Examples of performance assessment units can be used or adapted to fit your classroom.
Level: Second Year, intermediate |
Theme: What does "Being Healthy" mean?
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Context:
Students will have completed a unit on food, exercise, sports, health or a related topic. Students will have read about being healthy and avoiding unhealthy habits.
Objectives:
Content: Students will understand 1) that many factors impact health; 2) everyday behaviors play a role in maintaining good health.
Language: Students will be able to communicate their opinions on how to maintain good health, using learned vocabulary and expressions. |
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Performance Assessment Tasks: Interpersonal, Interpretive, Presentational
Note: Assessments are given on separate days throughout the unit, rather than on successive days
Summary The Unit Plan Inventory used to plan the assessment can be downloaded the for use in creating and adapting integrated performance assessments.)
Mode: Interpretive: |
Mode: Interpersonal: |
Mode: Presentational: |
Task:
Students read an article about smoking, stress, eating habits, fitness, driving habits or work and school schedules (or other related topic)among young people in the target culture.
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Task:
In pairs, students discuss the article and ask their partner's opinion about the article. They are to discuss smoking, stress, eating habits, fitness, driving habits or work and school schedules (or other related topic) among young people and give and get each other’s opinion. Students are to converse for at least 3 but no more than 4 minutes.
Students have instruction sheet with task. Student’s conversations are recorded. |
Task:
Students write a letter to the editor of the German class newsletter expressing their opinion about the topic as it relates to young people’s lives and what society can do to help students live healthier and better balanced lives. |
Criteria for Evaluation:
Students fill in a work sheet asking for main idea, some supporting detail and the phrases that express them.
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Criteria for Evaluation:
Student: self-assessment
Teacher: Multitrait rubric |
Criteria for Evaluation:
Analytic rubric |
Connections: Standard 3.1
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Students reinforce their knowledge of other disciplines through the foreign language. |
Evidence:
Letters to the editor with suggestions about reducing stress. |
Interpretive Task
“What does Being Healthy Mean?”
Name:
Provide the information in the spaces below.
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1. The main idea of the article: (in English).
2. Supporting details: in German (target language) write the phrases from the article that contains information about:
a. Reasons why young people smoke/work/eat fast food/drive fast/are stressed? :
b. Groups affected by stress:
c. Reasons why young people smoke/work/eat fast food/drive fast:
d. Addressing the problem:
3. What have you learned from this article? You can write in English or use German/target language..
4. Why is this an important or not important topic? (Use details from the article to support your answer).
5. How do the sources of stress experienced by people in Germany differ from the causes of stress for American young people?
6. Do you think the causes are similar? If so which? (In English)
Performance Assessment- Interpersonal Task
Intermediate Level
“What does it mean to be healthy?”
Instructions for the dialogue about the article
Read these directions before you begin.
N.B. Remember to start the tape recorder as you begin speaking.
Your conversation should be about three minutes long.
Ask at least one question of your partner.
During your conversation:
- Talk about the article you read about stress for young people in Germany. Tell your partner what you read in the article.
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- Talk about the stress young people encounter on a day-to-day basis
- Talk about the similarities and differences between what is stressful for young people in Germany and in the U.S..
- Discuss anything else you and your partner think relates to the topic of stress in young people’s lives, such as ways to reduce stress and what families and schools can do to reduce stress.
After your conversation:
Stop the recorder
Fill out the discussion Self-Assessment Sheet.
Interpersonal Task: In groups of four, students will tell about their favorite stories and answer questions. This task is interpersonal because the discussion is spontaneous. The questions the students answered the previous night, gave them an opportunity to reflect on their favorite story. Making notes provided students with some “thinking time” to be better prepared to participate in the conversation.
In assessing the students during the interpersonal task, a teacher could have fill out a self-assessment checklist or rubric for their participation in the discussion.
Students could also be evaluated using inner and outer circles, where students in the outer circle are assigned a student in the inner circle, directly across from him or her, to observe. Roles and places are reversed after the inner group completes the task assigned by the teacher. The second group of students discusses an assigned task. Discussions could also be videotaped for the teacher to view later.
Using a checklist, the teacher could move among the groups to rate the discussions in each group, or, the teacher cold also choose to pull several pairs of students aside and discuss the their story with them in detail.
Presentational Task: Draw a sequence of five pictures depicting the main events of a legend or story. Provide a heading and dialogue for each frame.
The text for the sequences will be edited and revised for accuracy. The editing may be first done as pair work with each partner being responsible for making corrections and allowing the teacher to give the final feedback before the students complete their final portrayal of a legend or fairy tale. Samples of student work and a rubric can be seen under Fables through Comics (French)
This task is presentational because the students are writing formal texts. Students write a rough draft for their sequences. After the rough draft is completed, the student receives feedback from the teacher and peers, makes the necessary changes and prepares a final draft.
Peer feedback: Peer editing works well, when students are responsible for one or two specific points in their editing task; for example, they could verify that the contents of the two paragraphs matched the instructions, or a student could check for subject verb agreement, correct genders, or that no words were left in English.
Give peers a short checklist (two or three items) to use in providing feedback. They can complete the checklist, write their comments, pose questions left unaddressed and sign their name to the checklist indicating that they have given appropriate feedback.
Teacher feedback: The teacher must remember that s/he is not writing the sequence for the student. Before accepting a rough draft, give the students a list of non-negotiables. Non-negotiables are items for which students can take complete responsibility. Rough drafts should not be accepted unless the non-negotiables have been met.
Examples of non-negotiables for this task might be:
- grammar has been checked
- each section has a title and an explanation
The interpersonal and presentational tasks can be evaluated using a rubric (see the Evaluation section for information on constructing rubrics), while the interpretive task is evaluated from the students’ worksheets |
