Performance Tasks

Complex challenges that mirror the issues and problems faced by professionals.  Ranging in length from short-term task to long-term, multistaged projects, they yield one or more tangible products and performances.  They differ from academic prompts in the following ways:

Involve a real or simulated setting and the kind of constraints, background "noise," incentives, and opportunities an adult would find in a similar situation (i.e., they are authentic)

Typically require the student to address an identified audience (real or simulated)

Are based on a specific purpose that relates to the audience

Allow students greater opportunity to personalize the task

Are not secure: The task, evaluative criteria, and performance standards are known in advance and guide student work

Academic Prompts

Open-ended questions or problems that require the student to think critically, not just recall knowledge, and to prepare a specific academic response, product, or performance.  Such questions or problems

Require constructed responses to specific prompts under school and exam conditions

Are "open," with no single best answer or strategy expected for solving them

Are often "ill structured," requiring the development of a strategy

Involve analysis, synthesis, and evaluation

Typically require an explanation or defense of the answer given and methods used

Require judgment-based scoring based on criteria and performance standards

May or may not be secure

Involve questions typically only asked of students in school

Quiz and Test Items

Familiar assessment formats consisting of simple, content-focused items that

Assess for factual information, concepts, and discrete skill

Use selected-response (e.g., multiple-choice, true-false, matching) or short-answer formats

Are convergent, typically having a single, best answer

May be easily scored using an answer key or machine

Are typically secure (i.e., items are not known in advance)

Informal Checks for Understanding

Ongoing assessments used as part of the instructional process.  Examples include teacher questioning, observations, examining student work, and think-alouds.  These assessments provide feedback to the teacher and the student.  They are not typically scored or graded.