Giving a voice to teacher-leaders, administrators, and students doing amazing things
The key to teaching for understanding is to foster ongoing inquiry into important “big ideas.” A natural way to actively engage students in such inquiry is to use a few Essential Questions (EQs) to frame a curriculum unit. The explicit Read More …
In this era of accountability, educators throughout the nation are under pressure. Administrators are held accountable for student achievement in their schools as gauged by standardized tests. Increasingly, teachers’ evaluations include a percentage based on the results of test scores Read More …
In this blog, we will explore ideas and processes for designing authentic performance tasks to be used as rich learning activities and/or for purposes of assessment. In the spirit of “backward design,” let’s begin at the end by considering the Read More …
The case for the increased use of performance tasks rests on two foundational ideas: Authentic tasks are needed to both develop and assess many of the most significant outcomes identified in the current sets of academic Standards as well as Read More …
A performance task is any learning activity or assessment that asks students to perform to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and proficiency. Performance tasks yield a tangible product and/or performance that serve as evidence of learning. Unlike a selected-response item (e.g., Read More …
I want to call your attention to what I think is a terrific resource from a group called Defined Learning. The product is entitled, Defined STEM, although the name can be misleading. They have created more than 100 performance tasks Read More …