Meet Me in the Middle Chapter 8

Chapter 8 of Meet Me in the Middle talks about using effective assessments in the classroom. As I mentioned in my reflection for Chapter 6, differentiation is not just about making accommodations on assignments, but it is also about accommodating students’ needs on assessments. We all know that assessments are most commonly used to measure growth or what students may already know, but I thought the way that the author describes assessments in this chapter was powerful. The author suggests that “assessment should promote learning, not just measure it”. I like this idea because it implies that the student is not just attempting to regurgitate information, but they are able to learn something about themselves and their learning process. Another idea that stood out to me that the author brings up is focusing on essential knowledge. This is definitely key to creating good assessments. I often feel like teachers get caught up in small details they think their students should know, or worse they think they are challenging their students on assessments by giving them trick questions that do not really matter. Lastly, the importance of assessments being valid indicators of knowledge stood out to me. Although the author does not address this directly, this section made me think about how things like late work or participation weigh into grades. Overall I hold the same belief that assessments need to be a representation of what a students really knows about a given topic and they need to be fair and equal for all students.