I didn't find this reading nearly as compelling as any of the other readings for this class. I think perhaps it's because the term "assessment" as a bit of a negative connotation in my mind. Assessment means boring, it means a summary or memorization, not anything useful. I realize, after reading the chapter, that assessment merely means that it's an assessment of knowledge and what the student understands, but it still retains that negative feel.
I liked the idea of the backward design model, where you decide what your students need to know and how you will know that they understand it and then work on how to teach it to them. I think using the ABCD method paired with Bloom's Taxonomy is the way to go for creating those learning targets/objectives. I can remember in one of my IB classes when my teacher was explaining the way IB tests work, she showed us the language they used: "give an example" "explain" and "analyze" and how each of those encompassed the lower expectations on the scale. For example, to analyze you would have to give an example, explain, and analyze. This reminds me of Bloom's Taxonomy, where to be able to do #4 you must be able to do #3, #2, and #1 as well.
One question I had was about the authentic and performance assessments. How well do those rank in terms of usability? It seems to me like they might be harder or take longer to grade than other methods of assessment. I think the key thing there is to use a variety of assessment methods in the classroom, not to stick with the same type for every unit.
I never thought about the subjectiveness of grading before. I always just assumed that teachers used rubrics for students benefit only, not to remain objective while grading. Now that I think about it, though, it makes a lot of sense. If I don't feel great or a certain student made me mad that day, I would be more likely to give harsher grades, but utilizing a rubric would help stop that.
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