The document discusses performance-based tasks and assessments aligned to Common Core standards. It outlines characteristics of effective performance tasks, such as being open-ended, allowing multiple solutions, and requiring higher-order thinking. Well-constructed tasks clearly define what constitutes a successful response and measure important skills like reasoning and synthesis. Teachers must prepare students for the performance-based assessments through scaffolds, modeling, and gradual release of responsibility.

1. THE COMMON CORE
AND ASSESSMENT
Deconstructing Performance –Based Tasks
Presented By: Irina Kushnir
Merrin Rosenberg

2. CHARACTERISTICS OF AN
EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE TASK
 Are open ended / demonstration
 Have more than one way to answer correctly
 Require active performance rather than passive reaction
 Take longer to do than multiple choice tests
 Use complicated grading; need a scoring guide or rubric
 They are understanding transformed into action
 Student centered /real life situations
 Creation of a product

3. GOOD PERFORMANCE TASKS
Are clear and unambiguous
Set the parameters for what the answer should look like
Measure something important
Are not a simple substitute for a multiple-choice question
Require reasoning, synthesis, evaluation, higher-order thinking

4. WELL CONSTRUCTED
VS
FLAWED ITEMS
Standard RI.5.2 (Key Ideas and Details)
TASK: Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain
how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
Summarize the text of To Kill a Mockingbird and give details that
show two main ideas.

5. WHAT IS WRONG?
The question does not match the standard. The standard is
about informational text; the question is about literary text.
The question is asked in reverse order. It would be better to ask
for two main ideas first, with supporting details, and then for a
general summary.

6. A SENSE OF URGENCY…WE MUST
TAKE STEPS RIGHT NOW TO:
 Prepare students for the coming exams. Obviously, there is a big gap
between what CCLS will require and what is being asked today.
 Reliance on traditional, simple, multiple-choice items is going to be
replaced with challenging performance tasks that require students to
demonstrate their knowledge and skills by:
• Explaining their thinking - justifying their
responses
• Performing research - Integrating concepts
• Synthesizing new information -Building critical thinking
• Mastering real-world applications of new skills

7. DECONSTRUCTING
PERFORMANCE TASKS
 A methodology:
 Build sets of scaffolds for the more complex tasks so that what goes into the
overall performance is unpacked and made clearer
 Define the scaffolds so students see an entry point into the complex task
 Plan how to determine what scaffolds students need in order to be able to do the
complex task and outline the steps to get them to the higher levels of achievement
 Not every student will enter the task at the same place!

8. TEXT ACTIVITY
 Let’s read the text “Beauty and Body Image in the Media.”
 ELA TASK:Standard RL.6.1 (Key Ideas and Details)
Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what
the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text
 TASK: What is the text about and what inferences can you draw from
“Beauty and Body Image in the Media”? Quote accurately and explicitly
from the text.

9. ELA SCAFFOLDS
 Each is a constructed response item in its own right
• Text Structure
• For each paragraph, write what the author is saying, using your own words
• Take one of your statements and connect it to another one of your statements so
you see how two paragraphs relate to each other
• Take a third statement and connect it to the first two. How do the three relate to
each other?
• Find a paragraph that you think is especially important. Describe why you think it
is so important to understanding the meaning of the whole text?
Accuracy of Details; Relation to Concepts
• List five big details given in the text and link them to an inference or set of
inferences that they support

10. FOR STRUGGLING
STUDENTS
 Each scaffold can be a formative assessment
 Model – read each paragraph and have the teacher restate in their own
words. Then have the students try on their own for paragraph 2.
 Determine importance of a specific paragraph because it connects to the
meaning of the entire text
 Direct students where in the article/text you want students to pull the
evidence from.

11. GRADUAL RELEASE MODEL
 SCAFFOLDS FOR ANY READING COMPREHENSION TASK
1. TEACHER MODEL
2. BREAK INTO CHUNKS
3. PARAPHRASE
4. THINK ALOUDS
5. USE SENTENCE FRAMES (GUIDE STUDENT’S
THOUGHTS)
6. NOTING INFORMATION
7. PLANNING THE RESPONSE (WRITTEN)
LEN VYGOTSKY

12. ACTION PLANNING
WHAT DO I NEED TO DO NOW?
• DEVELOP A PLAN TO HELP
STUDENTS GET READY FOR THE
CCLS AND THE ASSESSMENTS THAT
MEASURE THEM.
• QUESTIONS…