POINTERS

CHARACTERISTICS OF 21ST CENTURY ASSESSMENT

1. Responsive
As a result of assessment, visible performance-based work creates data that
informs curriculum and instruction. Teachers can change their instructions, school
officials can think about expanding educational possibilities for learners, and
policymakers can change programs and resources to meet the current requirements of
the school community.
Best practices in feedback and formative assessment are incorporated into the
processes for responding to assessments. The goal and outcome should be the focus of
feedback. Students are informed of their progress toward achieving the goal rather than
simply a single test grade. Self-reflection, peer-assessment, and revision opportunities
will be a natural result.

2. Flexible
Flexibility, suppleness, and adaptability should be present in lesson designs,
curriculum, and assessment. It's possible that assessments and reactions don't match
the predicted outcomes. Assessments must be flexible to the needs of students. Rather
than the one-size-fits-all method used in traditional evaluation, 21st-century approaches
are more adaptable. These approaches are best suited to the current needs of the
learning environment, as students' decisions, auctions, and applications differ, requiring
assessments and systems to be adaptable as well.

3. Integrated
Assessments should be integrated into daily practice rather than being added as
an afterthought at the end of instructions or during a particular week on the school
calendar. Metacognition adds value to assessments. Assessment is about provoking
thought, building on prior knowledge, creating meaning, and reflecting on one's own
thinking. It allows students to think about their options, find alternate techniques, transfer
prior information, and portray knowledge in a variety of ways.

4. Informative
The targeted goals and objectives for the twenty-first century are articulated
clearly and openly. Students demonstrate their growing knowledge and abilities.
Exemplars frequently assist students in achieving their goals.
Learning goals, instructional approaches, assessment methods, and reporting
procedures are all in sync. It takes time to learn something complex. Students have the
opportunity to build on previous knowledge in a logical order. The work becomes
increasingly challenging as students grow and build skills, such as learning and
 innovation skills, information, communication, and technology skills, and life and job
skills.
The use of 21st-century abilities is clear, and it aids learning. Students
demonstrate their thought processes and show the steps they take for peer and teacher
critique.

5. Multiple Methods
The standard is to use an assessment continuum that incorporates a variety of
procedures. Students show their knowledge and abilities through exercises, projects,
and performances that are relevant to them. The importance of authentic and
performance-based assessment is highlighted. The methods and outcomes of learning
are recognized and appreciated.

6. Communicated
All stakeholders should be informed of the assessment data in a clear and open
manner. Results and standards-based commentary are routinely posted to a database,
which must be accessible and understandable at all levels. Students are given regular
feedback on their progress, and parents are kept up to date through the availability of
visual progress reports and assessment data.

7. Technically Sound
In the assessment process, adjustments and accommodations are made to meet
the requirements of the students and to ensure fairness. Students exhibit their
knowledge and how they can apply it in ways that are relevant and acceptable to them.
Assessments must measure the stated objectives and 21st century abilities with
legitimacy and integrity in order to be valid.
To be reliable, the assessment must be precise and technically sound, so that
users can administer and understand data consistently. In all relevant settings, they
produce accurate data for decision-making.

8. Systemic
21st century assessment is a component of a well-balanced and well-aligned
assessment system that is equitable and inclusive of all education stakeholders and
designed to assist progress at all levels.

2. Targets of High-Quality Assessment

a. Learning Target
 A clear description of what students know and able to do.
  It is an outcome that the teacher wants her students to attain or acquire from
her teaching.
 This involves knowledge, reasoning, skills, product and effect.
 It needs to be stated in behavioral terms or term which denotes something
which can be observed through the behavior of the students

Five categories of Learning target according to Stiggins and Conklin (1992)

1. Knowledge learning target

It is the facts and concept we want students to know, either rote learned or
retrieved using reference materials.

2. Reasoning learning target

The ability of students to use their knowledge to reason and solve problems.

3. Skill Learning target

The ability of the students to create achievement-related skills likes conducting
experiments, playing basketball, and operating computers

4. Product learning target

The ability of the students to demonstrate achievement-related products such as
written report, oral presentation and art product.

5. Affective learning target

The attainment of affective traits such as attitudes, values, interests, and self-
efficacy. Student attitude about school and learning.
b. Cognitive Targets
As early as 1950 Bloom’s (1954) proposed a Hierarchy of educational objectives at the
cognitive level:
1. Knowledge
 refers to the acquisition of facts, concept and theories.
Example: knowledge of historical facts
 Recall or recognize information, describing, defining, labeling, memorizing
etc.
 Knowledge forms the foundation of all other cognitive objectives for without
knowledge, it is not possible to move out to the next higher level thinking
skills in the hierarchy of the educational objectives.

2. Comprehension
 Refers to the same concept as understanding.
 Re-state data or information in one’s own words, interpret, an translate.
 Explaining or interpreting the meaning of the given scenario or statement
 A step higher than mere acquisition of facts and involves a cognition or
awareness of interrelationships of the facts and concepts.

