Before we dive in to the lesson, let’s start with a quick exercise.

Think of a
subject you teach or are passionate about. Now, imagine you have to create
a performance task for your students. What kind of activity would you
design?

If it’s a **Physical Education (PE)-related task**, consider activities like:

- Designing a fitness program that targets endurance and flexibility.

- Developing a dance or exercise routine to improve coordination and
balance.

- Creating a game that incorporates key PE skills like teamwork, agility,

or strategy.

- Demonstrating proper techniques for a specific sport and explaining

the benefits.

Once, you have already identified the learning targets and you have decided
that a performance assessment method you want to use.

So, this morning we will learn how to construct a performance task.

[Step 1: Identifying the Performance Task]

Performance tasks vary based on complexity and subject.

They can be **restricted-type**—which target specific skills and require brief

responses. And it must be on open-ended questions. Meaning it is not
answerable by yes or no.
Structured and specific. For example short essay, interpretive exercises
wherein you can let your students explain their answer and dasig mo lang
sya magrade-an based on your criteria.

Generate or Identify Idea for a Task

Identify a real-world skill or concept students should demonstrate.

Example: A PE teacher wants students to demonstrate their understanding of

cardiovascular endurance and how to improve it through exercise.

Develop Task and Context Description

Explanation: Define the task and provide context to make it meaningful.

Example: Students will design and participate in a 4-week personal fitness

plan focused on improving cardiovascular endurance. They will track their
progress and adjust their workouts based on performance.

Write Task Question or Prompt

Explanation: Create a clear, specific question or prompt that guides student

responses.

Example: Create a 4-week fitness plan that focuses on improving

cardiovascular endurance. Your plan should include at least three different
aerobic exercises, weekly goals, and a method for tracking progress. At the
end of the program, write a reflection on your improvements and any
challenges faced.

extended-type**, which involve more elaborate, time-consuming activities.

Extended-type tasks often include collaborative work with small groups of
students. The assignment usually requires that students use a variety of
sources of information (e.g., observations, library, interviews).
Students will work in small groups to research and compare three different
fitness training methods (e.g., high-intensity interval training [HIIT],
endurance training, and strength training). They will conduct observations,
interview athletes or coaches, and gather data on how each method affects
physical fitness. Each group will then create a fitness program for a specific
sport based on their findings.

_(Interactive Moment: Ask a volunteer to give an example

Products of restricted type of performance task is typically developed over

several days or even weeks, with opportunities for revision. This allows
students to apply a variety of skills and makes it easier to integrate different
content areas and reasoning skills.

[Step 2: Preparing the Task Description]

A well-structured performance task should include:
- **Content and skills** to be assessed

Content and Skill Targets to be Assessed:

- Understanding of fitness principles (cardiovascular endurance,

strength, flexibility).
- Ability to design a structured workout plan based on fitness goals.
- Application of research skills in exercise science.
- Critical thinking in evaluating fitness methods.
- Communication and presentation skills.

- **Student activities** (individual or group work)

Students will research different types of fitness training (e.g., HIIT, strength
training, flexibility training).

- They will assess their own fitness level using standardized fitness tests.

- Based on their assessment, they will create a **4-week personalized fitness

program** that includes warm-ups, workouts, and recovery plans.

- They will track their progress and adjust their plan weekly.
- At the end of the project, students will present their findings in a report or
presentation.

Group or Individual

- This is an **individual** project, but students may discuss ideas with

peers.

Help Allowed:

- Students may seek guidance from the teacher, consult online

resources, and interview a fitness coach or PE instructor.

- **Resources needed**

Access to PE equipment (treadmills, weights, jump ropes, etc.).

- Online articles and fitness guides.

- Fitness tracking apps or journals.

#### **Teacher Role:**

- Provide guidance on fitness principles and safety.

- Offer feedback on students’ fitness plans.

- Ensure students stay on track with their weekly goals.

Administrative Process:

- Students will have four weeks to complete the project.

- Weekly check-ins will be conducted for progress updates.

- A final presentation will be due at the end of the project.

Scoring Procedures:
- **50%**: Quality and effectiveness of the fitness plan (realistic goals,
balanced workouts).

- **30%**: Reflection on personal fitness progress and adjustments made.

- **20%**: Clarity and organization of the final report or presentation.

This structured **task description** ensures clarity for both students and
teachers while promoting **critical thinking, research, and application of PE
concepts** in real-life fitness planning.

