Performance Tasks

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What are ACPS Performance Tasks?

Annual, division‐level administration of ACPS Performance Tasks provides information on student development of the skills and understandings needed to be a Lifelong Learner across grade levels and content areas.  This element of student performance brings balance to the current ACPS assessment matrix and guarantees that all students are assessed on skills and understandings beyond the Virginia Standards of Learning by measuring ACPS Lifelong Learner Competencies.

ACPS Performance Tasks are the tasks that Albemarle County has identified for administration to all students in a grade level or course. A table of specifications for performance tasks was created at the 2011 CAI Institute to provide consistency in task components across content areas.

Performance Assessment v. Performance Task

A short distinction: a performance task is an activity in which learners perform a skill, while a performance assessment is the act of observing and judging that performance relative to a standard.

"A performance task is any activity that can be used as a context to observe a skill or a product … The key requirement is that the task elicits the desired skill or product, so that the skill or product is capable of being judged" --Stiggins (2004).

Performance assessment is a method of evaluating students’ knowledge, concepts, or skills [related to a standard] by requiring them to perform a task designed to emulate real-­life contexts or conditions in which students must apply the specific knowledge, concepts, or skills” -­‐ American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education (1999).

Assessing Lifelong Learning

In 2011-2012, performance tasks were developed, piloted, and revised by ACPS teachers including content area vertical team members. At the 2012 CAI Institute, a battery of these performance tasks were selected by ACPS teachers for division-wide administration to assess the ACPS Essential Standards and Lifelong Learning Competencies.

The CAI Institutes in 2013 and 2014 provided an opportunity for Division leaders to develop in performance assessment practices through the use of interdisciplinary collaborative scoring protocols.