Performance Tasks: How can we use them to measure Students' understanding?

What is a Performance Task? (Part 1)

 Prof/ Walid El-Gohary

English Supervisor

 

A performance task is any learning activity or assessment that asks students to perform to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and proficiency. Performance tasks yield a tangible product and/or performance that serve as evidence of learning. Unlike a selected-response item (e.g., multiple-choice or matching) that asks students to select from given alternatives, a performance task presents a situation that calls for learners to apply their learning in context.

Performance tasks are routinely used in certain disciplines, such as visual and performing arts, physical education, and career-technology where performance is the natural focus of instruction. However, such tasks can (and should) be used in every subject area and at all grade levels.

Characteristics of Performance Tasks

While any performance by a learner might be considered a performance task (e.g., tying a shoe or drawing a picture), it is useful to distinguish between the application of specific and discrete skills (e.g., dribbling a basketball) from genuine performance in context (e.g., playing the game of basketball in which dribbling is one of many applied skills). Thus, when I use the term performance tasks, I am referring to more complex and authentic performances.

Here are seven general characteristics of performance tasks:

1.   Performance tasks call for the application of knowledge and skills, not just recall or recognition.

In other words, the learner must actually use their learning to perform. These tasks typically yield a tangible product (e.g., graphic display, blog post) or performance (e.g., oral presentation, debate) that serve as evidence of their understanding and proficiency.

2. Performance tasks are open-ended and typically do not yield a single, correct answer.

Unlike selected- or brief constructed- response items that seek a “right” answer, performance tasks are open-ended. Thus, there can be different responses to the task that still meet success criteria. These tasks are also open in terms of process; i.e., there is typically not a single way of accomplishing the task.

3. Performance tasks establish novel and authentic contexts for performance.

These tasks present realistic conditions and constraints for students to navigate. For example, a mathematics task would present students with a never-before-seen problem that cannot be solved by simply “plugging in” numbers into a memorized algorithm. In an authentic task, students need to consider goals, audience, obstacles, and options to achieve a successful product or performance. Authentic tasks have a side benefit — they convey purpose and relevance to students, helping learners see a reason for putting forth effort in preparing for them.

4. Performance tasks provide evidence of understanding via transfer.

Understanding is revealed when students can transfer their learning to new and “messy” situations. Note that not all performances require transfer. For example, playing a musical instrument by following the notes or conducting a step-by-step science lab require minimal transfer. In contrast, rich performance tasks are open-ended and call “higher-order thinking” and the thoughtful application of knowledge and skills in context, rather than a scripted or formulaic performance.

5. Performance tasks are multi-faceted.

Unlike traditional test “items” that typically assess a single skill or fact, performance tasks are more complex. They involve multiple steps and thus can be used to assess several standards or outcomes.

6. Performance tasks can integrate two or more subjects as well as 21st century skills.

In the wider world beyond the school, most issues and problems do not present themselves neatly within subject area “silos.” While performance tasks can certainly be content-specific (e.g., mathematics, science, social studies), they also provide a vehicle for integrating two or more subjects and/or weaving in 21st century skills and Habits of Mind. One natural way of integrating subjects is to include a reading, research, and/or communication component (e.g., writing, graphics, oral or technology presentation) to tasks in content areas like social studies, science, health, business, health/physical education. Such tasks encourage students to see meaningful learning as integrated, rather than something that occurs in isolated subjects and segments.

7. Performances on open-ended tasks are evaluated with established criteria and rubrics.

Since these tasks do not yield a single answer, student products and performances should be judged against appropriate criteria aligned to the goals being assessed. Clearly defined and aligned criteria enable defensible, judgment-based evaluation. More detailed scoring rubrics, based on criteria, are used to profile varying levels of understanding and proficiency.

Are You Competent and Creative? We Need to 'Nurture Creativity for All Students.

Are You Competent and Creative?

" Teaching is a creative profession. Teaching, properly conceived, is not a delivery system ." Sir Ken Robinson

Shouldn't teaching be a creative profession? In my mind, most every profession should have opportunities for creativity. I think humans are made to be creative. And if we don't have the chance to use those abilities, we are mostly going through the motions. We're merely "doing" or "implementing" without much opportunity to use our unique gifts or strengths.

I'm referring to creativity here in the broadest sense. It's not just artistic creativity, although that's an important kind for sure. I'm talking about the ability to have ideas, initiate plans, and solve complex problems. Much creativity is needed for these types of activities.

So are you competent and creative? Having both. That's probably the best scenario. Being competent is knowing your stuff. It's being well-trained. It's having knowledge and expertise and maybe experience too.

But being creative is the ability to use what's available in novel and interesting ways. It's the ability to meet the demands of your current situation and add tremendous value because of your unique gifts and abilities. Being an expert is great, but it has its limitations. How are you leveraging your expertise to create the greatest impact? That's where creativity comes in.

