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EDUC 10: ASSESSMENT OF LERNING

1ST Semester of A.Y. 2022-2023

Introduction

Did you take a PE class in school? The tests in those classes were always a bit different.
Instead of pulling out a pencil and answering questions on a piece of paper, you probably had to
ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING

perform an activity for a grade. Those activities served as ways to measure your knowledge and
abilities for that particular subject. Those activities are referred to as performance assessments, and
we will focus on performance assessments in this lesson.

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 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.

Objectives

At the end of the module, student must;

a. design and develop performance tasks using the Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Products,
Standards (GRASPS) model;
b. develop appropriate assessment rubrics or customize existing ones to fit the desired outcome; and
c. interpret performance assessment data/ results for monitoring and evaluating learner achievement to
improve learner performance and inform instruction.

Activity

Watch video about Performance based Assessment visit the

link below (make sure you have data.)

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQPCk27tM4U&list=RDCMUCB-
hXAnF8U_KMAgtAUUC7Aw&index=2&ab_channel=TeachingsinEducation

Then answer the following questions;

1. Why should educators use performance assessment?
2. How to implement performance assessment into the classroom?
3. Give example of performance assessment

Discussion

Performance Assessment
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What and why of performance assessment

Meaning and nature

Performance assessment is the direct, systematic observation of an actual pupil performance … and rating of
that performance according to pre-established performance criteria.” (The North Central Regional Educational
Laboratory. NCREL site), (2001)

It is a form of testing that requires students to perform a task rather than select an answer from a ready-made
list.

Students will be assessed on authentic tasks and are asked to demonstrate their understanding by applying their
knowledge to a particular situation. They may be asked to create something just like in a real-world situation to
indicate their knowledge and understanding. You will have to have a strong rubric so that the students have a
way to measure their success.

Purpose of performance assessment

Why use performance assessment?

Here are some benefits of performance assessment over standardized testing:

1. Performance assessment looks at higher-order thinking skills and problem-solving abilities. Other features
like time management and clear communication are also tested in these kinds of assessments. This ultimately
leads to a deeper and more meaningful learning process.

2. High-stakes standardized testing evaluates whether students know enough about a subject. Performance
assessments, on the other hand, measure whether students can apply the knowledge appropriately in various
contexts.

3. If interim goals are created and applied correctly, performance assessments allow students to monitor
themselves. This type of metacognition, particularly in a test environment, is enormously beneficial to higher-
level student learning.

4. Any instructors who use performance assessments need to include the standards they expect and the steps
that they must take in applying the knowledge in the curriculum. This makes “teaching to the test” a positive
teaching and learning strategy.

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 5. Performance assessments go hand-in-hand with modern teaching strategies like active learning and critical
thinking. If a student undertakes collaboration and discussion in a classroom context (and in formative
assessment), those learned skills will be more easily applied and evaluated in summative assessments, and
eventually reflected in students’ performance.

Reasons to use performance assessments:

Personalized Learning. Performance assessment is a critical component of creating high engagement learner-
centered environment and show what you know culture. Many open-ended forms of performance assessment
are at least partially interest-based. Project often give students some control over themes, pacing, and the final
product. Compared to didactic instruction and selected response tests, performance tasks can produce high
levels of motivation and engagement.
Formative Assessment. Short performance assessment can be incorporated into units of instruction to check
for understanding. Performance tasks can be combined with other forms of assessment to guide progress
through units of study. In schools operated by Michigan’s Educational Achievement Authority, each student is
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responsible for bringing forward three forms of evidence for each learning target, including a performance
assessment.
Competency Education. Longer and more comprehensive performance assessments can serve as a
matriculation gateway in a competency-based environment. For example, end of year projects at
Expeditionary Learning schools, called Passages, demonstrate a student’s preparation to advance to the next
level. Senior projects are required for graduation at many high schools and in some states.

Standards-based Education. Performance assessments are often the best way to apply knowledge and skills–
particularly those difficult to measure in traditional ways such as critical thinking, collaboration, effective
communications, and academic mindset.

Types of performance tasks

Performance-based assessment, as the name implies, measures how well a student actually performs while
using learned knowledge. It may even require the integration of language and content area skills (cf. Brualdi,
1998; Valdez Pierce, 2002). The key is the determination of how well students apply knowledge and skills in
real life situations (Frisby, 2001; McTighe & Ferrara, 1998; Wiggins, 1998). The successful use of
Performance-based assessments depends on using tasks that let students demonstrate what they can actually do
with language.

