Recognizing
the key role of challenging performance-based assessments
in developing students' ability to think, reason, and communicate
their knowledge, in the late 1990s, the Regional
Educational Laboratories developed a Toolkit for Professional
Developers to use in training teachers in the use of alternative
or performance-based assessment methods (see Toolkit98).
The need to encourage teachers to go beyond multiple-choice
tests and demand more challenging intellectual work from their
students is still with us.
As
teachers are not always comfortable in the role of assessment
developer, an important issue for schools and districts to
consider is how to support teachers in critiquing the quality
of the alternative or performance-based assessments they use.
The Alternative Assessment Evaluation Form is one such tool.
The criteria used are ones that reflect agreed upon criteria
for high quality assessments. This Alternative Assessment
Evaluation Form can be used by groups of teachers in critiquing
their performance assessments. Chapter 3 (Designing
High Quality Assessments ) describes what good assessments
look like. Several activities are suggested as a way of working
with teachers in critiquing performance assessment quality
(Activity 3.1 is called Performance
Tasks—Keys to Success and Activity 3.6 is called
How
to Critique an Assessment .
Some
resources for performance assessments:
Back
|
