Performance Assessments

Performance Assessments

Activity Goals • Recognize authentic assessment • Use GRASPS to create a performance assessment that gets at deep understanding

Authentic Assessment • An evaluation that makes use of real life tasks (i.e. writing a letter, presenting a plan)

A humorous look at some characteristics of authentic assessment…..

Authentic assessments……...

…specify a goal and a role • Psychology • Employing principles from the major schools of psychoanalytic thought, successfully subject yourself to analysis. Make appropriate personality changes, bill yourself, and fill out all medical insurance forms. Now do the same to the person seated to your immediate left.

…replicate real world contexts • Medicine • You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your own appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected. You have fifteen minutes.

…include standards • Economics • Develop a realistic plan for refinancing the national debt. Run for Congress. Build a political power base. Successfully pass your plan and implement it.

…take time • Biology • Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture if this form of life had developed earlier, with special attention to the probable effects on the English parliamentary system. Prove your thesis.

…apply knowledge and skills • Chemistry • Transform lead into gold. You will find a beaker and three lead sinkers under your seat. Show all work including Feynman diagrams and quantum functions for all steps. You have fifteen minutes.

…often require innovation • Physics • Explain the general theory of relativity. Keep it simple. Now demonstrate the limits of faster-than-light travel through an experiment of your own design.

...…may culminate a unit • Political Science • There is a red telephone on the desk behind you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.

Performance Assessments • An evaluation that requires the student to demonstrate understanding (i.e. playing a musical instrument, driving a car) • Not all are authentic (i.e. lab practical, building a scale model of the universe)

Return to Stage 1 • Stage 1 • Stage 2 • Stage 3

Enduring Understanding • Students will understand that the interactions at plate boundaries influence the likelihood, strength, and extent of volcanic eruptions

Students will be able to... • Students will apply an understanding of a volcanic eruption related to a plate boundary to predict the likelihood and extent of other similar volcanic eruptions

GRASPS is a tool to help develop authentic assessments • Goal • Role • Audience • Situation • Product or Performance • Standards

Goal • The purpose behind the performance • To reduce the loss of life and damage to property by accurately predicting when and to what extent, a volcanic eruption might affect Mt. Shasta.

Role • The job undertaken in the scenario • You are an urban planner.

Audience • The group to which the performance or product is targeted • Present your plan to the city council.

Situation • The context of the scenario • You have been asked to develop and present a risk assessment and mitigation plan for the city of Mt. Shasta. • May be fun and based on fantasy

Product or Performance • What is produced as a result of the project • Prepare a PowerPoint presentation that includes a map and other visuals. Generate slide pages for the audience.

Standards for Success • Criteria for assessing the product • Be sure your presentation: • Informs the public by telling the geologic story of Mt. Shasta • Includes a research-based prediction of when the next eruption might occur • Has a map of the areas most likely to be affected by an eruption along with other visuals that support the presentation • Includes an emergency response plan based on the predicted flow path of the lava • Is clear, compelling, and scientifically accurate

Performance Task Vignette • You are an urban planner with the city of Mt. Shasta in California. You have been asked to develop and present a risk assessment and mitigation plan in the event that Mt. Shasta should erupt. You hope to reduce the loss of life and property damage by accurately predicting when, and to what extent, a volcanic eruption might affect Mt. Shasta. You will need to prepare a plan that you present to the city council. Present your plan in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. Be sure to inform the public with critical background information by telling the geologic story of Mt. Shasta. Include a research-based prediction of when the next eruption might occur. Prepare a map that shows the areas most likely to be affected by an eruption. Describe your emergency response plan based on the predicted flow of the path of the lava. In addition to maps, it is fine to use additional visuals as needed, as long as they support the presentation. Your presentation should be clear, compelling, and scientifically accurate.

Performance Assessments