Other Resources
Performance Assessment
Massive Open Online Courses
SCALE has offered Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) focused on teaching educators how to design performance tasks and to implement the performance tasks in their classrooms. We have made some of the previous course materials and two of the videos in the courses available here. If you are interested in working with us to provide these MOOC courses to educators, please contact us.
Building Educator Assessment Literacy
Professional Development Materials
The Building Educator Assessment Literacy project is a partnership between SCALE and WestEd supported by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bechtel Foundation, and the Stuart Foundation. The BEAL professional development modules are designed to support educators in learning from student work on performance tasks. The BEAL modules provide a structure for educators to analyze and score student responses to English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics performance tasks from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Practice Test, reflect on the design and purpose of performance tasks in summative and formative contexts, and experience collaborative analysis of student work on performance tasks as a process for informing instructional practice.
The BEAL materials include content-specific modules on unpacking, aligning and scoring ELA and Math performance tasks, as well as adapting ELA and Math performance tasks for curriculum-embedded use in a formative assessment process. The BEAL materials also include several cross-content modules on assessment literacy and on analyzing summative assessment data (specifically focused on evidence-centered design, interpreting Smarter Balanced score reports, and appropriate uses of summative assessment data). Summative assessment data content has been adapted from content originally developed by WestEd for the California Department of Education.
The primary BEAL modules for ELA and Mathematics are combined into single files for each content area:
- Math powerpoint slidedeck and Math pdf handout book materials.
- ELA powerpoint slidedeck and ELA pdf handout book materials.
The modules focused on analyzing summative assessment data are combined into two separate files, and are designed for inclusion as a final session in the BEAL professional development for both Math and ELA audiences, as well as for administrators and others.
The BEAL modules can be stitched together or broken apart to fit a variety of timeframes. For example, each session could be delivered independently, with sessions ranging from 1-3 hours each, or the modules can be combined into a 2-day design or extended even longer by repeating any of the modules within Session 2 with tasks from additional grade levels. Materials for incorporating additional tasks into these modules are available on the Understanding Proficiency website. There you can find one task per grade level for each tested grade (grades 3-8 and high school), which you can use to expand the BEAL resources provided here. For each task, the materials available on Understanding Proficiency include the scoring tools, student work samples, scores on the student work samples, and annotations for the scores.
Other Recommended Performance Task Banks
General
The Buck Institute has a curated bank of projects, both their own, and those they have collected from other developers. Many of these projects include assessments and assessment tools, like rubrics. The bank is searchable by CCSS standards. Also, BIE Documents have teacher resources for project based learning like planning forms, rubrics, group work contracts, etc.
English/Language Arts
Bank of teacher-created modules that were created with CCSS-aligned LDC templates, which are explicitly CCSS aligned. Rubrics are also included.
Offers CCSS-aligned performance assessments for grades K-8. Tasks are designed as on-demand but could be adapted to become curriculum-embedded. Tasks include rubrics.
Provides a set of Smarter Balanced performance tasks together with samples of student work at each score point for each task. Score rationales are provided for each sample response to support the analysis of student work.
History/Social Studies
This site, produced by the Stanford History Education Group, has short constructed response assessments (HATs) that focus on particular historical skills. Free registration is required to download assessments and rubrics at this site, but the resources are well worth it (Grades 6-12).
- College Board Advanced Placement Essay Questions
- The College Board releases questions from prior Advanced Placement tests. Download document‐based questions for American history from 1973-‐1999.
- Find Free-‐Response questions (that include documents) and accompanying scoring systems for World History from past years.
- You can browse the list of home pages for all courses to pick a social science course and find a released sample test and other resources. These assessments may need adaptation as they are designed to be on-‐demand tests for AP courses, but they can provide a good starting point.
- Washington State OSPI-‐Developed Assessments
Produced by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction of the state of Washington (in 2008), this collection of K-‐12 assessments includes one page of CCSS-‐aligned prompts and rubrics for civics, economics, geography, history and international perspectives.
Mathematics
The Mathematics Assessment Project (MAP) features updated MARS tasks, lessons, tests, rubrics, professional development, all aligned to the Common Core. Created by UC Berkeley, Shell Centre, and University of Nottingham.
Provides a set of Smarter Balanced performance tasks together with samples of student work at each score point for each item of each task. Score rationales are provided for each sample response to support the analysis of student work.
Provides a variety of task types, including short performance tasks, together with commentary about each task. Users can search for tasks by grade level Common Core content standard, by domain, or by practice standard. The website will eventually provide free middle school math curriculum called Open Up Resources.
The Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) is one of the early pioneers of high quality performance tasks. Though these are designed for standardized administration, the tasks provide great starters for curriculum embedded tasks.
Science
This site contains 14 primarily physical science performance assessments. The topics range from electricity, friction, and incline planes (physics); mystery powders and floating/sinking (chemistry); and rocks and astronomy (earth science). Each assessment contains the student directions, teacher instructions, scoring system, and list of materials.
This site provides examples of NGSS aligned short performance assessments that are intended to be administered in 30 minutes. The sample assessments focus on the NGSS performance expectations for upper elementary and middle school. In the next few months, additional samples of short curriculum embedded performance assessments intended to take 5 class periods will be posted.
PALS is a task bank of science performance assessments compiled by SRI International for grades K-‐12 and represent a large number of performance assessment developers. Go to the site and select the grade band you are interested in, then select course (physical, life, earth/space, and science/technology). Then select the specific topic of the performance assessments. Most assessments have the student and teacher materials, a scoring system, and a sample of student work. This is a great resource.
This site provides sample laboratory investigations as well as performance assessments focusing on scientific issues in society. The site includes sample performance assessments in 6 stand areas focusing on Energy Transformations; Chemical Structures and Properties; Global Interdependence; Cell Chemistry and Biochemistry; and Genetics, Evolution and Biodiversity. Each assessment contains teacher and student materials.
Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) tasks for multiple years in science and math.