Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
1) Title: Schooling versus Education
Task Setting: small group work and individual work
Duration of activity: Total time: 1.5 hours day one. Day two: 2.5 hours. 4 hours total for whole task. It could
probably function as well or better as a single day period with the group warm up preceding the summative
piece.
Operational logistics and materials: designed to be implemented in the classroom via laptop computer or using
traditional paper-pencil administration; note taking supplies [or captured electronically]
Text Types: video, verse [audio], informational text [written]
Grade level: 10-12
2) The item/task sample: Education
Task summary: This task is to be completed over two days, with day 1 exercises involving speaking and listening
skills in a small group setting. Day 1 work would be captured and inform the tasks on day 2, but day 1 work
would not be scored. Day 2 exercises would comprise the summative assessment with the assumption that each
student would complete work on a laptop in the classroom or on a hard copy answer document. Pieces of the day
one exercise, namely one or more of the video segments, could be removed without harming the thematic
integrity of the overall task, if time becomes a concern.
Introduction and Day 1:
Task A: The teacher would begin by providing students with the general timeline for the task, outlining the task,
including expectations, using a script to standardize the presentation. Each student would logon to a laptop to
begin or be given an answer document to capture all work. Script: American writer Mark Twain once quipped that
he “never let his schooling get in the way of his education.” In this exercise you, as a long time learner and
consumer of educational services, will be asked to consider what works and what doesn’t where teaching and
learning are concerned.
The overall directive to student groups at this point: Are there common traits found or not found in your
collective experiences that are always or usually present when effective teaching and learning take place?
Script: For this task, each group will produce a list of common traits, factors or attributes needed for teaching and
learning to be effective by viewing several video clips and through sharing your own experiences with learning.
First, students would be broken up into groups of 5 to 7 and would begin by viewing and discussing a short video
clip from the movie The Dead Poets Society. In this “Seize the Day” segment the teacher is meeting his class for
the first time. Focus questions for the group: what surprises the students about the teacher’s behavior? What
techniques does he use to reach students and do any belong on the list of common traits, factors or attributes?
Seize the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtmGcdSDAI&NR=1 5 minutes
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Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
Next, after selecting a facilitator/scribe, each group would begin collecting and managing the list of traits, factors
and attributes of effective learning based on the video clip. Students would be directed to take detailed notes
electronically or in the hard copy answer document, during all the sessions on day 1 for use in the day 2 tasks.
This ‘notepad’ could also function as a depository for any thoughts the student may have throughout the work on
the task and function as the location for planning work such as creating outlines, graphic organizers etc., at the
student’s discretion. This video could be accessed over the computer or through audio cassette or other method
if using paper-pencil administration.
20 minutes.
Next, students would take turns relating one of their most effective learning experiences, inside school or out. No
more than 5 minutes would be allowed per individual, with emphasis on what factors made the experience
positive and the learning effective. [Group work should be done in a circular formation of desks to encourage
discussion in a relaxed and egalitarian framework--no teacher talking down to them from above.]
Comment [SC1]: Requires interaction with
other people and is feasible for classroom setting.
Keeping group size small helps students feel
comfortable in contributing and discussing ideas.
Teachers may need to help facilitate the group
work while staying out of the actual discussions.
From these anecdotes would be gleaned additional factors, traits, or attributes that need to be present for
effective learning to take place, further informing the growing list of traits. 40 minutes.
Comment [SC2]: This formulation allows the
notes to be created and captured by the
individual student, though they are informed by
the group discussion.
At the one hour point, the group views two more brief excerpts from the Dead Poets Society.
Shakespeare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8fu-hq3S7A 3 minutes
Focus questions: Is this an effective teaching strategy? If so, why and are there traits to add to the list?
Rip out the pages: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpeLSMKNFO4&NR=1 4 minutes
Focus questions: Is this an effective teaching strategy? If so, why and are there traits to add to the list?
*Note: the word ‘hell’ is used here which would have to be masked.
