned that there is two steps in this process. The first is to make sure that the assessment is close to how students will apply their learning in real world applications. The second is that the assessment needs to be authentic to how students are learning. One of the things in this chapter that really stood out to me is that in order for an assessment to be valid it must be varied and done over time. This chapter on assessment will definitely impact the way that I make lesson plans. I know that it is good to write out the assessments when I am making lessons plans. This chapter will also influence my formative assessments. I will incorporate them often into my lesson plans this way my students and I know how they are doing during the process of learning the new material.