Introduction

The focus of this Blog is to inform educators of various ways to differentiate assessments to meet diverse student needs within Bates High School 9^th grade. There is need to have a balanced and differentiated assessment for student learning. Having balanced and differentiated assessments must include providing knowledge to the Professional Learning Community (PLC) team on the requirements needed in order to accomplish this goal. In accomplishing this goal, the Blog describes what it means to change the outcome or product of a lesson. The description also includes justification on the importance of changes to the outcome or product. In addition to the changes of the lesson outcome, the presentation discusses the changing of entry points and exit points along with strategies used for changing both entry and exit points. The Blog also describes possible assessments used with a balanced approach to formative, traditional and performance assessments. Additionally, the presentation includes a description of how performance assessments support students’ learning. In support of the students’ learning, there are examples of uses of performance assessments for various subjects for 9^th grade students. Overall, this presentation helps to determine what students know and how well they know it through differentiation. The use of differentiated assessments supports the PLC team in meeting the needs of diverse students.