Guidelines for Developing Tasks:
- Generate ideas for tasks drawing on your teaching experience, written sources, and community
members. Community members are particularly useful in formulating real-world tasks that reflect
the vision of success.
- When choosing tasks, consider whether the task:
- matches the specific instructional intentions
- represents adequately the content and skills you expect students to attain
- enables students to demonstrate their learning and progress
- uses authentic, real-world activities
- is interdisciplinary
- can measure of several goals
- Performance assessment tasks should be carefully documented. The following must be described in
detail:
- nature and format of questions
- group or individual task--If group work, describe what group roles must be filled and how.
- response mode (e.g., written essay, oral presentation and drawing)--Specify whether students,
teachers, or both can choose the response mode.
- materials/equipment needed
- student directions
- teacher directions and administrative constraints (e.g., amount of time allowed, order of tasks,
assistance allowed)
- Once you have described the task in detail, ask yourself:
- Does the task match the targets and goals?
- Is the task a type of problem that students will experience frequently in schools and outside of
schools?
- Is the task and the language used in it culturally or gender biased?
- Is the task credible to stakeholders?
- Is the task meaningful and engaging to students so that they can demonstrate their
capabilities?
(Adapted from Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters, 1992)
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