_(Interactive Moment: Display a sample task description and ask the

audience to identify missing components.)_

[Step 3: Writing the Task Question or Prompt]

* A good task question is clear, relevant, and meaningful. It should provide
students with a real-world context. The actual question, problem, or prompt
that you give to students will be based on the task description. It needs to be
stated so that it clearly identifies what the final outcome or product is,
outlines what students are allowed and encouraged to do, and explains the
criteria that will be used to judge the product. A good question or prompt also
provides a context that helps students understand the meaningfulness and
relevance of the task. It’s often best to use or adapt performance tasks that
have already been developed.

Once the PT is use by the other teachers the more man mabal-an if authentic
or effective man ini because you will going to see the inpact to the students.

1. The Performance Task Should Integrate the Most Essential Aspects of

the Content Being Assessed with the Most Essential Skills.

Performance assessment is ideal for focusing student attention and learning

on the “big ideas” of a subject, the major concepts, principles, and processes
that are important to a discipline. If the task encourages learning of
peripheral or tangential topics or specific details, it is not well suited to the
goal of performance assessment. Tasks should be broad in scope. Similarly,
reasoning and other skills essential to the task should represent essential
processes. The task should be written to integrate content with skills.

For example, it would be better to debate important content or

contemporary issues rather than something relatively unimportant. A
 good test for whether the task meets these criteria is to decide if what is
assessed could be done as well with more objective, less time-consuming
measures.

Examples

Poor: Estimate the answers to the following three addition problems. Explain
in your own words the strategy used to give your answer.

Improved: Sam and Tyron were planning a trip to a nearby state. They
wanted to visit as many different major cities as possible. Using the map,
estimate the number of major cities they will be able to visit on a single tank
of gas (14 gallons) if their car gets 25 miles to the gallon.

2. The Task Should Be Authentic. This suggestion lies at the heart of

authentic performance assessment. As indicated earlier, authentic tasks are
relevant to real- world and real-life contexts (Groeber, 2007), though as I
have pointed out, research has shown that many have a broader view of
what constitutes authenticity (Frey, Schmitt, & Bowen, 2009). If the task is
rich, it will raise other questions and lead to other inquiry.

Grant Wiggins developed a set of six standards for judging the degree of
authenticity

in an assessment task (Wiggins, 1998). He suggests that a task is authentic if

it:

A. Is realistic. The task replicates the ways in which a person’s knowledge

and abilities are “tested” in real-world situations.

B. Requires judgment and innovation. The student has to use knowledge and
skills

wisely and effectively to solve unstructured problems, and the solution

involves more than following a set routine or procedure or plugging in

knowledge.
C. Asks the student to “do” the subject. The student has to carry out
exploration

and work within the discipline of the subject area, rather than restating what

is already known or what was taught.

D. Replicates or simulates the contexts in which adults are “tested” in the

workplace, in

civic life, and in personal life. Contexts involve specific situations that have

particular constraints, purposes, and audiences. Students need to experience

what it is like to do tasks in workplace and other real-life contexts.

E. Assesses the student’s ability to efficiently and effectively use a repertoire

of knowledge

and skill to negotiate a complex task. Students should be required to

integrate all

knowledge and skills needed, rather than to demonstrate competence of

isolated knowledge and skills.

F. Allows appropriate opportunities to rehearse, practice, consult resources,

and get feedback on and refine performances and products. Rather than rely
on secure tests as an audit of performance, learning should be focused
through cycles of performance-feedback-revision-performance, on the
production of known high-quality products and standards, and learning in
context. (pp. 22, 24)

Examples

Poor: Compare and contrast different kinds of literature.

Improved: You have been asked to make a presentation to our school board
about different types of literature. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation that
you would use to explain different types of literature, including poems,
biographies, mysteries, and fictional novels. Provide examples of each type,
explain the characteristics of each, and explain why you like some better
than others. Create charts or figures as part of your presentation, which
should be no longer than 15 minutes.
3. Structure the Task to Assess Multiple Learning Targets. As pointed out in
the first suggestion, it is best if the task addresses both content and skill
targets. Within each of these areas there may be different types of targets.
For instance, assessing content may include both knowledge and
understanding and, as in the preceding example, both reasoning and
communication skills. It is also common to include different types of
communication and reasoning skills in the same task (e.g., students provide
both a written and an oral report or need to think critically and synthesize to
arrive at an answer).

4. Structure the Task So That You Can Help Students Succeed. Good
performance assessment involves the interaction of instruction with
assessment. The task needs to be something that students learn from, which
is most likely when there are opportunities for you to increase student
proficiency by asking questions, providing resources, and giving feedback. In
this kind of active teaching you are intervening as students learn, rather than
simply providing information. Part of teachability is being certain that
students have the needed prerequisite knowledge and skills to succeed.