There are three types of performance-based assessment (McTighe & Ferrara, 1998).
 PRODUCTS,
 PERFORMANCES, OR
 PROCESS-ORIENTED ASSESSMENTS

A product refers to something produced by students providing concrete examples of the application of
knowledge. Examples can include brochures, reports, web pages and audio or video clips. These are generally
done outside of the classroom and based on specific assignments.
Performances allow students to show how they can apply knowledge and skills under the direct observation of
the teacher. These are generally done in the classroom since they involve teacher observation at the time of
performance. Much of the work may be prepared outside the classroom but the students “perform” in a
situation where the teacher or others may observe the fruits of their preparation. Performances may also be
based on in-class preparation. They include oral reports, skits and role-plays, demonstrations, and debates
(McTighe & Ferrara, 1998).
Process-oriented assessments provide insight into student thinking, reasoning, and motivation. They can
provide diagnostic information on how when students are asked to reflect on their learning and set goals to
improve it. Examples are think-alouds, self/peer assessment checklists or surveys, learning logs, and individual
or pair conferences (McTighe & Ferrara, 1998).
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 Principles of performance assessment

Developing Performance Tasks

Defining the Purpose of the Performance-Based Assessment

In order to administer any good assessment, you must have a clearly defined purpose. Thus, you must ask
yourself several important questions:
 What concept, skill, or knowledge am I trying to assess?
 What should my students know?
 At what level should my students be performing?
 What type of knowledge is being assessed: reasoning, memory, or process (Stiggins, 1994)?
 By answering these questions, you can decide what type of activity best suits you assessment needs.

Choosing the Activity

ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING

After you define the purpose of the assessment, you can make decisions concerning the activity. There are
some things that you must consider before you choose the activity: time constraints, availability of resources in
the classroom, and how much data is necessary in order to make an informed decision about the quality of a
student's performance (This consideration is frequently referred to as sampling.).

The literature distinguishes between two types of performance-based assessment activities that you can
implement in your classroom: informal and formal (Airasian, 1991; Popham, 1995; Stiggins, 1994). When a
student is being informally assessed, the student does not know that the assessment is taking place. As a
teacher, you probably use informal performance assessments all the time. One example of something that you
may assess in this manner is how children interact with other children (Stiggins, 1994). You also may use
informal assessment to assess a student's typical behavior or work habits.

A student who is being formally assessed knows that you are evaluating him/her. When a student's
performance is formally assessed, you may either have the student perform a task or complete a project. You
can either observe the student as he/she performs specific tasks or evaluate the quality of finished products.

You must beware that not all hands-on activities can be used as performance-based assessments (Wiggins,
1993). Performance-based assessments require individuals to apply their knowledge and skills in context, not
merely completing a task on cue.

Defining the Criteria

After you have determined the activity as well as what tasks will be included in the activity, you need to define
which elements of the project determine the success of the student's performance. Sometimes, you may be able
to find these criteria in local and state curriculums or other published documents (Airasian, 1991). Although
these resources may prove to be very useful to you, please note that some lists of criteria may include too many
skills or concepts or may not fit your needs exactly. With this in mind, you must be certain to review criteria
lists before applying any of them to your performance-based assessment.

You must develop your own criteria most of the time. When you need to do this, Airasian (1991, p. 244)
suggests that you complete the following steps:

1. Identify the overall performance or task to be assessed, and perform it yourself or imagine yourself
performing it.
2. List the important aspects of the performance or product.
3. Try to limit the number of performance criteria, so they can all be observed during a pupil's
performance.
4. If possible, have groups of teachers think through the important behaviors included in a task.
5. Express the performance criteria in terms of observable pupil behaviors or product characteristics.
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 6. Don't use ambiguous words that cloud the meaning of the performance criteria.
7. Arrange the performance criteria in the order in which they are likely to be observed.

You may even wish to allow your students to participate in this process. You can do this by asking the students
to name the elements of the project/task that they would use to determine how successfully it was completed
(Stix, 1997).

Having clearly defined criteria will make it easier for you to remain objective during the assessment. The
reason for this is the fact that you will know exactly which skills and/or concepts that you are supposed to be
assessing. If your students were not already involved in the process of determining the criteria, you will usually
want to share them with your students. This will help students know exactly what is expected of them.

Creating Performance Rubrics

As opposed to most traditional forms of testing, performance-based assessments don't have clear-cut right or
wrong answers. Rather, there are degrees to which a person is successful or unsuccessful. Thus, you need to
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evaluate the performance in a way that will allow you take those varying degrees into consideration. This can
be accomplished by creating rubrics.

A rubric is a rating system by which teachers can determine at what level of proficiency a student is able to
perform a task or display knowledge of a concept. With rubrics, you can define the different levels of
proficiency for each criterion. Like the process of developing criteria, you can either utilize previously
developed rubrics or create your own. When using any type of rubric, you need to be certain that the rubrics are
fair and simple. Also, the performance at each level must be clearly defined and accurately reflect its
corresponding criterion (or subcategory) (Airasian, 1991; Popham, 1995; Stiggins, 1994).

When deciding how to communicate the varying levels of proficiency, you may wish to use impartial words
instead of numerical or letter grades (Stix, 1997). For instance, you may want to use the following scale: word,
sentence, page, chapter, book. However, words such as "novice," "apprentice," "proficient," and "excellent" are
frequently used.

