The first thing that caught my attention was on page 86 about high stakes testing. This is something I am undecided about. Because on one hand yes you do need to test students to ensure that teachers are teaching and are not just there for a pay check. However, some students are bad tester and there for it appears the teacher did not do her job even if she did do it and did it well. Or you could have a student who is just if having a bad day and did not do well on the test because of outside reasons. I feel like there are too many variable to be truly accurate but I don’t have an alternate solution to offer.
The next section that made me raise and eye brow was on page 90 about classroom conversation. I do not know that I agree with asking students a bunch of questions while they are trying to work because it could be very distraction for the student that you are talking to as well as the other students sitting around that can hear you. It is different if you are asking probing question to help them solve a problem. This would help the student think through the problem and might help other students who are listening think about the problem in a different way. A teacher should just be careful to help and not to hinder in their actions.
Finally, I agreed with page 109 with the section on Student’s Self-Evaluation. I do believe that students should be involved in their own evaluation. If the students help and understand the evaluation process then it will be more real to them. If they help to decide on what great work is then they will have a better understanding of what is expected and will be more motivated to produce better work.