Chapter 5 Assessing Synthesis

We all agreed that this chapter discussed the importance of tiering assessments based on student's readiness levels and intellectual capacity with a certain skill or subject. We also all discussed that this chapter pushed the idea of tiering not only by making certain things less challenging for students with lower readiness levels, but also to make things more difficult for learners who are easily ready to move on.
The ways that one can tier are also very different than what we thought. For example, tradionally one would think that making a test simply "easier" means to reword questions in a way that makes them more based on rote skills and repetitiveness for slower learners. However, the chapter discussed that that is actually the exact opposite of what you should do when tiering for slower learners. The author states that research shows that slower learners actually should be exposed to deeper understanding and application questions, just at different levels. In other words, if you continue to give slower learners basic and repetitive problems, they're levels of thinking will not be heightened. By giving them questions on a test that will relate their understandings to the real world, they are more likely to understand key concepts and move on to a higher level of thinking.
Reflection-wise, some of us thought the chapter was slightly redundant and that the instruction part of ubd and this chapter on assessment were very simliar. However, we did all come to the conclusion that the chapter gave us many concrete examples of assessments we could usein our own classrooms.