Performance Testing Outcomes and Essays
Megan Smith
EDU 645 Learning & Assessment for the 21st Century
Professor Griggs
May 2012
Link to My Blog: Intellectual Evolution Education:
http://intellectualevolutioneducation.blogspot.com/
For my first college courses assessment practices, I will employ three different layers of performance analysis and essay tests. I will be using an essay assessment for the first class, Pre-1800 Literature William Blake and Williams Wordsworth, and be using an essay assessment, or Essay Final. For the next course, Non-Fiction Writing College Course, I will have students work with webbing structures, or a Web Structure Assessment. For the third class, Drama Performance Techniques/ Play Production Billy Elliot, the students will use research and understandings to create a portfolio, assessment theatrical tryouts, and create model stage structures, as the Final Performance Assessment.
For the first college course assessment, Pre-1800 Literature William Blake and Williams Wordsworth, the students will work at accessing the higher cognitive essay final exam. Since the students will be required to compare and evaluate specific passages from the works of William Blake and William Wordsworth with other religious texts from around the globe, (examples of these different religious texts include the Holy Bible, The Koran, The Bhagavad-Gita, The I-Ch’ing, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Mayan Prophecies, or any other you may have in mind), the essay assessments will be the most effective for this process. Reading and researching the historical texts and time periods of the poets and the religious texts, they will incorporate what connections can be make through the groups, particularly in regards to nature, the divine, and the one. This will require very critical observations, especially in finding specific passages to support the arguments, and will require open book testing without time limits or constraints. The completion of this type of test assessment will call on the intellect and ingenuity of the students. In our textbook, the authors state, “An essay item is one for which the student supplies, rather than selects, the correct answer. The student must compose a response, often extensive, to a question for which no single response or pattern of responses can be cited as correct to the exclusion of all other answers. The accuracy and quality of such a response can often be judge only by a person skilled and informed in the subject area being tested,”(p 158). For this type of course, where the students will read and evaluate and require use of their own original thinking and creating skills. Each essay will be an element of its own, and exist as a separate interpretation from the other essays.
This essay will also be a extended response style essay and will require much depth and breadth. It will require use of all the higher thinking skills such as evaluation, synthesis, analysis, and organization, which are all elements of extended response essays. The students will have to consciously choose passages that fit what they have learned to their own logic, and thread it all to the logic of the essay assignment. This is only accomplished by accessing higher level thinking skills, and become skilled at linking and layering arguments with what they have learned, in addition to quoting specific passage requirements from all different sources to evolve the breadth and depth of the essay questions to earn validity. The power of the assignment is in the hands of the students, and as an educator, I can only evaluate their different arguments, and grade scores on legitimacy of arguments and accuracy of quotations. Another passage in the textbook states, “The potential of the essay item as an evaluation device depends not only on writing appropriate questions that elicit complex cognitive skills, but on also being to structure the students response so that other factors do not obscure your ability to evaluate whether the student is applying the complex cognitive skills you are trying to measure,”(p.158). As the educator, along with the students, will be required to keep and opened and clear mind, and be flexible in others considerations of the essay topics. There can be no opinions or judgments used in evaluating and grading this type of technique, rather it will be dependant on the assignment being matched to the requirements and expectations listed through essay question.
