Research Blog Post #5- Performance-Based Assessments
In Chapter 5 of Rigor by Design, Not Chance by Karin Hess, she spends a lot of time breaking down performance-based assessments. In her analysis, she explains what high-quality performance-based assessments look like and she describes characteristics that these assessments typically possess. I have analyzed Hess’ (2023) seven characteristics below (p. 180):
Have open-ended contexts, meaning that students can answer questions in a variety of ways and there is not only one correct answer.
Productively challenge students, meaning that students are challenged to reflect on the answers/solutions that they give and they may need to reevaluate their thinking and explore a different path. This concept connects to what is known as “productive struggle”.
Uncover thinking, meaning that students’ answers should show their learning and understanding of different concepts. With this, students should support the conclusions they make with evidence and reasons.
Promote authentic doing and sharing, meaning that their products relate to concepts that are present in the world today. In other words, they are making connections to their lives and the world around them.
“Stretch” thinking and integrate academic knowledge, personal skills, and student input. This gives students the opportunity to facilitate their own learning by engaging in experiences that are self-chosen, but teacher guided. Through these experiences/investigations, students lead the learning process and become very self-reflective of their learning.
“Stretch” thinking and require transfer, meaning that students apply their knowledge of academic concepts into real-world contexts.
“Stretch” thinking and spark reflective and metacognitive thinking, meaning that students extend their own thinking by being self-reflective of the academic choices they make to further their understanding of academic concepts.
All of these characteristics of performance-based assessments are important because they allow students to apply multiple skills, concepts, and strategies to open-ended problems/questions. Something Hess said that stuck with me was that performance-based assessments “require students to do something”. This quote seems simple at first read, but after reading this chapter, the verb “do” is really important for students. Giving students the opportunity to be a leader in their own learning (with teacher support, of course) is super important and during the whole learning process, students are always “doing” different things. I think students leading their own learning is super powerful and beneficial because they have the opportunity to make academic decisions that they are personally interested in and they can make decisions that they feel are best. Even if students don’t succeed at first, performance-based assessments allow them to reevaluate their learning process and try again. This is a really great way to engage students in the academic process and it makes the learning process more meaningful for them.
To learn more about performance-based assessments, I went to the internet to research articles that may relate to or expand upon Hess’ ideas. That’s when I came across Christopher Pappas’ article, “What is Performance-Based Assessment?”. Pappas starts off by discussing the importance of this type of assessment. Pappas (2023) states, “Performance-based assessment is an evaluation approach that focuses on measuring someone's ability to apply their knowledge in the real world, instead of solely testing knowledge acquisition. By demonstrating their understanding of topics or tasks, learners are required to put what they've learned into practice through activities such as presentations, experiments, and simulations”. This directly relates to Hess and her discussion of the seven characteristics of performance-based assessments. Hess and Pappas both agree that an important part of this assessment is the application portion in which students apply the knowledge they have been accumulating to real-world contexts. In order for students to succeed at applying what they have learned into the world around them, they must first go through the process of the actual assessment in which they gain knowledge about different topics and concepts. In the article I found, Pappas describes four types of performance-based assessments:
Project-Based Assessments: Students complete projects that align with complex concepts in order to show/prove to what extent they learned the material that their project(s) focused on.
Portfolio Assessments: Students produce many projects over time, all relating to a specific topic/subject.
Simulation Assessments: Puts students in situations that depict real-life case scenarios.
Authentic Assessments: Students fully engage in an experience in which they act like they are a person. For example, Pappas (2023) states, “So, in a history class, they need to act like real historians and do research, while making sure the source of their information is reliable”. This allows students to develop skills that will help them in their future careers.
