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Assignment:
Now that you have read the research and viewed the video discussion on assessment, you will examine the topic further by analyzing a project description to see how it implements elements of an effective performance assessment.
A performance assessment can empower teachers to focus their instruction in a way that is meaningful and exciting to students and can motivate students to become more invested in their learning. An important part of a well-planned performance assessment is the description of the project that you provide to students. An effective description informs students about your expectations for the project and gives them strategies for meeting those expectations. The following is a list of the elements of an effective project description.
Elements of a Project Description
A. Analyzing a Project Description
For this activity, you will analyze the description of a portfolio project designed by Elizabeth Runnalls and Wendie Santiago for a Spanish IV class in Nanuet, New York. As a culminating project, students wrote and illustrated a children’s story, then recorded it on audiotape and performed it for younger students. To help them draft their text and rehearse their presentations, students were provided with a project description as well as rubrics for the written, artistic, and oral components of the project.
You will now use the elements of a project description to analyze the children’s story project description.
Optional:
If you would like to explore the elements of a project description further, consider analyzing a project description from Jane Shuffelton’s Russian I, II, and III classes. For this project, students were asked to write a letter of introduction about themselves that would be sent to a teenager in the Republic of Georgia.
To begin, print out the Georgia Letter Project Description (PDF, 83 K) form and highlight the sections of the text that contain the five elements of a project description described above. When you are finished, you can use the Georgia Letter Project Description — Sample Analysis(PDF, 83 K) form to compare your answers.
B. Reflect on the Activity
After comparing your analysis of the project description(s) with the sample answers, reflect on the following questions:
Assignment:
Write a brief summary of what you learned from this activity to submit as an assignment.
In this section, you will apply what you have learned to your own teaching. The following activities are designed to assist you in developing plans for assessing student performance. Choose one or both of the activities below.
The following is an outline of what Ms. Granville’s assessment plan might have been:
A Cajun Folktale and Zydeco: Interpersonal Communication Assessment
Activity A: Informal Performance Assessments
Informal assessments usually focus on performance in the context of a narrow and limited task. In the video classroom excerpts, Ms. Granville demonstrated her approach to informally assessing interpersonal communication. She conducts such assessments throughout the year across various content themes. She also uses the ACTFL K-12 Performance Guidelines (see Resources) to establish the proficiency level she expects, and then builds these into her Rubric for Interpersonal Task (PDF, 14 K).
Select a thematic unit that you have previously taught or are planning to teach for which you could develop an assessment plan. Using the above assessment plan as a model, design a short, informal performance task for interpretive or presentational communication that you could use in a class and that allows you to assess and offer feedback on the spot. You can use the Informal Performance Assessment (PDF, 54 K) form to guide your design.
Assignment: Submit your informal performance assessment plan as an assignment.
The following is an outline of what the Nanuet teachers’ assessment plan might have been:
Children’s Storybook: Presentational Communication Assessment
Activity B: Formal Performance Assessments
Formal assessments focus on 1) broader tasks that may involve significant in-class and out-of-class time, depending upon the content and the Communication modes involved, or 2) cumulative content knowledge. For example, Nancy Gadbois’s Integrated Performance Assessment in Springfield, Massachusetts, was done over several weeks to assess interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational communication, with each mode taking in-class or out-of-class time as was appropriate to the task (for example, class time to view the video and out-of-class time to prepare for presentations). In another video classroom excerpt, French and Spanish students at Nanuet High School wrote and illustrated children’s storybooks, then read them to younger students. This final performance project focused on presentational communication that was written, oral, and visual.
Select a thematic unit that you have previously taught or are planning to teach for which you could develop an assessment plan. Using the above assessment plan as a model, design a culminating unit activity that you can use to assess student performance and that addresses one or more of the communicative modes (interpretive, interpersonal, presentational) and perhaps cultural or content knowledge. You can use the Formal Performance Assessment (PDF, 54 K) form to guide your design.
Assignment:
Submit your formal performance assessment plan as an assignment.
The following four-step process will help you plan a small action research project to explore your questions about assessment, implement action plans for designing performance assessments and providing feedback to students, and collect information to assess your instructional innovations. Before you begin this section, you can go to About Action Research for an introduction to the process of designing and conducting action research projects. If you are taking this workshop for credit, you will need to complete one action research project from any one of the eight workshop sessions as an assignment.
If you would like to focus on assessment for your action research project, use the following questions and examples to help frame your thinking and shape your project.
I. Thinking
II. Acting
III. Reflecting
IV. Rethinking
Note: The final step of the action research project is to reevaluate your teaching practice based on your research data. Because it takes time to complete an action research project, it may not be possible to do this step during the course of this workshop. However, if you are taking this workshop for credit, you will need to complete one action research project during or after the course of the workshop to submit as an assignment.
Assignment:
If you are taking the workshop for graduate credit, submit your completed action research project on any one of the eight session topics.
In this session, you explored performance assessments in daily activities and for larger units. You will now write a one- to two-page summary of what you have learned and how you plan to apply it in your classroom. Review the notes you have taken during this session, as well as your answers to the Reflect on Your Experience questions. Use the questions below to guide your writing.
Assignment:
Submit your summary as an assignment.