CAE's Performance Based Approach to Measuring Critical Thinking Skills

Dimensions of Performance Tasks (Adapted from work by Michael Hibbard and Marc Chun) Performance Tasks...

• Engaging: How do we grab the students’ attention?

• Activating: How do we create a focus on the students’ work that leads them to be drawn into the task more?

• Authentic Process: How can the task mirror real-world situations?

• Authentic Product: How is the product or performance similar to that of the “larger” world?

• Essential: How is the task connected to the important, not the trivial, standards?

• Integrative: How does the task integrate knowledge, thinking, problem-solving, and writing?

• Embedded: How is the task integral to instruction, not added on to it?

• Appropriate Structure: Does the task have sufficient, not too much and not too little, information and explanation?

• Feasible: Is the task manageable considering both time and resources?

• Equitable: Is the task accessible by all students based on background knowledge and ability?

• Feedback & Revision Loop: Do students have the opportunity to receive feedback and make revisions within the task?

• Group & Individual Work: Is there balance between the two?

• Promotes Deeper Understanding: Does the task expect the students to go beyond basic knowledge and understanding? Does it require students to dive deeper?

Components of Performance Tasks Performance Tasks include the following: • Real-World Scenario • Specific Role • Decision to be Made • Authentic Product • Stakes • Opposition Assessment & System Performance: Performance Tasks !

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ELEMENTS OF PERFORMANCE TASKS Taking Teaching to (Performance) Task, by Marc Chun, Change March/April 2010 • Real-World Scenario: Students assume roles in a scenario that is based in the “real world” and contains the types of problems they might need to solve in the future. The more the students can imagine themselves in the scenario, the more engaged they are likely to be. The scenario might directly relate to their likely careers (e.g., students in a journalism program might be asked to write a magazine article). They may be asked to apply course knowledge and skills outside of a career (e.g., students who have taken biology might advise a friend with cancer). Or they may need to apply their knowledge in areas unrelated to a vocation and in a way that represents a significant transfer of knowledge and skills (e.g., by voting in an election or selecting day care for their children).

• Authentic, complex process: The scenario reflects the complexity and ambiguity of realworld challenges, where there might not be a right or wrong answer, where solutions might not be obvious or given, where information might be conflicting or partial, and where there might be competing frameworks or positions from which to view the situation. To complete the task, students go through a process that approximates what they would do if they were actually facing that situation.

• Higher-order thinking: The task requires students to engage in critical thinking, analytic reasoning, and problem solving. The focus is on analyzing, synthesizing, and applying evidence in order to arrive at a judgment or decision. There may be cognitive conflict, in that the solution may cause other problems. There often is an element of creativity involved as well.

• Authentic performance: The “product” the students create reflects what someone assuming that role would produce: a memo, presentation, or other write-up. So, unless the scenario involves taking on the role of a graduate student, it is unlikely that it will be an academic paper.

• Transparent evaluation criteria: The learning outcomes drive the creation of the task.

They and the evaluation criteria and rubrics are made clear to students, in part so they can evaluate their own work and in part so they can get diagnostic feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. The evaluation is typically criterion referenced (rather than norm referenced).

Assessment & System Performance: Performance Tasks !

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