Performance Tasks for Authentic Learning

Breakout session with Kay Burke
Creating standards-based performance tasks with teacher teams




This session was meant to educate teachers on how to create authentic performance tasks in which students apply knowledge and skills to problems relevant to their worlds. There was an emphasis on developing students' skills that would be of use to them in the 21st century. Included in the packet were lesson plan formats for performance tasks and several examples of performance tasks in different content areas (though only two were for high school).

Positives of using performance tasks:

• Students must work both collaboratively and individually
• Target multiple standards at once
• Relate standards to real-life situations
• Motivate students to think critically and work creatively
• Integrate subject areas

Some of the things that teachers should consider when designing performance tasks:

• Relationship to standards: Target Power Standards and use LOTS (language of the standards)
• Relevancy: Simulate real-life topics or problems that motivate students and focus on 21st-century skills
• Structure: Use highly structured or prescriptive tasks to help struggling students. Use open-ended or ill-structured tasks to challenge all students to think critically and solve problems
• Grouping: Use a variety of tasks based on students' readiness, interests, or learning styles
• Rigor: Tasks should reflect high expectations for all students, regardless of their readiness levels
• Subjectivity: Tasks should be assessed using criterion-based tools such as checklists and rubrics that provide formative feedback and summative evaluation
• Cognitive level: Tasks should go beyond recall and comprehension and target higher levels of Blooms

My opinion:
It was interesting and somewhat challenging to think about how we could use performance tasks in our high school classrooms. Most of the examples provided in the workshop were for gradeschool classrooms (one begins, "Attention students! There is a snack thief loose in our school. Yikes! We need to know which snack is being swiped the most..." Yuck.). One thing that seemed crucial to being able to get results from and assess performance tasks was developing a clear and sequential checklist. I do think that performance tasks are much better gauges of student learning than are multiple choice or even short answer tests, as long as a clear checklist and rubric has been developed for assessment. Some of the ideas I came up with for performance tasks in the English classroom (and that could apply in other content areas) are: filming a commercial; writing instructions for a new principal; developing, distributing, and compiling student surveys; creating a children's book; giving a sales pitch; developing a language guide for a family who is new to the US. I know some of us have already used these things; I think the key idea to take away from this is that we ARE teaching the standards and measuring student learning - we just need to make sure the rubrics and checklists are comprehensive and efficient.