Chapter 12 Summary And Analysis

The focus of chapter 12 is assessment and evaluation. Through out this book it discusses inquiry circles and how to implement them into the classroom. One question some teachers may have is how to assess the inquiry circles and what determines the grade or score the students receive. In this chapter, I did not come across any particular statistics, but did find an idea mentioned by Jim Vopat to interesting. Vopat had the idea of the “good faith effort” as the assessment. Vopat believes that students should receive a score of 0 or 10, ten points for full engagement and zero if the student doesn’t engage. I like the idea of all or nothing when it comes to inquiry circles. Students have to participate and work with others to receive the credit; otherwise they know they will receive a zero. This is also a less strenuous assessment for a teacher to keep up with points, the students can only receive one of the two grades, and no partial points to deal with. I really like this idea, and I think it would great with inquiry circles. A text-to-self connection I made while reading this chapter was while I was reading the “Assessing thinking and understanding” section. This section had a variety of ways teachers assess students from heir physical expressions to anecdotal notes. One of the bullet points mentioned in the section was, “Chart Responses” this is a …show more content…
Evaluations are putting grades to the students work based off of their understanding and evidence of learning. I was wondering if teachers provide students with rubrics or expectations with points to assist in this grading process. On page 320 it states, “Teachers base their grades on a substantial body of evidence that stands as proof of kids’ learning.” I was just curious as to if teachers supply students with rubrics or checklist, so the students know what is expected of them for the