For the second college course assessment, the Non-Fiction Writing Course, the students will be required to complete a Web Structure Assessment. The students will be required to read three non-fiction literature books that have been published, and recognize the different types of structures, methods, and styles of each of the different texts. Once they recognize the most admirable and effective books for a frame to develop their intended original non-fiction writing pieces. They will mirror the three different books and write three different texts of their own, each a minimum of 10 pages total, and will demonstrate effectiveness of non-fiction literature writing styles through their own stories with similar structures, methods, and organizations. They testing assessment will be represented by the students creating six different webbing strategies, and really just three, but the other three web structures can be similar to the original but will reflect the different plots and the different methods to reach the lessons or meanings of the plots. The webbing technique will be used for the students to illustrate how the methods proved to be effective, and how their stories retained originality, while still mimicking the published stories. They will illustrate their understanding of different concepts, and draw the out in the web design the mental processing steps to make stories effectual and successful in making different points. The web strategies use different illustrations to draw blueprints or frameworks to show connections and relationships of methods and concepts. In the textbook, the authors state, “Dansereau (1988) urges teachers to model alternate strategies to help learners when they listen to presentations or read from books, which, in turn, can be used to assess the depth of understanding and organization of their knowledge base. He advocates that you assess your learners’ understanding and organization of their knowledge with graphic outlines displayed as webs, much like the visual interdisciplinary thematic unit plans, but this time prepared by your students. Webbing is a free-form outline techniques learners can use to display their level of understanding of class discussions or textbook content,”(p.174). The webbing structures help to exemplify connections of story lines, and indicated how the causes and results are reached through different structural methods. This will allow the students to draw out in more concrete methods what they found effective about the styles they have mirrored. As the educator, I will be able to dive into their original minds, as well as understand their inspirations and creations for developing pieces of non-fiction literature. The web structure assessment reminds me very much of the workings of our brains on the scientific and microscopic levels, where were have abundances of neurons firing and communicating within a definite space. When our neurons connect we employ our thoughts and actions, and the art of the methods of their connections is very much miraculous and artistic and original. Webbing Structure assessments seem for many reasons to be the most effective assessment for this course to help define the intentions of the creative writing and their styles in achieving their thought forms effectively.
For the third college course, Drama Performance Techniques/ Production of Billy Elliot, the students exam will be in the form of a multi leveled Performance Assessment Exam. The students will begin by designing a portfolio where they include researched information and background details of the times and circumstances, and they will connect and apply research of the history of these times whether they can develop empathy and understandings to the different characters of the story, their positions and their passionate roles will be developed throughout these short portfolios. They will evaluate the prime ministry, the state workers, the union workers, the children, the wives, and combine the different elements together. In the textbook, the author states, “Classroom portfolios serve a similar purpose. They show off a learner’s best writing, artwork, science projects, historical thinking, or mathematical achievement. They also show the steps the learner took to get there. They compile the learner’s best work, but they also include the words in progress: the early drafts, test runs, pilot studies, or preliminary trials. Thus, they are an ideal way to assess final mastery, effort, reflection, and growth in learning that tell the learner’s “story” of achievement.”(p.205). From the developed portfolios, they will then audition for different roles for at least three different characters form three different scenes where they can put into action what they have gained particular empathy for, knowledge of, and understandings through all the various circumstances for the production.
In addition, all the students will pick three different scenes and three different characters from Billy Elliot, and create a short theatric presentation of their interpretations of the various roles. Theatrically, the must express and demonstrate an understanding and apply their developed empathy by acting through the understanding and empathy for the characters. Theatrically, the will be incorporating appropriate emotions with their best abilities, applying both sincerity and authenticity to what they feel about what they have researched, into the stage and create a live interpretation. In our textbook, it states, “Performance assessments not only require curriculum to teach thinking skills but also to develop positive dispositions and habits of mind. Habits of mind include such behaviors as constructive criticism, tolerance of ambiguity, respect for reason, and appreciation for the significance of the past. Performance tests are ideal vehicles for assessing habits of mind and social skills,”(p.192). The will act out three different characters from the three different scenes of choice and be given two chances for each interpretation. The different interpretations will be acted out in real time as expressed as if it where a real life experience as an evaluation of the social and political aspects of the times.
Prior to the theatrical tryouts/test, each student will combine new information they have learned and new perceptions of the conditions of the times to create small scale scene settings, with original visions and designs, that would effectively represent the time period and the characters involved in the story of Billy Elliot. This will be done using portfolio components off all elements of the characters and the production. They will collaborate and connect the different scene settings for all characters and elements of the story: this will include the union workers, the state workers, the police state workers, and reflect the prime ministries control over incomes and profits, and through the miniature creations of two different scene settings of there choice, they will show their own artistic interpretations of the times and settings that exited during these times of great travesties and impressionable perseverance.. They will re-create in a medium cardboard box, and materials of their choices, the different settings, features, and structures of the various stage setting visions . The textbook states, “The tasks should be complex enough to allow for multimodal assessment. Most assessments tend to depend on the written word. Performance tests, however, are designed to allow learners to demonstrate learning through a variety of modalities,”(p.194). Therefore, the final assessment for this drama performance course will consist of many different types of exercises that will combine and integrate into a final grade as we start to prepare for the upcoming live production. Performance based assessment apply elegantly and necessarily with this type of project, and lends the students opportunities to express and incorporate different skills and passions through timely research and innovated imaginations. As an educator, the layers of grading may be tedious as time consuming, but it will also be that way for the students, and will give us all as a team of performers to changes to explore and compose theatrically elements into a real life production, and ultimately the joy of the outcome will be worth the efforts and strains involved.
