Assignment:
Teacher case
Mr. Andrews generally was using traditional multiple choice tests in his 6th grade class on ancient history but the students seemed bored with the studying for these tests and with his lectures, so for the unit on Mesopotamia he decided to let the students to complete a project instead of taking a test. he gave them these choices, construct a test covering the chapter on mesopotamia, create a game about mesopotamia, create a diorama about mesopotamia, write a play about life in mesopotamia or create artifacts from mesopotamia that an archaeologist might find.
He co-teaches , mr benjamin,told the children that they could not use a computer to complete their projects. Sally decided to write a test for her project, she carefully read the chapter and contructed questionsas she went along, she used good short answer questions because she was worried about constructing good multiple choice questions. ithad been her experience that the distractors used in these questions were often confusing, she felt the same way about true/false questions.she wanted to make her questions as clear as possible because she didnot want her classmates mad at her when they take the test. Sally carefully printed her questions because of the ban on thecomputer, she then created a key which she would use to grade her classmates tests, the final product consisted of 25 short answer questions she was proud of her work the day she turned it in Mr Andrews looked at the test and told her this is unacceptable, why didn't you type it, Ms Benjamin told us not to use our computers, that is not what she meant, she meant not to use the Internet responsed Mr Andrews, take it home type and return it tomorrow.Sally left the room very upset, she took the test home and carefully typed it and the key, she turned them in the next day, 3 days later Sally recieved these marks, content:C, did not include question on religion, (actually Sally did have a question regarding polytheism) should have included a variety of question types, such as multiple choice, matching and true/false. Sally was upset at her grade, A C for effort I worked really hard on this, I even had to do it twice, cause of stupid Ms Benjamin. she took her grade sheet and test home and showed it to her mother, Sally's mom was equally upset particularly the low grade for effort. She called Mr Andrews asking to see the guidelines for the project and grading rubics Mr Andrews was unable to provide them either, She asked him the difference between content and accuracy, he could not tell her, she asked him how he had measured effort, to which he responded I consider what I expect from a student and then what they give me. so you telling me you graded conent 3 times. once you gave her a B, once a B, and once a C, right? Mr Andrews did not know to respond to her question.
Questions:
1. What were the issues involved in this situation? (state two)
2. What did Mr. Andrews do wrong? (state two things)
3. How should he have gone about developing his alternative assessments? (state two examples)
4. How should he have developed his grading guide? (state two examples)
5. What do you think of the practice of including an effort grade on the student's projects? Provide support for your position.