Sample Performance Task (GRASP)

This is a possible performance task (GRASP) for a 12th grade U.S. Government class:

You have been hired by the local government to create a guide for 18 year olds who are allowed to vote in the upcoming election. These 18 year olds do not know anything about the different powers that are set aside for each branch of government or the systems of checks and balances. The design, structure, and organization of the guide are entirely up to you. However, the local government requires some specific information to be included in the guide. You must include: two powers that the legislative branch holds, two powers that the executive branch holds, and two powers that the judicial branch holds. Additionally, they require a section that describes the checks that each branch has on the others, and how each branch keeps the other branches from abusing their powers. Additionally, they require you to include a section on how each branch of government relies on the duties of the other branches. Your work will be reviewed by your peers.

How Should We Use Our Assessment Results?

It is important for all teachers to use assessments in their classrooms. But there are many different ways we can use these results in the classroom. One thing that this chapter focused on was praising students and reinforcing effort.

Reinforcing effort involves explicitly teaching students about the relationship between effort and achievement. It is important that teachers acknowledge students' efforts when they work hard to achieve something, in this case, when they work hard to do well on a test. Once students start to see the results of working hard, such as a good grade on a test, they will begin to change their attitudes and beliefs about themselves and their ability to learn. They will learn to persevere when a task is difficult and success is not immediate.

There has been a debate on whether praise will affect students intrinsic motivation or if it promotes student engagement and decreases behavioral problems. According to the book, teachers must learn to use praise with caution. It is also important that teachers provide feedback on assessments before they return them to students, but pointing out incorrect answers and following that up with noninstructive feedback, such as telling the student to work harder in order to get the correct answer, will result in students will learn to attribute their success or lack of success on factors outside of their control, such as luck. This type of feedback is ineffective because it does not provide students with information that will help increase their effort, engagement, or belief in their abilities.

Another important topic that this chapter discussed was tracking assessment results. This helps students focus on the learning objective, what it takes to achieve that objective, and their progress towards meeting that objective.

The article that I chose for this week suggests that when it comes to student learning, it is not just about what they know. It's also about what they know about what they know. The emphasis in most skills is placed on what students need to learn, but little emphasis is placed on how students need to learn and what skills will promote efficient studying. This article relates to using our assessment results because it is important that students know how to study for assessments and know how to best learn the material that is being taught. Teachers need to provide praise for students and teach them how to learn material. If students in a class have performed poorly on an assessment, it may be because they did not know how to learn the material. Providing praise and using assessment results appropriately are both important in the classroom.

Feedback and Assessment

Feedback and assessment are essential parts of learning. However, it is important to remember that formal, graded tests are not the only method of assessment. It is important to give students a way to express what they know in different ways. It is also important to keep in mind that just because a student performs poorly on one type of assessment does not necessarily mean that he or she does not grasp the concept. Assessments are a way of the teacher to gauge where students are understanding the material, but it can be done in many different ways. For example, a student can journal about what he or she has learned.

Giving students feedback is far more important than giving students grades. Feedback should address the knowledge that students are supposed to have learned and feedback should provide insight into what needs to be done to improve the student's performance. It should not be personal, but instead it should focus on key aspects of the student's assessment. Another way to provide feedback is to engage the students in the feedback process. This way, they can reflect on their own performance or give advice to peers. It is important that these peer reviewers are reviewing what the student lacks in the assignment, and not giving grades or marking things correct and incorrect. Learning objectives also should be set so that students can find content to be relevant and applicable to the real world. Students should be allowed to personalize their learning goals.

Assessment and providing feedback relate to the gradual release of responsibility because teachers must first use focused instruction where the teacher shows the students how to perform a task. Then, students can be guided through an assignment while the teacher provides constant feedback as students participate. Feedback can also be provided during collaborative learning. And in the last stage, independent learning, teachers can use assessment to ensure that students have understood all of the material and teachers can provide feedback on individual assessment.

Assessment relates to the Equip and Reflect part of WHERETO because in order for students to do well on assessments, the teacher needs to provide them with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed. Then, it is important to provide students with time to revise and provide their own feedback on their work. Also, it is important to tailor the assessments to each student's needs because each student responds differently to different assessment methods.

How Do We Teach?: Part 2

The chapter that I chose to read for this class was titled, "Assigning Homework and Providing Practice."The essential question that I asked myself before reading was: How do I assign useful and engaging homework? This chapter helped me to answer this question as well as the question of How do we teach?

Assigning homework and providing practice can provide students with multiple opportunities to learn a skill or to review and apply knowledge. However, there are a umber of factors that determine whether homework and practice are useful or not. Some of these include: parental involvement and support, homework quality, student learning preferences, and the structure and monitoring of assignments. Additionally, there is evidence that shows that homework is more effective for older students who are in middle and high school.

There are three important recommendations for assigning homework. These are: develop and communicate a school homework policy, design homework assignments to support academic learning and communicate their purpose, and in my opinion, most importantly, provide feedback on assignments. It is important that assignments do not rely on the parent to teach the child new material. Assignments should only be given to students after they can perform the tasks independently. Homework also should never be used as a punishment. The purpose of homework should be to provide students with opportunities to practice skills in order to increase speed, accuracy, and understanding. It is important to provide feedback on homework rather than grades for every assignment. If a grade is not attached to the assignment, students are more likely to take risks and show teachers aspects of their conceptual understanding that they may not have shown on a graded assignment. Teachers can provide feedback using student conferences, class discussions, and peer review. Providing review can also ensure that students are not performing tasks incorrectly. If students continually do homework assignments incorrectly, then he or she will learn to complete all problems this way and the homework will actually have been detrimental to the student's learning.

When designing practice sessions, it is important for teachers to make them short, focused, and distributed over time. It is easier for students to master a shorter activity. Immediately after introducing a new concept, students should have short and frequent practice sessions. As they become more proficient in the material, practice can be given in longer periods in less frequency. Again, it is important that teachers provide students with feedback on their practice assignments.

One other topic that this chapter discussed was the use of new educational devices to provide practice activities and feedback. Teachers can now use tablets and laptop computers to assign practice activities. And according to an article from Education Week, that demand for educational games will continue to increase. Revenues in 2012 were $1.5 billion and they are expected to increase to $2.3 billion by 2017. The demand for educational simulations is even greater. Currently, the top buying nations are the United States, Japan, South Korea, China, and India, in that order. But the games and simulations are spreading worldwide. These can be very useful for teachers in providing practice assignments and are a new tool that students are using to help them learn.