Chapter 8: MMM

This chapter was all about designing effective assessments and how to go about doing that. Wormeli gives some ideas of how to make sure that you have designed good assessments for your students. When the assessment is good, it should clearly outline goals. It should prove to be challenging enough to make them work hard but not so hard that you avoid making the student upset or stressed. You should give options for assessments so that students have a say in what they want to do. You should be able to link other content areas in so that the student can see how one interacts with the others and you should make different formats when creating assessment instead of always asking students to write an essay. The other part of the chapter that many teachers are probably happy about was that Wormeli says to make sure that your assessments are easy to grade. If they are too time consuming or too difficult to grade then your assessment has missed the mark. It is important to always remember to use a rubric, it makes your life easier and it makes the student’s life easier.
I liked this chapter because it gave some great ideas for different assessments such as to use menus, journals, debates, games, or time lines to see if your students have learned the materials. I really like the idea of doing different types of assessments and within those assessments using different topics. The easiest way to describe it would be if you gave an essay to the students to make sure that there are different essay topics. I know that from personal experience, I really like when a teacher gives some choice especially in a history class. It is easier to write a history essay when you are actually interested in the topic. I can also attest that clear instructions and directions are vital to the success of the students. If you do not make things clear or the directions are hard to follow, many students will either refuse to do the assignment, do it poorly, or the wrong way. To be a good assessment, it must be hard enough so that it takes time to accomplish but not so difficult that you get frustrated with the whole concept. I also think assessment should be fun because it makes the students happy along with making it easier on you to grade them.