George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

Performance Assessment

How well did your students learn? Find alternative ways to assess what they know and what they can do through the creation of authentic products and performances.

  • PBL and Standardized Tests? It Can Work!

    There’s a tension between project-based learning and standardized testing prep, but also a wide swath of common ground.

  • Resources for Assessment in Project-Based Learning

    Looking for tools and strategies for effective assessment in project-based learning? To support you, we've assembled this guide to helpful resources from Edutopia and beyond.

  • Intrinsic Motivation vs. Standardized Tests

    Low standardized test scores are a reflection of being uninspired, not unknowledgeable. Teach your students how to care, lose their fears, and identify and overcome their obstacles.

  • How Should We Measure Student Learning? 5 Keys to Comprehensive Assessment

    Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond shares how using well-crafted formative and performance assessments, setting meaningful goals, and giving students ownership over the process can powerfully affect teaching and learning.

  • 6 Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning

    Reflecting on learning and student voice and choice are core elements of project-based learning, and they’re also key to differentiation.

  • Going Gradeless: Student Self-Assessment in PBL

    By replacing student grades with an end-of-quarter conference, you can change that persistent question of "Will I be graded on this?" to "What can I do better?"

  • Performance-Based Assessment: Reviewing the Basics

    Performance-based assessments share the key characteristic of accurately measuring one or more specific course standards. They are also complex, authentic, process/product-oriented, open-ended, and time-bound.

  • Strategies for Reaching Quiet, Disengaged, Struggling, and Troublemaking Students

    Not every student benefits from in-class participation, immediate answers, inflexible grading, or harsh consequences. Learn the nuances for those requiring deeper recognition and a lighter touch.

  • 5 Strategies to Ensure Student Learning

    After Arizona's Mesquite Elementary School developed a program to provide additional instruction time for students struggling with math, test scores shot to the top.

  • How Do We Measure Social and Emotional Learning?

    <p>Those concise assessments about social-emotional skills and character on the back of a report card can become valuable talking points between schools, parents, and students.</p> <br> &nbsp;

  • 3 Peaks and 3 Pits of Standards-Based Grading

    When one school switched from traditional to standards-based grading, they saw positive changes in mindset, assessments, and communication -- but there's still room for improvement.

  • Resources and Downloads for Differentiated Instruction

    Educators from Mesquite Elementary School, in Tucson, Arizona, have provided these resources for you to use in your own school.

  • 4 Tips to Build Student Confidence

    Edutopia blogger Matt Levinson, recognizing that students get overwhelmed by unfamiliar material and choke up on assessments, offers four confidence-building strategies: verbalizing, brain dumps, non-linear thinking creativity.

  • The 5 Keys to Successful Comprehensive Assessment in Action

    Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond shares how using well-crafted formative and performance assessments, setting meaningful goals, and giving students ownership over the process can powerfully affect teaching and learning.

  • Resources and Downloads for Teaching Critical Thinking

    Educators from the Bay Area's KIPP King Collegiate High School and the KIPP network have provided these resources for you to use in your own school.