5. Think Through What Students Will Do to Be Sure That the Task Is Feasible.

Imagine what you would do if given the task. What resources would you
need? How much time would you need? What steps would you take? It should
be realistic for students to implement the task. This depends both on your
own expertise and willingness and on the costs and availability of equipment,
materials, and other resources so that every student has the same
opportunity to be successful.

6. The Task Should Allow for Multiple Solutions.

If a performance task is properly structured, more than one correct response

is not only possible but desirable. The task should not encourage drill or
practice for which there is a single solution. The possibility of multiple
solutions encourages students to personalize the process and makes it easier
for you to demand that students justify and explain their assumptions,
planning, predictions, and other responses. Different students may take
different paths in responding to the task.
7. The Task Should Be Clear. An unambiguous set of directions that explicitly
indicates the nature of the task is essential. If the directions are too vague,
students may not focus on the learning targets or may waste time trying to
figure out what they should be doing. A task such as “Give an oral report on a
foreign country” is too general. Students need to know the reason for the
task, and the directions should provide sufficient detail so that students know
how to proceed.

Do they work alone or with others? What resources are available? How much

time do they have? What is the role of the teacher? Here is an example of a
clearly

defined task:

Your assignment is to construct an original experiment that will show what

causes

objects to sink. Your answer should include examples that illustrate three
charac-

teristics. In demonstrating your answer you will have five minutes to show
differ-

ent objects sinking in water, accompanied by explanations of how each

characteristic is important.

8. The Task Should Be Challenging and Stimulating to Students. One of the

things you hope for is that students will be motivated to use their skills and
knowledge to be involved and engaged, sometimes for many days or weeks.
You also want students to monitor themselves and think about their progress.
This is more likely to occur when the task is something students can get
excited about or can see some relevance for, and when the task is not too
easy or too difficult. Persistence is fostered if the task is interesting and
thought provoking. This is easier if you know your students’ strengths and
limitations and are familiar with what kinds of topics would motivate them.
One approach is to blend what is familiar with novelty. Tasks that are
authentic are not necessarily stimulating and challenging.

9. Include Explicitly Stated Scoring Criteria. By now you are familiar with this
admonition. Specifying criteria helps students understand what they need to
do and communicates learning priorities and your expectations. Students
need to know about the criteria before beginning work on the task.
Sometimes criteria are individually tailored to each task; others are more
generic for several different kinds of tasks. What is shared with students as
part of the task, however, may not be the same instrument or scale you use
when evaluating their work. The identification of criteria, and how you
translate those criteria into a scale for evaluation, is discussed in the next
section. From a practical perspective, the development of the task and
scoring criteria is iterative: One influences the other as both are developed.

10. Include Constraints for Completing the Task. It’s best if the performance
is done under constraints that are defined by context, rules, and regulations.
According to Borich and Tombari (2004), these constraints include the
following: Time. How much time should a learner or group of learners have to
plan, revise, and finish the task?

Reference material. What resources (dictionaries, textbooks, class notes, CD-

ROMs) will learners be able to consult while they are completing the
assessment task?

Other people. Will your learners be able to ask for help from peers, teachers,

and experts as they take a test or complete a project? box, and most pills
come in a bottle and then are packaged in a box. Students are asked to find
the volume of the outer package using the formulas we have studied, and
then find the volume of the inner package by displacement. When they find
the difference between the volumes we discuss how companies could save
money on packaging they think changes should be made. Overall, students
enjoy this project. It allows them to use geometry for something they see as
useful. They also love taking a side and using their data to argue for or
against a change.

The letters allow me to see a depth of understanding a typical problem does

not allow for.

Performance Assessment 285

Equipment. Will your learners have access to computers, calculators, spell

checkers, or other aids or materials as they complete the assignment?

Scoring criteria. Will you inform your learners about the explicit standards
that you use to evaluate the product or performance? (p. 220)

The intent of considering such constraints is to define in a more realistic way

the nature of the situation in which the performance or product is
demonstrated.
Performance tasks will vary, depending on your style of teaching, learning
targets, students, and context. Most of the variance will be contained in the
following:

Is the task individual, small group, or large group?

Does the task focus on process or product, or both?

Is the task short or long?

Is the task contained in the classroom or will it require activities outside of

class?

What modalities for presentation are used—oral, written, or psychomotor?