Conceptual Overview
Text-based Reflection
Read this blog post from Jeanne Sturges, "Critical Needs Met When the 'Real World' Goes to School".
Answer the following questions:
- What transferable skills do you see in each assessment?
- How can the community be used as students develop proficiency?
- Where do you see opportunities for personalized learning in these tasks?
Practice the Process
There are many templates and tools available to schools as they develop unit planners and assessments.
Examine a sample performance task from Vermont AOE and pay close attention to where and how the proficiency statements and transferable skills are noted and codified.
Create a mini-codified system for tracking, using your work from Question 3, 4, and 5 OR if your school has a tracking system, look at it with a critical eye and write a reflection about how it's working in your school.
Case Study Analysis
Examine this example assessment map from Vergennes High School.
Answer the questions below:
- What questions do you have about the system?
- What elements would you include in your own system?
- How does having a defined assessment map support personalized learning?
More Resources
Read Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Center for Collaborative Education's "Quality Performance Assessment: Harnessing the Power of Teacher and Student Learning" for an overview of how performance assessments can inform teacher practice.
Read Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Center for Collaborative Education's "Ready for the Future: The Role of Performance Assessments in Shaping Graduates' Academic, Professional, and Personal Lives" for a study about how performance assessment can contribute to student learning outcomes.
Examine Great School’s Partnership’s Assessment Pathways Simplified graphic and accompanying definitions to understand different models of proficiency-based assessment systems.
Read Achieve and the Center for Assessment’s "Assessment to Support Competency-Based Pathways" for an overview of how assessment must change in a proficiency- or competency-based system.
Review Tools for Formative Assessment for links to helpful platforms teachers can use for formative assessment in a proficiency- or competency-based system.
Read Dr. Karin Hess’s "Student Work to DIE For: 6 Ways that Work from Strategically-Designed Performance Tasks Can Improve Assessment Quality, Deepen Learning, and Build Content and Pedagogical Expertise" for an overview of how looking at student work can improve teacher practice.
Evidence of Learning
Be sure to record your answers to the above questions in the Evidence of Learning Tool.
Continue this Self-Paced Course
Browse other questions: Developing and Applying Proficiencies