While Pappas describes four general types of performance-based assessments, Hess gives examples of specific performance-based assessments that may be used in the classroom (ex: case studies, mock trials, developing a podcast, oral presentations, etc.). These specific ideas all fit under one of the four types of performance-based assessments as described by Pappas. In addition to Hess’ (2023) ideas that are spread out throughout Chapter 5, she also describes specific performance-based assessments (p. 200-203):
Developing a Case Study
Exhibitions and 5-Minute Film Festivals
Podcasting
Thematic Food Trucks
Performance Poetry
Blackout Poetry
Shark Tank Proposal
I appreciated this because as a teacher, I am always looking for new ways to engage students through performance based assessments. These specific complex products are great ways to assess new concepts learned by students in an engaging way.
Pappas’ article also dives into the benefits of performance-based assessments:
Relevance and Real World Application
As I have previously mentioned, students applying what they have learned in the real world is extremely important. Both Hess and Pappas emphasized the importance of application because students need to be able to understand academic concepts beyond the classroom. Specifically, I liked Pappas’ (2023) quote, “those assessments mirror realistic scenarios and include tasks to encourage learners to bridge the gap between theory and practice”. When students show a deeper understanding of what they have learned, they should then be able to use that new knowledge in their daily lives.
Critical Thinking Skills
Students are given the opportunity to analyze information and make a plan of how they want to approach the problem being presented. They are challenged to be creative and come up with their own ideas of how to go about solving problems and/or answering questions.
Personalized Learning
With personalized learning, students are able to choose how they want to show what they have learned by selecting an assessment that caters to their own learning style and preferences. This all aligns with Hess’ idea of allowing students to be leaders in their own learning experiences and giving them opportunities to have freedom of choice.
Collaboration
Collaboration is something that I don’t remember reading about in chapter 5 of Rigor by Design, Not Chance, but it is something that Pappas addresses. Pappas (2023) states, “These assessments group students together to find solutions to a problem, each contributing their diverse opinions and perspectives to the effort. When students collaborate with each other, they sharpen their active listening skills and know how to filter information from different sources to come up with an effective solution”. This portion of the article made me realize that performance-based assessments help students develop their communication and collaboration skills by engaging students in experiences that require them to communicate their learning in a variety of different ways using a variety of different types of media.
Motivation
Even after just seeing the word “motivation”, I already understand how this relates to ideas discussed by Hess. Hess discussed how performance-based assessments help engage students in the learning process. Pappas discussed how the assessments motivate students to engage in the process of learning because they are being presented with information that is meaningful and relevant to them as people and as learners. This goes to show how motivation and engagement go hand-and-hand.
Overall, from both Hess and Pappas, I learned the importance of performance-based assessments and I gained a deeper understanding of how they can be incorporated into different classroom settings. Both authors lead me to very important “take away” concepts. Specifically the importance of student choice and engagement, as well as applying learned information into the real world. But, with that being said, overall both authors helped me gain a better understanding of how I can better support students as an educator.
References
Hess, K. (2023). Rigor by Design, Not Chance: Deeper Thinking Through Actionable Instruction and Assessment. ASCD.
Pappas, C. (2023, June 22). What is Performance-Based Assessment?. eLearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/what-is-performance-based-assessment
What a complementary article to the book.
ReplyDeleteAbby,
ReplyDeleteI resonated with your statement of how important it is for students to take 'charge' in their academic learning. Allowing them to choose what approach they want to use and having trial and error strengthens them as learners inside and outside of the classroom. Using PBAs in a way where students can select their own way to complete an assignment fosters this type of deeper learning.
Thank you for your summary of Hess’s chapter, Designing Complex Tasks. You hit the nail on the head when you wrote, “I think students leading their own learning is super powerful and beneficial because they have the opportunity to make academic decisions that they are personally interested in and they can make decisions that they feel are best.” In addition to being leaders while learning in the classroom, these students are also forming habits that will help them to be life-long learners, in and out of the classroom. As Pappas noted, authentic assessments can support students gaining and using the skills that they could directly apply to their future careers. Feeling like what we are learning can directly relate to our real-world lives is motivating, as you noted with your reflection of how you can apply the concepts and task ideas from this chapter to your own classroom. Well done.
ReplyDelete~Kathryn