3. Application
  Refers to the transfer of knowledge from one field of study to another or from
one concept to another concept on the same discipline.
 Using or applying knowledge, putting theory into practice
 Demonstrating, solving problems

4. Analysis
 Refers to the breaking down of the concept or idea into each component and
explaining the concept as the composition of these concept.
 Interpreting elements, organizing, structuring

5. Synthesis
 Refers to the opposite of analysis and entails putting together the
components in order to summarize the concept.
 Developing new unique structures, model, system, approaches or idea.
 Build, create, design, establish, assemble, formulate.

6. Evaluating and reasoning

 Refers to valuing and judgment or putting the “worth” of a concept or
principle.
 Judgment relating to external criteria
 Assess effectiveness of whole concept, in relation to values, outputs,
efficacy, and others.

Types of Reasoning
 Inductive reasoning uses specific facts or evidence to infer general
conclusions
 Deductive reasoning begins with general rule or principle to infer specific
conclusion or solutions
 Analytical reasoning requires examining components or structure of
something
 Comparative reasoning describes similarities and differences between two
or more items

Scoring Rubrics
“Rubric is a multi-purpose scoring guide for assessing student products and performance.
This tool works in a number of different ways to advance student leaning, and has great
potential in particular for non-traditional, first generation, and minority students” (Wolf &
Stevens, 2007, p. 3).

“Scoring rubrics are used when judging the quality of the work of the learner’s performance
assessments." These are descriptive assessment schemes developed by teachers or
evaluators to help analyze products and processes of the efforts of students (Moskal, 2000)
cited in Gabuyo and Dy (2013).
Rubrics for grading complex tasks or assignments, such as written work,
presentations, group works, or other of products or performance
types s
 (https://www.unl.edu/gtahandbook/scoring-rubrics).

Types of Rubrics
Holistic is a type of rubrics that measures the overall quality of the product without getting into
details. Holistic rubrics are advisable when a teacher wants a fast result of the student's
performance; however, it does not provide detailed feedback (Gabuyo & Dy, 2013).
It emphasizes the use of experts in the evaluation of performance. It entails a thorough
examination of the task's many facets based on the experts' overall impressions. ( Yune, Lee,
Im, Kam, & Baek, 2018).

“An analytic rubric is a type of rubric that provides information regarding performance in each
part of a task, making it useful for diagnosing specific strengths and weaknesses of the
learners” (Gareis & Grant, 2008 cited in Gabuyo & Dy, 2013).

“Analytic scoring refers to a process of assigning points to individual traits present in the
performance and adding the points to derive single or multiple dimension scores. For
example, students with low scores in aseptic manipulation can be educated separately and
their progress can be monitored to confirm the degree of improvement in aseptic manipulation
ability in the next CPA” (Yune, Lee, Im, Kam, & Baek, 2018, p. 2).
A rubric is composed mainly of three parts: criteria, performance levels or the rating
scale, and the indicators.
The performance levels describe the primary elements of learners work or product. Rating
scale identifies performance levels, and indicators provide concrete descriptors for each level
of performance.

A. Authentic assessment development process

There are four (4) phases to developing authentic assessment based on these questions.

1. Identify the standards for your students.

A teacher must examine three types of standards when determining what he or she
wants students to learn: content, procedure, and value (Mueller, 2006).

Content standards are statements that indicate what students should know or
be able to perform in a given learning area's content or at the intersection of two
or more learning areas. The following are some examples of content standards:
 Students will sort things into two categories
 Present employment-related information in the target language
 Describe the consequences of physical activity on the body

Process standards are statements that explain the skills that students should be
able to acquire in order to improve the learning process. They are not discipline-
specific, but rather generic skills that can be applied to any academic area. The
following are some examples:
 Students will develop realistic performance goals for themselves.
  They will seriously examine the suggestions of others.
 Locate and assess important data

Teachers use value standards to explain the attitudes they want their students
to have toward learning. Here are some samples to get you started:
 Students will value a variety of viewpoints or opinions;
 They will take responsible risks; and
 They will persevere in completing difficult assignments.

2. Create a task that your students could complete to demonstrate that they have met a
certain standard or collection of requirements.
An authentic task is a task given to students to evaluate their ability to apply
standard-driven knowledge and abilities to real-world problems (Mueller, 2006). As a
result, a task is regarded authentic when:
 Students are asked to design their own replies rather than selecting from a
list of options; and
 The assignment reflects real-world issues.

Authentic assessments involve tasks that require more direct application of knowledge
and skills, such as performances, products, and constructed-response items.
Constructed response. Students build an answer from of previous and new
knowledge in response to a question. Students are developing new information
that is likely to differ slightly or dramatically from that generated by other students
because there is no one correct answer to these questions. Brief-answer essay
questions, concept maps, figural representations such as Venn diagrams,
completion of a science lab step, development of a short musical, dance, or
dramatic response, and demonstration of an athletic talent are all examples.

