fairness

- are the tasks constructed, presented and administered in a way which allows all students a good and equal chance to demonstrate their real achievemment in the area covered? as the task catered for several intelligences, allowed all students sufficient time to complete the assessment, and reduced as many of the extraneous variables as possible (by conducting the SAC at the same time of day, etc) this task can be condsidered fair. However, was heavily based on linguistic intelligences, this may have //possibly// been unfair to the minority of males in the classroom, who studies have shown to have more cortical areas in their brain that are dedicated to spatial functioning whereas the female brain has more cortical areas dedicated to verbal and linguistic skills. But, if the assessment had of been more spatially based, would this have been unfair to the majority of females in the class. So this raises the question of fairness in the classroom: whether fairness should be considered as giving students the same assessment or whether it should be different to cater for each individual. Joyce and Weil (in Marsh, 2008) add insight to this debate by arguing that a certain level of discomfort is benefical to students. If th environment is perfectly matched to learning types and intelligences, then it can become to comfortable and will not allow students to progress by advancing beyond that comfort level. Therefore, as long as the teaching leading upto the assessment consistently teaches the skills relevent in the assessment, it would help to close this gap and make this assessment fairer - Do they require special knowledge or skill which some students may not have and which has not been taught It is assumed that at this level, students will have the writing and critical thinking skills that would enable them to successfully asnwer the set questions. The language skills expected from students would be more easily asscessed vy students whose english was their first language, which in these classes it was. Everything required of students during the assessment had been previously covered in class. This includes the critical thinking skills and use of several multiple intelligences. So once again, we would consider this assessment to be fair.
 * __Fairness According to Scott:__**