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Performance Tasks

PERFORMANCE LEARNING PLUS is a monthly e-newsletter by Performance Learning Systems (PLS), a comprehensive educational services company that has provided a full spectrum of programs, products, and consulting services to educators and business professionals since 1971.

Twenty-first century assessments are needed to measure 21st century skills. Find out how to authentically assess your students’ learning by using PERFORMANCE TASKS. PERFORMANCE TASKS are activities, exercises, or problems that require students to show what they can do.

TIPS:

PERFORMANCE TASKS ask students to apply skills and knowledge by performing real-world tasks. Auditions, athletic competitions, driving tests, and graduation recitals are all examples of PERFORMANCE TASKS that have been used for years.

GETTING STARTED

When using PERFORMANCE TASKS, it is the task that drives the lesson. First determine the tasks students must perform; then develop lessons that will enable students to perform the tasks well. Essential skills, content knowledge, and standards requirements are all incorporated into the lessons.

Answer "yes" to the following questions to make sure your PERFORMANCE TASK is complete.

1. IS THE TASK BASED ON THE REAL-WORLD?

Performance Tasks are engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance that are similar to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field. They require students to proficiently perform tasks like those they will encounter when they leave school and go into the world.

2. DOES THE TASK REQUIRE STUDENTS TO USE HIGHER-ORDER THINKING SKILLS?

Performance tasks require students to think at a high level and employ a variety of skills. Mastering a Performance Task will take students through the following learning experiences:

  • Students will gather information from sources such as books, articles, interviews, lectures, or experiments.
  • Rather than simply memorizing facts, students will analyze, apply, and synthesize what they learn. They often have many opportunities to make choices, express creativity, and practice problem solving.
  • Students will communicate their learning through a type of performance such as a demonstration, speech, exhibit, videotape, presentation, recital, dramatic reading, or role-play. Performance Tasks may be completed by a group of students.

3. CAN I USE A RUBRIC TO ASSESS THE PERFORMANCE?

Prior to beginning the task, give students a rubric (or score card) consisting of criteria for the performance. They will refer to the criteria while developing their performance, and this same rubric is used to assess the performance once the performance task is completed. Most rubrics have levels of performance, which may be identified by various names, for example:

  • Highest level — Advanced, Excellent, Exemplary, Outstanding
  • Second highest level — Accomplished, Competent, Proficient, Skilled
  • Third highest level — Acceptable, Adequate, Passable, Satisfactory
  • Fourth highest level — Developing, Emerging, Needs Improvement
  • Lowest level — Incomplete, No Attempt
BEGIN SLOWLY, BUT BEGIN

Don't feel that you need to totally change all of your assessments to PERFORMANCE TASKS. Many teachers continue to use more traditional forms of assessment, such as tests and quizzes, and at the same time incorporate some PERFORMANCE TASKS into their curriculum. As you use PERFORMANCE TASKS more and more, you and your students will gain skill and expertise with this 21st century assessment tool.

The following PERFORMANCE TASKS cover a wide range of academic areas and social skills. Use them to spark your own ideas.

  • Design a flyer to advertise an event.
  • Assemble an emergency survival kit.
  • Produce and distribute a newsletter informing parents about school events.
  • Adhere to a budget to order classroom supplies from a mail-order catalog.
  • Plan and grow a community garden.
  • Participate in a mock job interview.
  • Balance a checkbook.
  • Conduct a menu preference survey for the school cafeteria and compile and report the results.
  • Conduct an Internet search on selected topics and report findings along with an assessment of the web sites used.
  • Demonstrate how to take care of a goldfish, including cleaning the bowl.
  • Design and create greeting cards to be sold as a fundraiser.
  • Rewrite and stage "Medea" setting it in modern times.
  • Play the role of a guide telling tourists about he significance of an historical site.
  • Create an interpretative dance about the effects of drug abuse.
  • Adjust the pH in the school swimming pool.
  • Plant flower bulbs.

To view a sample rubric for a Performance Task, see "Taking It Further" to the right.

Source: The above concepts are based on the PLS graduate courses Teaching the Skills of the 21st Century®and Discovering the Power of Live-Event Learning™.

©2004-2010 Performance Learning Systems Inc.