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PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS

    According to O'Malley and Pierce(1996) Authentic Assessment “Consists of any form of assessment in which the students constructs a response orally or in writing”(p. 4). Students can give their responses during formal situations or informal situations (i.e. observations). Performance assessments can be extremely helpful because it allows the student to explain what they know about a topic in their own words, and it allows the teacher to understand instantly what the student needs help with. Not only are performance assessments given orally or in writing, but they also have many valuable characteristics that make them relevant for classroom use. One characteristic is the use of constructed responses. Students must use higher order thinking skills to think about what they know about the topic presented to be able to discuss their knowledge in their own words. Another characteristic is that it authentic in that it relates to the topic, the standards, and the way the topic was presented. Not only is it authentic it is also integrative. Performance assessments allows the teacher to integrate oral standards and writing standards across subject matters. Performance assessments also allow the process the students are learning relate to the product they are producing which allows them to delve deeper into the subject matter instead of just learning the basics of the topic. The last characteristics of performance assessments is that they are assessed using a rubric in which the expectations are known to students prior to the assessment. Some examples of types of performance assessments are "Oral interviews, story or text retelling, writing samples, project/ exhibitions, experiments/demonstrations, constructed response items, [and] teacher observations"(O'Malley & Pierce, 1996,p. 12).

 

PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENTS

    Portfolio Assessments are "A systematic collection of student work that is analyzed to show progress over time with regard to instructional objectives”(O'Malley & Pierce, 1996, p. 5). For portfolio assessments a key characteristic is that the student chooses which pieces of work they want to be showcased in their portfolio. Students pick pieces of their work that show growth over time in regards to the standards that were covered during instruction. Portfolio assessments allow students to critically think about their own work and reflect on their own processes and abilities.  Some examples of portfolios are writing samples, reading logs, drawings, audio/video tapes, teacher and student comments. (O'Malley and Pierce, 1996)

 

SELF-ASSESSMENTS

    Self-Assessments according to O'Malley and Pierce(1996) "promotes direct involvement in learning and the integration of cognitive abilities with motivation and attitude toward learning"(p. 5). Self-assessments helps students to work on metacognitive skills because it allows them to focus on their own learning processes.  Self-assessments can have students focus on what they know, what they still need to know, what they need help with, or how much growth they have had.