Dynamic Performance Tasks for Social Studies Presented by

Dynamic Performance Tasks for Social Studies Presented by Betsey Kennedy Big Shanty Intermediate School Elizabeth. kennedy@cobbk 12. org

Put Some Punch in Performance Tasks • The Basics • Types and Examples • Design Tips • Scoring

Get Your Hands on the Materials • elizabeth. kennedy@cobbk 12. org • Wiki with all documents and website links https: //performancetasks. wikispaces. com

What Are Performance Tasks? • Open Ended, Multi-Step Problems • Require application of information, understanding, and prior knowledge • Resemble excellently designed projects • Replicate real life situations

What Aren’t Performance Tasks? • Simple activities that are easily completed • Activities where students just follow specific instructions • Something that happens for everything you teach – Combine performance tasks with more traditional means of teaching and assessing

Why use performance tasks? • Just being knowledgeable is no longer enough • Ask students to apply their knowledge • Provide students with challenging, engaging tasks • Provide meaningful assessment data • Provide opportunities for students to learn and practice high-level abilities • Multiple standards addressed at one time

Activity Vs. Performance Task • One approach • Various approaches are possible • Has one right answer • Focus shifts from the answer to the justification of the approach and solution • Provides necessary practice, but is disconnected from real life application • Requires application of knowledge to solve an authentic problem

Types of Performance Tasks • • Retelling Tasks Compilation Tasks Mystery Tasks Journalistic Tasks • Design Tasks • Creative Product Tasks • Persuasion Tasks Read about one type of performance task and summarize the main ideas using 140 characters or less on the Twitter Summary form.

Retelling Tasks • Allow students to demonstrate that they have retained learned information • Reports • Good match to lower level standards – identify – describe – explain

Sample Retelling Task: Silent Movies of the 1920 s

Voice. Thread. com • Field Trip to Kennesaw Civil War Museum • Thurgood Marshall

Compilation Tasks • Take information from a number of sources and put them in a common format • Some level of transformation is required (differentiates these tasks from retelling tasks)

Scrapbooks • Digital scrapbooks – Scrapblog. com Example 1 – Scrapblog. com Example 2 • Handmade scrapbooks

Other Compilation Tasks • Time Capsules • Suitcases

Mystery Tasks • Turn a mundane topic into a detective story • Requires synthesis of information • Often require some level of fictionalizing • Consider Social Studies-related careers as part of the task (historian, archaeologists, geographers, etc. )

Mystery Tasks • Mythbusters-Style Tasks – Moon Landing • Confederate Submarine Sinking (Hunley) – Mystery of the Lantern • Webquests – The Lost Colony of Roanoke

Journalistic Tasks • Students act as reporters • Responsible for gathering and organizing facts • Helps students to look at an event from different perspectives • Helps to open students’ eyes to reliable vs. unreliable reporting

Journalistic Tasks: News Reports

More Journalistic Tasks • Newspaper Articles • Reports to Historical Leaders • Talk Show-Style Interviews • Dinner Parties • Reporting from unique perspectives • Xtranormal. com

Design Tasks • Create a product or plan that accomplishes specific goal within specified constraints • Should be authentic • Encourages creativity and exploration

Design Tasks • Freedom Trail Style Tours • Historical Adventure Plans • Budget/ Geography Projects – Plan an itinerary and budget for a trip to historical sites

Creative Product Tasks • Lead to the creation of a product without the constraints of design tasks • Allows for creativity and self-expression

Museum Projects

Other Creative Product Tasks • Collages/ Visual Representations • Radio Plays • School House Rock songs • Stop Motion Animation

Persuasion Tasks • Students develop a convincing case based on what they have learned • Including a plausible audience is key

Persuasion Tasks • Student Council Speeches with Decision Making Matrixes • Classroom Trials – Trial of John Brown • Historical Decision Making

Reading Rainbow

Criteria for Selecting a Performance Task • Does the task truly match the outcome(s) you’re trying to measure? • Does the task require students to use critical thinking skills? • Is the task worth the time it takes? • Does the task measure several outcomes at once? • Is the task feasible?

Designs for Performance Tasks: GRASPS • • Goal: What does the student have to do? Role: Who is the student in this scenario? Audience: Who will see this? Situation: What has created the need for this task? • Product: What will you create? • Standards (Criteria for Success): How will the work be evaluated?

Designs for Performance Tasks: A Role Performance • • • In this task, you are seeking an answer to the question… You are to act as a(n)… Whose point of view or perspective is… As such, you are expected to… You are then expected to… You will know you have successfully finished when… Challenges you may encounter are… Resources you can depend on are… You will need… The final completion date is…

Designs for Performance Tasks: A Problem-Based Performance • • The situation is… The problem is… Your task is to… You will know you have successfully finished when… Challenges you may encounter are… Resources you can depend on are… You will need… The final completion date is…

Scoring • Rubrics are a must! • Sort the final products into stacks according to general criteria on the rubric. • What understandings, misconceptions, or problems in thinking are evident from the work? • Use self-assessment and peer assessment

Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself. - John Dewey