Chapter 6

As a future educator, I found this chapter extremely helpful. It was very informative about each of the different types of assessments and variations of those assessments were described well in the book. One of the things I found that the chapter stressed was that, as teachers of science , we should be assessing THREE different times...... prior to the lesson(diagnostic) during the lesson(formative) and after the lesson has been completed(summative). I have known about formal and informal assessments prior to this class but I had no idea that there existed so many types of each. One of the things that I like about the informal assessments is that they can be as simple as the note book that a students is keeping or how thoroughly a handout is completed during an experiment or investigation. All a teacher has to do is choose one and they are on their way to gathering their own data.

The examples given were well detailed and the book each down to the last detail . I found after reading the book, I had no questions about assessments. It's too bad that I had not had this thorough of an explanation of assessment(formal and informal) prior to this class. I know that there are examples given in the book that I will use when putting my unit together.

One thing that I did NOT agree with on a few of the rubrics was that there were zero's on them. It could be that because I am going into special education that I feel that way( there should be some credit for trying) but I don't believe that zero's should be used on a rubric( I would start with a 1). I feel that that would be defeating for a child to get " 0 points" and would not do anything for their self-esteem. I may be wrong, but I don't see how any teacher could give a zero unless the students is defiant and then that's a child with special needs(something else is going on).

Finally , I know that I will be using a lot of what is in this book as I put together my unit on science. I find it very informative and helpful and am happy to have it as a text in my class.