As with criteria development, allowing your students to assist in the creation of rubrics may be a good learning
experience for them. You can engage students in this process by showing them examples of the same task
performed/project completed at different levels and discuss to what degree the different elements of the criteria
were displayed. However, if your students do not help to create the different rubrics, you will probably want to
share those rubrics with your students before they complete the task or project.

Assessing the Performance

Using this information, you can give feedback on a student's performance either in the form of a narrative
report or a grade. There are several different ways to record the results of performance-based assessments
(Airasian,1991; Stiggins,1994):

 Checklist Approach. When you use this, you only have to indicate whether or not certain elements are
present in the performances.
 Narrative/Anecdotal Approach. When teachers use this, they will write narrative reports of what was
done during each of the performances. From these reports, teachers can determine how well their
students met their standards.
 Rating Scale Approach. When teachers use this, they indicate to what degree the standards were met.
Usually, teachers will use a numerical scale. For instance, one teacher may rate each criterion on a
scale of one to five with one meaning "skill barely present" and five meaning "skill extremely well
executed."
 Memory Approach. When teachers use this, they observe the a student’s performing the tasks without
taking any notes. They use the information from their memory to determine whether or not the students

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 were successful. (Please note that this approach is not recommended.)

While it is a standard procedure for teachers to assess students' performances, teachers may wish to allow
students to assess them themselves. Permitting students to do this provides them with the opportunity to reflect
upon the quality of their work and learn from their successes and failures.

Designing Performance Task Assessments

Per Wiggins & McTighe (2006), the root of a performance task is a problem which is not to be confused with
an exercise. An exercise “involves a straightforward execution of a ‘move’ out of context” (p. 155). In other
words, exercises are discrete. Problems, on the other hand, involve integration of knowledge and skills as
applied to a problem designed to simulate “real-world” scenarios. Problems allow students to see what they do
in the classroom beyond the four walls of the classroom (or learning management system). Wiggins and
McTighe argue that problems provide evidence of “genuine understanding” (p. 153).
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To achieve this kind of understanding, Edmund J. Hansen (2011) provides some additional guidelines for
designing performance task assessments:

 “Be realistically contextualized,

 Require judgement and innovation,
 Ask the student to ‘do’ the subject,
 Replicate key challenging situations in which professionals are truly ‘tested’ in their field,
 Assess the student’s ability to use a repertoire of knowledge and skill, and
 Allow appropriate opportunities to rehearse, practice, and get feedback.” (p. 149)

Constructing an assignment based on these guidelines can be tricky, but Wiggins and McTighe’s GRASPS
model is an excellent starting point. GRASPS is an acronym for:

 Goal – states the problem or challenge to be resolved.

 Role – explains who students are in the scenario and what they are being asked to do.
 Audience – who the students are solving the problem for, who they need to convince of the validity
and success of their solution for the problem. (Remember, the audience is not limited to the instructor.)
 Situation – provides the context of the situation and any additional factors that could impede the
resolution of the problem.
 Product, Performance, and Purpose – explains the product or performance that needs to be created and
its larger purpose.
 Standards and Criteria for Success – dictates the standards that must be met and how the work will be
judged by the assumed audience.
Sample GRASPS assessment

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ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING

Exercise

Reflection
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 In not less than 300 words write your insight about performance based assessment.

Resources and Additional Resources

Airasian, P.W. (1991). Classroom Assessment. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Blaz, D. (2001). A Collection of Performance Tasks and Rubrics: Foreign Languages. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Brualdi, A. (1998). Implementing performance assessment in the classroom. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 6 (2). Retrieved June 10,

2010 from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=6&n=2.

Frisby, C. L. (2001). Academic achievement. In L.A. Suzuki, J. G. Ponterotto, & P. J. Meller (Eds.), Handbook of Multicultural Assessment (pp. 541-

568). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Hibbard, K. M., Van Wagenen, L., Lewbel, S., Waterbury-Wyatt, S., Shaw, S. & Pelletier, K. (1996). A Teacher's Guide to Performance-based

Learning and Assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Lim, H-Y, & Griffith, W.I. (2011). Practice doesn’t make perfect. MEXTESOL Journal, Vol. 34 No .3.

McTighe, J., & Ferrara, S. (1998). Assessing Learning in the Classroom. Washington, DC: National Education Association.

Famularo, J., French, D., Noonan, J., Schneider, J., Sienkiewicz, E. (2018) Beyond Standardized Tests: A New Vision for Assessing Student Learning
and School Quality. [White paper]. Retrieved from http://cce.org/files/MCIEA-White-Paper_Beyond-Standardized-Tests.pdf

>Hibbard, K.M., et al. (1996) A Teacher’s Guide to Performance-Based Learning and Assessment. Alexandria, Virg.: Association for Supervision &
Curriculum Development.

Performance Assessment. [White paper]. Retrieved from https://www.learner.org/workshops/socialstudies/pdf/session7/7.PerformanceAssessment.pdf

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