PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT What is Performance Assessment One in

PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

What is Performance Assessment? ü One in which a teacher observes and makes a judgment about the student’s demonstration of a skill or competency in creating a product, constructing a response, or making a presentation. ü Emphasis on student’s ability to perform tasks by producing their own work with their knowledge and skills. ü Examples: singing, playing a piano, performing gymnastics or completed paper, project

Characteristics of Performance Assessment • Students perform, create, construct, produce, or do something • Deep understanding and/or reasoning skills are needed and assessed • Involves sustained work, often days • Calls on students to explain, justify and defend • Involves engaging ideas of importance and substance • Relies on trained assessor’s judgments for scoring • Multiple criteria and standards are prespecified • No single “correct” answer

Strengths & Weaknesses of Performance Assessments Strengths Weaknesses üIntegrates assessment with instruction q. Reliability may be difficult to establish üLearning occurs during assessment üProvides opportunity formative assessment üMore authentic üMore engaging, active involvement of students üEmphasis on reasoning skills üTeachers establish criteria to identify successful performance üEmphasis on application of knowledge üEncourages student self-assessment q. Measurement error due to subjective nature of the scoring q. Inconsistent student performance across time may result in inaccurate conclusions q. Requires considerable teacher time to prepare and student time to complete q. Difficult to plan for amount of time needed

PROCESS-ORIENTED PERFORMANCE -BASED ASSESSMENT

It is important to assess students’ learning not only through their outputs or products but also the processes which the students underwent in order to arrive at these products or outputs.

• Learning entails not only what students know but what they can do with what they know. • It involves knowledge, abilities, values, attitudes and habits of mind that affect academic success and performance beyond the classroom.

Process-Oriented Learning Competencies • Information about outcomes is important. To improve outcomes, we need to know about student experience along the way - about the curricula, teaching, and kind of students that lead to particular outcomes.

• Assessment can help us understand which students learn best under what conditions; which such knowledge comes the capacity to improve the whole of their learning. • Process-oriented performance-based assessment is concerned with the actual task performance rather than the output or product of the activity.

Learning Competencies • Competencies are defined as groups or clusters of skills and abilities needed for a particular task. • The objectives focus on the behaviors which exemplify “best practice” for the particular task. • Such behavior range from a “beginner” or novice level up to the level of expert.

Example • Task: Recite a Poem by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” • Objectives: to enable the students to recite a poem entitled “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Specifically: 1. Recite the poem from memory without referring to notes; 2. Use appropriate hand body gestures in delivering the piece; 3. Maintain eye contact with the audience while reciting the poem; 4. Create ambiance of the poem through appropriate rising and falling intonation; 5. Pronounce the words clearly and with proper diction.

• The specific objectives identified constitute the learning competencies for this particular task. • Examples of simple competencies: – Speak with a well-modulated voice – Draw a straight line from one point to another point – Color a leaf with a green crayon

Examples of complex competencies • Recite a poem with feeling using appropriate voice quality, facial expression and hand gestures • Construct an equilateral triangle given three non-collinear points • Draw and color a leaf with green crayon

Task Designing Standards for designing a task 1. Identifying an activity that would highlight the competencies to be evaluated. 2. Identifying an activity that would entail more or less the same sets of competencies. 3. Finding a task that would be interesting and enjoyable for the students.

Example • Topic: Understanding biological diversity • Possible Task Design – bring the students to the pond or creek – Ask them to find all living organisms near the pond or creek – Bring them to school playground to find as may living organisms they can find Observe how the students will develop a system for finding such organisms, classifying the organisms and concluding the differences in biological diversity of the two sites.

Scoring Rubrics • Rubric is a scoring scale used to assess student performance along a task-specific set of criteria. • Authentic assessment are criterionreferenced measures; – A student’s aptitude on a task is determined by matching the student’s performance against a set of criteria to determine the degree to which the student’s performance meets the criteria for the task.

Example Criteria 1 2 3 Number of Appropriate hand gestures 1 -4 5 -9 Few inappropriate facial expression No apparent inappropriate facial expression 10 - 12 X 1 Appropriate facial expression X 1 Lots of inappropriate facial expression Voice inflection X 2 Monotone voice used Can vary voice inflection with difficulty Can easily vary voice inflection X 3 Recitation contains very little feelings Recitation has some feelings Recitation fully captures ambiance through feelings in the voice Incorporate proper ambiance through feelings in the voice

Descriptors spell out what is expected of students at each level of performance for each criterion. It tells students what performance looks like at each level and how their work may be distinguished from the work of others for each criterion.

Why include levels of performance? 1. Clearer expectations • Students know what is expected of them and teachers know what to look for in student’s performance. • Students better understand what good performance on the task looks like if levels of performance are identified.

2. More consistent and objective assessment 3. Better feedback 4. Analytic versus holistic rubrics An analytic rubric articulates levels of performance for each criterion so that teacher can assess students performance on each criterion. Holistic rubric does not list separate levels of performance for each criterion. Instead, it assigns a level of performance across multiple criteria as a whole.

3 – Excellent Speaker –Included 10 – 12 changes in hand gestures –No apparent inappropriate facial expressions –Utilizes proper voice inflection –Can create proper ambiance for the poem 2 – Good Speaker –Included 5 – 9 changes in hand gestures –Few inappropriate facial expressions –Have some inappropriate voice inflection changes –Almost creating proper ambiance 1 – Poor Speaker –Included 1 – 4 changes in hand gestures –Lots of inappropriate facial expressions –Uses monotone voice –Cannot create proper ambiance

Example of Analytic Scoring Rubric (for a Writing Sample) Objective: Write a character study Scoring Rubric Ideas Creative presentation 20 points 5 Variety of character traits presented 10 Vivid mental pictures 5 Organizations Logical presentation of topics Definite pattern discernible Conclusion follows from details 10 points 2 5 3 Development All details relevant Use of a variety of literary devices Variety in sentence structure 20 points 10 5 5 Conventions Grammatical constructions Spelling Punctuation Handwriting 10 points 3 2

Example of Holistic Rubric Objective: Write a paper to persuade the reader to accept clearly defined point of view and course of action Holistic Scoring Rubric (a paper on “persuading the reader …) 1 Little or no evidence of the skill Inappropriate language for the intended audience Few or no supporting arguments Details lacking or irrelevant 2. Competent performance Clear and appropriate language for the intended audience Most supporting arguments are plausible and relevant Most details are relevant Evidence of some innovative thinking 3. Outstanding performance Clear, interesting, and appropriate language Many plausible and relevant supporting arguments Ideas are creative and well-expressed

• When to choose an analytic rubric – For assignments that involve a larger number of criteria • When to use holistic rubric? – When a quick or gross judgment needs to be made – If the assignment is a minor one such as brief assignment (e. g. check, check-plus, or no check) to quickly review student work.

How many levels of performance should I include in my Rubric? • No specific number of levels • Will vary depending on the task and your needs • Start with at least three levels and then expand if necessary. Example: Makes eye contact with audience: never sometimes always

Makes eye contact: never rarely sometimes usually always

Exercises A. For each of the following tasks, identify at least three process-oriented learning competencies. 1. Constructing an angle using a straight edge and a compass 2. Writing an essay about EDSA I 3. Performing a play on the importance of national language 4. Role to illustrate the concept of Filipino family values 5. Constructing three-dimensional models of solids from card boards

Choose any 5 activities and construct your own scoring rubrics 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Devise a game Participate in a debate Write a research paper Design a museum exhibit Evaluate the quality of a writer’s argument Write a summary of an article Compare and contrast two stories or articles Draw conclusion from a text