Product. Students create a substantial, tangible output in response to a prompt

or sequence of prompts that demonstrates their mastery of specific concepts and
skills, as well as their capacity to apply, analyze, synthesize, or evaluate those
concepts and skills. Essays, stories, or poetry, research reports, art exhibits or
portfolios, lab reports, newspapers, and posters are just a few examples.

Performance. In response to a prompt or series of prompts, students produce a

substantial, physical output that indicates their mastery of specific concepts and
abilities, as well as their ability to apply, analyze, synthesize, or assess those
concepts and skills. Just a few examples are essays, stories, or poems, research
reports, art shows or portfolios, lab reports, newspapers, and posters.

3. Identify the characteristics of good performance on that task, the criteria, that, if
present in your student’s work, will indicate that they have performed well on the
task, i.e., they have met the standards.
 You must respond to the question in this step. “What constitutes good performance
in this task?” or "How will I know whether they did a good job on this project?" You'll
be determining the conditions for good achievement on that task by answering those
questions. These criteria will be used to assess how well pupils accomplished the
work and, as a result, how well they met the standard(s). According to Mueller
(2006), a good criterion should include the following characteristics:
 Clearly stated;
 Brief;
 Observable;
 Statement of behavior; and worded in language students understand.

Criteria, like standards, should be given with students before they begin a task so
that they are aware of the teacher's expectations and have a better understanding of
what constitutes successful performance. You might take it a step further by
including the students in determining appropriate task requirements. You could
question them, "What makes a good paper?" or "What should I look for in a decent
scale model?" or "How will I (or anyone else) know you've completed this work well?"

4. Determine two or more levels of performance along which students can perform for
each criterion that will sufficiently differentiate between student performances for that
criterion. The rubric for that assessment activity will be the combination of the
criteria and the degrees of achievement for each criterion.

You must return to the criteria you specified in Step 3 when creating a rubric. Keep in
mind that the number of criteria should be kept to a minimum. Furthermore, you do
not need to seek for everything in each evaluation.

Purpose of Performance Assessment

erformance-based assessment provides learners the avenue to collaborate with their

understanding with other learners as they offer a deeper understanding and provide a
meaningful learning experience. With performance-based assessment, students can apply
twenty-first-century skills in performing performance tasks to effectively evaluate students
learning with the use of process and product assessments to the tasks given.

“Performance assessment are typically designed to assess complex abilities that cannot
easily be defined in terms of a single trait, and typically present test takers with tasks that are
much more complex than traditionally constructed-response items” (Bachman, 2002 cited in
Kirmizi & Komec, 2016, p. 55).
 Its primary goal is to help students improve rather than to provide feedback (Performance
Assessment Series, Middle School Edition, 2001). This learning is accomplished when
students demonstrate their understanding and communicate the knowledge through written or
oral presentations. Performance assessment can be used as either a formative or summative
tool.
(https://pdo.ascd.org/lmscourses/PD11OC108/media/Designing_Performance_Assessm
ent_M2_Reading_Assessment.pdf)

For example:

“A performance assessment built around a complex reasoning task, such as

problem-solving or decision making, requires the synthesis of information from
multiple sources. As students sort through the information
and draw conclusions, a teacher can observe students' reasoning skills in action
and, if necessary, provide support to those who are struggling. This would be a type
of formative assessment. The students' final presentations, on the other hand, may
be judged based on a rubric and given a score. That would be an example of using a
performance task as a summative

assessment”.

Adapted from
https://pdo.ascd.org/lmscourses/PD11OC108/media/Designing_Performance_As
sessment_M2_Reading_Assessment.pdf)

Types of Performance Assessment

Process-based assessment is categorized as the actual evaluation of the performance task
provided to the learner, not emphasizing the product output. Learning competencies to the
process-based evaluation are directly observable behaviors of the students. Behaviors of
students range from a “beginner” up to the expert level (Santos, 2007).
Product-based assessment is categorizing as an alternative learning assessment that
forms an actual evaluation of students learning through the practical assessment of students'
actual output of the task they provide. Learning competencies associated with products or
outputs are related to the students' level of expertise on a particular product assessment. The
level of learning competencies has three levels: novice or beginner, skilled level, and expert
level (Santos, 2007).

Steps in Developing Performance-based Assessment (Gabuyo & Dy,

2013)
1. Define the purpose of the assessment
2. Determine the skills, learning outcomes, and taxonomy level
3. Design and develop a performance task
4. Define the Performance Criteria
5. Create the Scoring Rubrics
6. Assess the Performance
7. Specify the Constraints of Testing

THE USE OF GRASPS IN DEVELOPING AUTHENTIC PERFORMANCE TASKS

“Performance task – GRASPS is a design tool to develop a performance task with an emphasis on
context and role playing. The GRASPS frame includes real-world goals, meaningful roles of students,
authentic or simulated real-world audience, and a contextualized situation that involves real-world
applications” (Nuha Iter, 2017).