"To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination" (Covey,1989)
I wanted to start with this quotation that I found in the Introduction because it was kind of revealing for me, after reading it I immediately started thinking about my teaching and try to remember if I do this or not, then I continued with my reading and then something similar happened to me after this example of addressing the same topic through different subjects but with a different approach. I know that this is suggested in the curriculum in the Cross-curricular activities where we as teachers of English are supposed to connect the topics with other subjects, but what seems so simple in a real context is really difficult to achieve , and I realized that sometimes there are so many bureaucracy into our job that we forget about these kind of things that are supposed to be relevant to keep in mind but are harder than they look like. 
I must point out that the introduction as well as the first chapter were very pleasant to read because I think that the way in which the information is presented helps reader to reflect a lot about the topics. In my case it called my attention that despite the fact that some "good students" get good marks does not necessarily reflect that they understood that was taught, in the current educational system and due to the standardized test students are more used to just memorize contents but then they can be easily forgotten "if you don't use it you lose it" and I think that this is even more frequent than we can imagine. Students do not put into practice what they learn.
In my teaching through these four years I have seen how students tend to be more engaged with the kind of assessments that are not the traditional test with multiple choices and true or false (closed questions), but they feel more willing to develop new activities, which is very positive in terms of motivation, but there is always the risk for teachers at the moment to design activities that can be fun or creative but not necessarily involving intellectual purpose, so in this sense we need to be very clear about what we want to assess and also to let our students know that it is expected from them in that way they won't feel confused or frustrated.
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ResponderBorrarClaudia, I agree with your comments about "good" students and good grades--I remember being struck by the same thing as I read it in the text. Good grades do not necessarily reflect learning. In middle school, where my school had a horrible, horrible educational technique, I got very good at cheating. I got good grades, but learned nothing. I remember in high school, also, the inverse--my grades weren't as good, for a variety of reasons, but I was more involved in what I was studying.
ResponderBorrarAssessment is meaningless if it's only a measure of how many things you memorized.
Claudia, Ihave also had the experience that students get more involved in less traditional types of assessment and that they learn more from it. That is why I don't really like traditional tests, also because I always question myself if multiple-choice questions, for example, measure students' learning or not. I prefer and students seem to prefer working on projects because there is progress you can see and assess every single class. Something else that I like about projects is that students learn from each other and can use thei different abilities and you avoid students learning something that they won't put into practice.
ResponderBorrarI feel in the same position than you, in which some aspects that look simple enough sometimes are difficult to carry out in specific educational environments, anyway as teacher we have a role, and if we have that aspect clear enough and we are able to communicate it to the students some barriers can be diminished, like the level of anxiety that students have at the moment of evaluations.
ResponderBorrarClaudia, I think that you reflected on the essential concept addressed by the authors: Understanding. As you clearly stated, good grades (more often than not) do not necessarily show students' understanding. First of all because many of the objectives that we (teachers) set for our units do not strive for understanding. In that sense, "understanding", as the authors expressed, is closely linked to big ideas. As we fail to strive for big ides, which happens to be the first and most important stage when planning backwards, we will continue to fail to plan our units around the model proposed by Wiggins and McTighe.
ResponderBorrar