Reference at the end. Continue to next page for assessment descriptions:
Pre-1800 Literature William Blake and Williams Wordsworth Essay Final:
Compose an essay where you evaluate, analyze, compare, and contrast the different themes of nature and divinity and the connections between the two authors works in regards to pre-1800’s political, religious, and social aspects. Then using passages of your choice from both William Wordsworth and William Blake, compare and contrast them with different religious text passages, from religious texts from around the world of your choice (Examples of these different religious texts include the Holy Bible, The Koran, The Bhagavad-Gita, The I-Ch’ing, The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Mayan Prophecies, or any other you may have in mind). Find the connects of the different texts to the descriptions of nature and the divine, or in a manner of describing the divine. Again consider religious or political elements of all texts included, including the historical elements of the different religious texts, use at least one historical source for each author and text, and implement these facts into how the different authors described the divine and the connections to nature and the one, and to how the different writers incorporated different prophetic themes during the different time periods of their religious or political structures. Finally, examine which methods of define is most effective in your own opinions, and applies to you in your daily lives, even if you are not religious or spiritually assigned to a certain religious. (Essay at least 15 pages, worth 25 points).
Non-Fiction Writing Course Web Structure Assessment:
Develop three webbing strategies that explain and explore the mirroring effects of the published non-fiction novels of your choice to the non-fiction stories that you have created, and show the replicating effects of their structures and strategies, that you have examined applied from published stories, and show how that work effectively with the stories that you have created. You will create a total six webbing strategies and/or structures and explains the methods used in telling the stories of your choice and the stories effectiveness in the framework of your own creations. Much include at least six webs, and a short paragraph for each summarizing the elements. (Total 36 points. Six webs 6 points for each web strategies (4) and paragraph (2) total).
Drama Performance Techniques/ Billy Elliot Performance Assessment:
Students will choose three different scenes and three different characters from Billy Elliot in tryouts for the roles, by showing an understanding and empathy for the characters, incorporating appropriate emotions with their best abilities applying both sincerity and authenticity. The will act out three different characters from the three different scenes of choice and be given two changes for each interpretation.
Prior to this students will create portfolio of research and background details of the times, and they will connect and apply research of the history of these times whether they can develop empathy and understandings to the different characters of the story, their positions and their passionate roles through these short portfolios. They will evolve the elements of the coals miners, and understand the statistics, and as said before, use facts that how in 1984, there were more than 300,000 men working in the industry, and how today they are less than 1000 workers in England. They will show with their expressions emotional and in stage dramatics and demonstrate what they have learned about moral an ethical positions of the culture and politics, considering the fact that currently more than 98% of coal used for British Energy is now imported from abroad. They will interpret through stage dramatics the intimidations of the characters and the alternative side of judgments that may have against the young aspiring dancer through theatrics.
In addition to the theatrical tryouts/test, the students will use research and understanding of the conditions of the times to design small scale scene settings and designs, that would effectively represent the time periods and the characters involved in the story of Billy Elliot. The will use information about union workers, state workers, police states, and the prime ministries control over incomes and profits, and implicate the devastations and hopes through the miniature creations of two different scene settings of there choice. The will create settings, features, and structures of the conditions that would exist in real time for the stories. Any materials can be used and sizes of stage settings can be fit into a medium size cardboard box.
(Each element 25 points, making a total of 75 points total for performance assessment.)
References:
Kubiszyn, Tom & Borich, Gary (2010). Educational Testing & Measurement: Classroom Application and Practice (9th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ. (Kubiszyn & Borich, 2010).
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