Mod 2

1. Was anything regarding this week's content that was surprising or new for you?  Explain. 
The detail that assessments should be created first, save only the learning target itself, was surprising. In courses I've taught, I've always just approached the material in order of what I'm planning to teach, and put together the test and review towards the end of the unit. By then I have plenty of formative data to base the final test or project off of. But I was also intrigued by the idea of revising midstream which assessments are formative and which are going to count as summative. Maybe I've just never had a class all do so well on something that I felt that would be fair to them!
2.  What makes creating assessments do challenging?
There needs to be a balance of questions across many different levels of Bloom's taxonomy, to allow students to show the full range of their understanding. At the same time, the test has to be adapted for different needs of students on learning plans. There need to be a range of products or modes of response taken into consideration: selected response, writing, performance or other projects. And then we have to grade them! Fairly, with rigor but also consistency. 
3.  Because quality assessments are so important-- what are the strategies you could implement to make creating the more manageable?
There's no sense in reinventing the wheel; in any way possible, existing resources should be adapted and tailored, rather than created out of thin air. The push for standards has certainly led to a coherence around learning goals and accompanying materials for teachers to draw from, but the best resources might be an experienced fellow teacher at the same school, as they have more familiarity with the population and more perspective on the material, having taught it before. 

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