I think we've valued competence to the extent in education that it's placed limits on what we're able to accomplish. When we simply double-down on past practices and past outcomes, we're not thinking in interesting ways. We push for more of the same and pile on greater accountability and less freedom for good measure.

The world is changing and the skills needed to be successful are changing too. When we fail to adapt our practices to current and future contexts students will face, we are failing to help them adapt. We must adapt if we want students to also have the ability to adapt and meet challenges. We need creative schools. We need adaptable schools.

Recently, LinkedIn published a list of the top in-demand soft and hard skills of 2019. Creativity was at the top of the list for soft skills. That's right, creativity was number one. It's clear the global economy continues to shift from an industrial world to a world of innovation. Ideas are increasingly important. Creativity is increasingly important.

So back to the original question, are you competent and creative? Does your school encourage you to be both? Or, does it limit your ability to be creative? Do you feel boxed in?

Every organization has some limits. But limits don't have to result in the end of creativity. It's sad when schools create structures and expectations that crush creativity. But it's equally sad when educators fail to use their creativity as best they can in the current situation, whatever it is.

Even if you feel limited in your ability to use your creativity, use it to the fullest extent you can. You can still be creative. You may wish you had more freedom and flexibility in your work, but you can still create within your current situation.

Seek out others who are interested in finding ways to be creative too. You'll be a happier, more successful, and stronger overall as an educator if you're using your creative abilities as best you can.

Learning starts from here

The first paper in my passport :Learning starts from here

prof / Walid El-Gohary

English supervisor

" Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."

1-  What are students supposed to know and do?

2-  How do we know when students have learned?

3-  What do we do when students haven't learned?

4-  What do we do when students have learned the content?

 

  Every learning journey has many possible starting points. The journey to becoming a learning-progressive school begins with Question One : What do we want our students to know, understand, and be able to do? Our answer to that question not only determines what we want students to know but also determines what kind of learning experiences we need to create for our students.

For decades, the goal of schools  and educators was to enlighten students with the core disciplinary knowledge required to succeed in postsecondary education, and for many, the workforce. In the industrial era, the answer to Question One was knowledge. As a result, a traditional teacher-led model of instruction was created. Teacher transmitted, and students received.

For many schools today, the goal has remained virtually the same. Schools are under tremendous accountability pressure, and standardized tests value knowledge, resulting in a continued focus on teacher-directed and teacher-owned instructional methods. If your school’s goal is to transmit knowledge, then the research suggests—and we agree—that a traditional approach to professional learning communities is more than sufficient. In fact, it’s ideal.

However, if your aim is to prepare students for their future, not our past, then the answer to Question One must be the essential skills and dispositions students need to become independent, lifelong learners—or as we like to call them, transdisciplinary skills, such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creative problem solving, and other well-documented 21st-century skills. If this is your answer, then a teacher-led approach to instruction is no longer enough. We must begin to transfer agency to our students , release ownership of the learning process, and bring them into the PLC process. As we move down the learning-progressive continuum and our answer to Question One involves deeper levels of learning, we must move to a co-constructed approach to instruction, an approach where both teachers and students are collectively responsible for the learning.

We recommend doing this through the thoughtful release of each PLC Critical Question by actually flipping the questions around to begin with Question Four. Yes, students must ask and answer Question Four for themselves. This is the most logical place to start. So what does Question Four look like when asked from a student’s perspective? So glad you asked.

Question Four is the easiest and safest question to release to students, because they have already demonstrated mastery of their identified learning target. The student asks, “What is it that I want to know and be able to do, now that I have mastered the essential learning target?”

Even the most traditional teacher in the most traditional school should be giving students voce and choice over Question Four. Give it a go, and prepare to be amazed at where students will take their learning when given the opportunity to do so.

The next step as you bring students into the PLC process is allowing students to ask and answer PLC Question Three for themselves. From a student’s perspective, it looks like this: “What will I do when I am not learning? What resources can I access when I am stuck in the ‘learning pit’?”

All too often, teams participate in well-intentioned student-of-concern meetings but fail to include the student in the conversation. Allowing students to ask and answer Question Three for themselves and to design their own intervention increases the chances that this intervention will actually succeed.

The next question to be released is Question Two: “How will I demonstrate that I have learned it?” This gives students voice and choice as they decide what evidence they will provide to prove they have reached proficiency in the intended learning target. The process allows students to understand the target, to exercise creativity and innovation, and often leads to a demonstration of more competence and knowledge than we may have expected or assessed.

Finally, schools should give students the opportunity to ask and answer Question One for themselves. This is the scariest but most important step as we return agency to students, as they ask, “What is it that I want to know and be able to do?” When students are given the opportunity to engage in deep intellectual inquiry about their interests and passions, magical things happen. Students work harder, engage more, dig deeper, and own the learning process.

If our answer to Question One goes deeper than surface content knowledge, then it is our responsibility to create systems and structures to bring students into the collective responsibility for learning. Then, and only then, will students learn at the highest and deepest levels.