FIAE: Chapter 3

This chapter was all about assessing lesson plans to find out what needs to be kept in the lesson plan, dropped, or re vamped. Assessing a unit or lesson plan is not only based on the kids achievements but it is also up to the teacher to do their work in really determining what works for which student and why. There are three ways to assess, the first is pre-assessment where the teacher finds out where their students knowledge is at before they being a unit. Then there is formative assessment which is assessments given to the students throughout the lesson, then there is the summative assessment given at the end of a unit to see not only how successful the students were but how successful the lesson was as a whole. It is the teachers job to compile these assessments and critique the lesson. Another important thing included in this chapter was the fact that teachers should be preparing their students for the moment, for what is going on in school then, not for the outside world or college. I have had many teachers who tell the students that they need to prepare for college, and that's not true, the students need to prepare for what is going on in school then.

FIAE: Chapter 2

Mastery of a content area is a difficult thing to determine for each and every student. Differentiated instruction can be applied to the way a teacher determines if a student has master a subject or portion of the course. The chapter explained how creating a rubric or standards for a content area has to specify exactly what it means to master that area, and different levels of mastery can be expected. As a teacher you would want all students to reach the highest mastery of the content area. I liked how the chapter quoted what someone considered to be mastery. They basically said that a student is considered to have mastered a content area when they have not simply just memorized the information and knowledge provided but will carry it with them, and can apply it in their lives. I think that right there is the ultimate proof of mastery.

FIAE: Chapter 1

This chapter is just an introduction to what differentiated instruction is, but it is a really great introduction. I wish we would have read this before jumping into UbD and DI, because it really explained differentiated instruction very well. It begins by explaining how the brain is always evolving and changing, so therefore teaching methods need to be updated around the advances in the world. Teaching methods need to be based around each and every students different brain and how they learn. A child wearing glasses was a simple example of what differentiated instruction is. It is not cheating to let a child to read the board without his glasses on, if the child needs to wear glasses to see just as everyone else then his glasses are a tool used to differentiate his learning. I never really thought of something as simple as that, but it is so true. Also the book states, "yes, the real world is differentiated" (7). Mechanics, the military, and doctors need to use differentiated techniques and procedures to get each individual job done, just as teachers need to teach in individualistic ways depending on the students needs and capabilities.

UbD: Chapter 5

This chapter was about ways to assess kids so that the teacher is able to better the curriculum based on these assessments. The chapter begins by explaining proof of understanding is going to be different for every student, not one test is going to be able to tell a teacher all they need to know about a student. Tests, projects, and class participation will lead to a greater understanding of what a students knows and what they need to know. This chapter used a lot of analogies to provide information which I really liked. The first one was the photo album where it compares a photo album to classroom assessment, not one photo or test can provide much information on a student, but a whole collection of photos and assessments is a different story. The second analogy dealt with the judicial system, ones needs a collection of evidence before someone can be convicted of a crime, or it terms of education, teachers need a collection of work from students to convict them of learning something. The last analogy was a coach, where students spend too much time practising and not enough doing the real thing, which is learning! These analogies really made the chapter enjoyable.