Chapter 5: Tiering Assessments

 Tiering, the act of supplying tasks that meet a common goal but in a range of complexity, addresses the reality of variation in student ability within a class. The broad reaching’s of tiering allow for a teacher to implement its practice to meet the needs of both struggling learners as well as those deemed gifted and talented. Due to this, tiering in the classroom allows for a teacher to fully challenge all students to the point of successful growth, limiting the possibilities for stagnation, frustration, or boredom to occur. In Chapter 5 of Fair Isn’t Always Equal, author Rick Wormeli is insistent to point out that the base level of tiering should always be to express proficiency with the standard, stating that otherwise “we tend to distort our expectations for the on-grade-level performance, losing site of the learning outcomes or benchmarks.” How tiering takes place and to what amount is at full disclosure to the teacher. A great example of its implementation in the classroom, and one that I am sure to incorporate into my lessons plans involves the use of RAFT. Tiering can easily be managed using RAFT formatted assignments, each category allowing you to easily increase complexity by altering a single variable. Additionally the multiple pairing of options within the RAFT format allows for subtle increases in difficulty creating multiple tiers within one assignment.


While reading this chapter I reflected on the classes I work with during my in-field experience, as I look back on the assignments for each of these classes I can recall no examples of tiering or variation of any sort with each assignment. I found this rather curious knowing the youth of my mentor and his constant new-age approach to teaching. I stepped back to look at the big picture and in doing so found the glitch. Tracking. Tiering and tracking serve to meet the same goals, the scale in which they do varying. At Mt. B, where I teach, the school’s courses are heavily tracked; U.S. History is offered in 4+ class variations. My mentor does not need to implement tiering because his classes are already highly segregated by ability. As a future teacher I wonder if the school I work at will rely on tracking or if one day I might need to incorporate these methods into my lesson plans.