Performance Assessment Tasks

Our curriculum committees have been talking about performance tasks, scales and rubrics.  For those of us that have been teaching for some time, we know these are not new.  We have written performance tasks before in Grand Forks Public Schools when we created our original district standards document titled "Frameworks".  Robert Marzano was here back then talking about performance tasks and rubrics.  I stumbled across an old article about performance tasks from ASCD.  It quotes McTighe, another familiar name in the area of educational research.  In fact, most articles from ASCD that deal with performance assessment are from the 90's.  No, performance tasks are not "new"- we just need to "renew" our knowledge of them.  They are an engaging and effective way to assess student learning.  Here are some old articles I dug up:
Perspectives on Authentic Assessment
Implementing Performance Assessment in the Classroom
Education Update:Designing Performance Assessment Tasks:Designing Performance Assessment Tasks
Defining Performance Assessment
US Dept. of Education 1993

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