DATA COLLECTION POINT: The list of traits, factors and attributes of effective learning would be finalized by each
group at this point through group discussion. 30minutes.
Although captured, this day one work would not be scored, but would be available for formative applications to
show how the student[s] was interacting with and synthesizing information from the various sources as work on
the performance task progressed.
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Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
Day 2 or same day following Task A
Task B: Listening-- Student logs back into the test engine via laptop or has his or her answer document returned.
You may listen to this short poem as many times as you like by clicking the audio link or via audio cassette.
Assignment: Speculate on what caused the narrator attending the lecture to become unaccountably “tired and sick.”
In the space provided [one page], provide detail from the poem and your own experience to support your
Interpretation. DATA COLLECTION POINT: This short expository piece would be scored as part of the summative
assessment and inform the final summative piece, Task C.
20 minutes
When I Heard the Learned Astronomer
Comment [SC3]: Pairing of literature with
appropriate informational texts is intended to
help students see the connections and
commonalities among ideas across disciplines.
However, performance task could also exclusively
pair informational text or literary texts.
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Comment [SC4]: Access: This is a poem to
which most students will have a visceral reaction
without having to dig deeply into critical analysis.
Whitman might be saying it is sheer folly to try to
encase and separate something as wondrous as
the stars into desiccated mathematical formulas,
or as Dewey puts it ‘disembodied information,
cut off from the activity in which it has meaning’-say navigation, for example, or simple inspiration.
Secondarily, the idea that the individual needs to
strike out on his own, eschewing conformity, is a
possible theme students can pull out for use in
the final summative exercise as a factor to
explore in their discussion of learning in the
summative piece.
Walt Whitman
Task C:
Total time: 2 hours and 10 minutes
Students read in test engine or test booklet: John Dewey, philosopher and educator, opened a
renowned experimental school at the turn of the 20th Century at the University of Chicago.
Read and consider the main ideas behind his view on what makes for an effective learning
environment. Focus questions: Do you agree or disagree with his ideas? Have you had
experience with lessons structured in the way he suggests below?
Education at the Dewey School was based on the idea that knowledge is a by-product of
activity: people do things in the world, and the doing results in learning something that, if
deemed useful, gets carried along into the next activity. In the traditional method of
education, in which the things considered worth knowing are handed down from teacher
to pupil as disembodied information, knowledge is cut off from the activity in which it has
its meaning, and becomes a false abstraction. One of the consequences (besides boredom)
Compiled by LW, Feb. 15th, 2011
Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
is that an invidious distinction between knowing and doing – a distinction Dewey thought
socially pernicious as well as philosophically erroneous – gets reinforced.
At the Laboratory School, therefore, children were involved in workshop-type
projects in which learning was accomplished in a manner that simulated the way Dewey
thought it was accomplished in real life: through group activity. Since the project was
being carried out in the present, and since it was supposed to proceed in accordance with
the natural instincts of the children (“I think … that the development of the children’s
interests will follow very closely a truly scientific development of the subject.”64 Dewey
stated in one of his planning letters), what was learned was precisely what was useful.
Relevance was built into the system.
One of Dewey’s curricular obsessions, for instance, was cooking. (Like all courses
at the school, including carpentry and sewing, cooking was coeducational.) The children
cooked and served lunch once a week. The philosophical rationale is obvious enough:
preparing a meal (as opposed to, say, memorizing the multiplication table) is a goaldirected activity, it is a social activity, and it is an activity continuous with life outside
school. But Dewey incorporated into the practical business of making lunch: arithmetic
(weighing and measuring ingredients, with instruments the children made themselves),
chemistry and physics (observing the process of combustion), biology (diet and
digestion), geography (exploring the natural environments of the plants and animals), and
so on. Cooking became the basis for most of the science taught in the school. It turned out
to have so much curricular potential that making cereal became a three-year continuous
course of study for all children between the ages of six and eight – with (on the testimony
of two teachers) “no sense of monotony on the part of either pupils or teacher.”65 And as
cooking established a continuity with the sphere of the home, other activities established
continuities with the spheres of industry and business. There was much work, for
example with iron. The children built their own tiny smelters.
