Authentic Performance Tasks

1. Authentic Performance Tasks Assessing Students’ Understanding and Ability to Apply Their Learning in Relevant, Meaningful Ways

2. Session Goals • To develop a rationale for using authentic, performance-based assessments • To understand the context for authentic performance tasks as part of a balanced assessment system • To recognize the qualities of a high-quality, authentic performance task • To develop performance-based assessmentsthat provide opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know, understand, and are able to do

3. Enduring Understandings: • There is a direct connection between curriculum and instruction and student performance • High quality curriculum is designed to develop student understanding by uncovering complex ideaswhich involves students doing authentic practice • Providing students with the opportunity to work like professionals will ensure true understanding of the content and provide relevance

4. Essential Questions • How might we ensure that students see the relevance of what we are teaching? • To what extent can the use of authentic performance tasks assess students’ understanding and ability to apply their learning in meaningful and relevant ways? • In what ways can we ensure that students are provided with rigorous work that mirrors the work of experts?

5. KUD – Know , Understand, and Do Know: • Assessment for understanding must be grounded in authentic performance-based tasks • Authentic performance-based assessments provide opportunities for students to work like experts in a given field • Performance-based assessments must be aligned with K-U-Ds developed in Stage 1 • Understanding is revealed in performance Do: • Use the GRASP tool to design a PBA • Analyze performance tasks in order to understand authenticity

6. Strategic Objectives Obj. 1 All teachers will engage every student in meaningful, authentic and rigorous work through the use of innovative instructional practices and supportive technologies that will motivate students to be self-directed and inquisitive learners. Obj. 2 VBCPS will develop and implement a balanced assessment system that accurately reflects student demonstration and mastery of VBCPS outcomes for student success. Obj. 4 VBCPS will create opportunities for parents, community and business leaders to fulfill their essential roles as actively engaged partners in supporting student achievement and outcomes for student success.

7. VBCPS Outcomes for Student Success: Our primary focus is on teaching and assessing those skills our students need to thrive as 21st century learners, workers and citizens. All VBCPS students will be: Academically proficient; Effective communicators and collaborators; Globally aware, independent, responsible learners and citizens; and Critical and creative thinkers, innovators and problems solvers.

8. Rigor Teachers PLCs PLC s Relevance STUDENTS Resilience 21st Century Curriculum and Instruction Balanced Assessment Relationships Community Outreach & Service Responsiveness To Students Support Staff Administrators PLCs 8

9. “Best Assessment” Exercise • Think about an assessment exercise that significantly contributed to your learning (in school or out). • What features characterized your experience? • What factors in the assessment (and how they were used) most contributed to your learning? • Generalize “Assessments promote learning when…” Jay McTighe Balanced Assessment for Improved Learning

10. 3 Stages of (“Backward”) Design 3. Plan learning experiences & instruction 1. Identify desired results 2. Determine acceptable evidence Based on the work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe VBCPS: Office of Gifted Education

11. What are Authentic Performance Tasks? • Analyze the two tasks provided • How are the tasks similar in nature • How are they different • Which task is more authentic

12. Key Terms Performance Tasks- A task that gives the student the opportunity to illustrate, perform, or demonstrate what they know, understand, and can do. Authentic Performance Task- A task that gives the student the opportunity to illustrate, perform, or demonstrate what they know, understand, and can do through a real-world challenge so that they are working like an expert in the field. Performance Assessment- Involves more than a single test of performance and might use other modes of assessment such as surveys, interviews of the performer, observations, or quizzes. Authentic Assessment- An assessment composed of performance tasks and activities designed to simulate or replicate important real-world challenges. Authentic assessments ask students to use knowledge in real-world ways, with genuine purposes, audiences, and situational variables. Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

13. Authentic Performance Tasks • Provide complex challenges that mirror the issues and problems of adults • Are open-ended • Engage students in doing the work of experts in the field • Are naturally more rigorous than traditional assessments • Require the application of knowledge and skills • Are aligned with the identified KUD’s from Stage 1 Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

14. Designing Performance Tasks • Structure performance tasks so that there is not one right answer or one right approach to arriving at answers • Ensure that even if there is a “right” answer you are looking for, that arriving at the answer follows sound reasoning and a supported argument or approach • Students should have to consider when to use which approach and which facts • Ensure that the task involves transfer • The performance should require students to figure out which knowledge and skills are needed in order to efficiently and effectively arrive at a solution • Limit the amount of cues or prompts that are offered when framing the task. • Establish evaluative criteria and performance standards that are appropriate to the task and known by the students in advance Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

15. Six Facets of Understanding McTighe and Wiggins Understanding By Design, 2005 Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

16. Key Implications of Facets • Understanding is composed of all six facets • The facets should permeate among all three stages of backward design • The facets help us clarify the desired understandings, necessary assessment tasks and learning activities that will most likely advance student understanding • Good design will make clear the idea that the learner must make sense out of what the teacher teaches • Students learn to move beyond taking in what is covered to uncovering what lies beneath the surface of facts and to ponder their meaning Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

17. GRASPS • A tool used to design authentic performance tasks • Each letter of GRASPS corresponds with a task element • When using the prompts for each part of the acronym, it is not necessary to respond to all questions • Consider creating at least one core performance task for assessing understanding in a major unit of study Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

18. GRASPS- A tool used to design authentic performance tasks. G- What is the Goal in the scenario? R- What is the Role? A- Who is the Audience? S- What is your Situation (context)? P- What is the Performance challenge? S- By what Standards will work be judged in the scenario? Understanding by Design Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

19. Performance Task Example • Examine the task • Compare the GRASPS tool with the written task to see how the tool was used to create the task • Where do you see the Facets of Understanding embedded in the task?

20. Kaplan’s Frames of the Discipline • Allow students to step into the role assigned to them by defining what the expert does • Focus their understanding on the skills, language, and products of an expert in the field • Sample Frame

21. Identifying Clear Criteria for Student Understanding Why do we need clear criteria? —  Address the fact that understanding within open-ended prompts and performance tasks is subjective —  Allow students to demonstrate varying degrees of understanding —  Allow for consistency in grading —  Highlight most revealing and important aspects of the work--not just those easy to see or score —  Let students know up front what is required to be successful —  Derive criteria from established goals (i.e. EU & EQs)

22. Resources • Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbookby J. McTighe and G. Wiggins, 2004. • Understanding by Design Expanded 2nd Editionby J. McTighe and G. Wiggins, 2005. • Assessment in the classroom: the key to good instruction. by C. Callahan, 2006. • The Case for Authentic Assessment by G. Wiggins, Eric Digests, 1990.

23. Performance Tasks Ticket-Out-of-the-RoomName: _____________________ Office of Gifted Education