The pedagogical challenge, crucial to the theory, was to make the chemistry
indivisible from the lunch, the learning invisible from the doing. “Absolutely no
separation is made between the ‘social’ side of the work, its concern with people’s
activities and their mutual dependencies, and the ‘science,’ regard for physical facts and
forces,”66 Dewey wrote in 1899 in his best-selling book about the school, The School and
Society (a work that has never been out of print).
From The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand, pages 322-324
Compiled by LW, Feb. 15th, 2011
Comment [SC5]: Deeper levels of access to
this piece having to do with the belief that
knowing and doing should not be separated are
available [“the chemistry indivisible from the
learning, the learning invisible from the doing.”]
Though some students might not know ‘invidious’
and ‘pernicious,’ they all know “boredom.” The
intent is to satisfy the CC directive to provide
more challenging texts without being off limits to
students as a whole.
Comment [SC6]: There is a continuum of text
access moving from concrete to abstract.
Anecdotes/examples create access points for
many students to this text: everyone understands
the importance of lunch. There is even a list of
criteria here that students may pick up on and use
in their final exercise.
Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
Assignment: Your principal has asked for ideas to improve teaching and learning at your
school. Think about your many experiences with education inside and outside the
classroom in relation to Dewey’s approach above. Use your notes from the group
discussion and videos from day one and ideas from both texts to establish a controlling
idea or thesis about what in your opinion is needed for effective teaching and learning to
take place.
For your principal, write a unified essay developing your controlling idea or thesis with indepth and relevant support, informed by your own experience, your group work, and
evidence or ideas from each text. Use your time wisely to allow for planning activities,
creating a rough draft and revising it for content and standard use of written language in a
final draft.
Guidelines:
Be sure to
• Use ideas from all passages and your personal experience to establish a controlling idea about effective learning
experiences.
• Use specific and relevant evidence from each passage to develop your controlling idea
• Organize your ideas in a logical and coherent manner • Use language that communicates ideas effectively
• Follow the conventions of standard written English
3) Rubric or scoring criteria for the item/ task
To be determined.
The summative pieces to be scored are a short informative/explanatory piece based on the poem and the longer
culminating task, also an informative/explanatory piece, though some students may take a more persuasive tone
or direction, requiring deep synthesis and analysis of multiple texts and sources of information, including individual
experience. The core assessment objective: measuring the ability of students to produce, under a tight deadline,
clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task purpose and
audience. Successful responses would convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the
effective selection, and analysis and synthesis of content.
4) Common Core Standards measured by this task (CCS standard number, description of standard)
Major strands in red. minor strands in green
Language Standards:
L. 11/12.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or
speaking.
Compiled by LW, Feb. 15th, 2011
Comment [SC7]: Asking students to revise and
edit provides them some measure of ‘owning’
their writing, though it should be scored as
essentially a first draft piece, given the truncated
time frame.
Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
a. Apply the understanding that usage is a matter of convention, can change over time, and is sometimes
contested.
b. Resolve issues of complex or contested usage, consulting references (e.g., Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of
English Usage, Garner’s Modern American Usage) as needed.
L.11/12.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling
when writing.
a. Observe hyphenation conventions.
b. Spell correctly.
Writing Standards:
W.11/12.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate
to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3
above.)
W.11/12.5 Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for
conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 11–12 on page
54.)
W.11/12.8 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced
searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and
audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and
overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
W.11/12.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
a. Apply grades 11–12 Reading standards to literature (e.g., “Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenthand early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature, including how two or more texts from
the same period treat similar themes or topics”).
b. Apply grades 11–12 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., “Delineate and evaluate the reasoning in
seminal U.S. texts, including the application of constitutional principles and use of legal reasoning [e.g., in U.S.
Supreme
Court Case majority opinions and dissents] and the premises, purposes, and arguments in works of public
advocacy [e.g., The Federalist, presidential
addresses]”).
Reading Standards for Literature:
RL.11/12.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
RL.11/12.10 By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the
grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range. By the
end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of the
grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently. (As seen in Appendix A and B)
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Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
SL. 11-12. .1 Engage in collaborative discussions
.2 Integrate multiple sources of information
.3 Evaluate a speaker’s point of view
5) Performance Task Features
List of Descriptive Features Required of All Performance Tasks –Use Comments to annotate the Performance Task
above to show where each feature is included in the task.
Integrate knowledge and skills across multiple strands and standards
Requires skills found in multiple standards in the reading, writing, language, speaking and listening strands
used in concert to create and convey complex ideas clearly and accurately through the effective selection,
organization and analysis of content.
Measure capacities such as depth of understanding, research skills and/or complex analysis with
relevant evidence
Requires complex analysis and synthesis across multiple sources [written, heard or viewed] and tied to the
individual’s experience [construction of meaning]. Successful responses will generalize from the specific, a
much more difficult task than just relating my ‘favorite teacher’ anecdotes. This task requires significant
facility in the selection and management of pertinent detail from a number of sources, all marshaled to
support the particular lens created by the student. These are college ready and 21st Century skill sets.
Require student-initiated planning, management of information and ideas, interaction with other
materials and/or people
Multiple sources of information delivered in a variety of formats forms the basis of this task. The student is
requires to digest, synthesize, and then select pertinent detail from all sources, including group discussion in the
final summative piece. The small group discussion piece highlights student ability to communicate and collaborate
in rich, structured conversations built around content in various domains.
Reflect a real-world task and/or scenario-based problem
Learning is a fact of life whether you are in school or out. The idea of this exercise is to allow students to
think about learning on a more abstract plane, while still anchored in experience. Relevance in education is a
constant and perennial refrain from every generation it seems, and the Dewey piece speaks to one approach:
‘doing should not be separated from knowing.’
Lend itself to multiple approaches
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Alignment of Performance Tasks with Common Core Standards
They can use multiple elaborative strategies such as anecdote, example, cause and effect, analogy or simile,
logical interrelation of ideas, attempts at humor, use of rhetorical questions, rebuttal, description and citing
of experts, compare/contrast, and rebuttal to support their contentions.
Represent content that is relevant & meaningful to students
Students have a vast storehouse of information about the effectiveness of teaching and learning having had many
years of experience on the front lines by the time they reach high school. Choosing a topic about which students
have a reservoir of knowledge upon which to draw is important when creating open-ended tasks.
Allow for multiple points of view & interpretations
Students can approach the topic in many ways, as they are free to create their own controlling idea. They can
engage in discussion about student directed learning, group learning, student motivation, the proper role of
teachers and students, teacher expertise, active vs. passive participation, learning styles, project based
learning, teacher/student ratio, who is ultimately responsible for learning, relevance, and creating a ‘safe’
respectful classroom atmosphere, etc.
st
Allow for demonstration of important knowledge & skills, including those that address 21 century
skills
This task requires the flexibility, concentration and fluency to create texts that convey complex ideas in an
organized and appropriate style under a tight deadline. It requires effective participation in group analysis
including conversation, collaboration, building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly, all in concert
with effectives note taking. Requires the ability to read, understand and use with facility complex texts from a
variety of sources and types, and integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse format and media.
Require scoring that focuses on the essence of the task
To be created later.
Reflect one or more of the Standards for Mathematical Practice, Reading and Writing, (or Speaking
and Listening) Process
See section above on Standards connected to this task.
Seem feasible for the school/classroom environment
This exercise could be completed in a normal classroom with students using laptop computers for the delivery of
the assessment , note taking, and summative assessment
Compiled by LW, Feb. 15th, 2011