PLAN Pilot Frequently Used Terms:
Performance-Based Learning and Assessment
What are some key attributes of performance-based approaches to
teaching, learning, and assessment?
Performance-based approaches can be designed to incorporate real-world problems and
tasks, giving students opportunities to develop and apply knowledge and skills in settings
that resemble authentic, real-life situations. Such approaches to teaching, learning, and
assessment can be used to promote students’ deeper learning and higher-order thinking
skills and have been shown to prepare students for college and the workplace.
What is performance-based assessment?
Performance-based assessment requires students to demonstrate or apply their
knowledge, skills, and strategies by creating a response or product or doing a task.
Students’ responses or performances are typically judged against standards or criteria in a
checklist or rubric focusing on the stages of skill development and what a student can do.
How does performance-based assessment fit into an assessment
strategy that includes multiple measures?
Within a system that includes multiple assessment measures, each type of assessment has
a valuable role to play, and different types of
assessments work together to provide a
picture of students’ mastery of learning standards. New York’s strategy values each type of
assessment, from the classroom to the state level, and how they can add evidence to
answer questions about student learning. Local assessments should support instruction
and enable appropriate supports and learning opportunities to be provided to students,
while state assessments provide critical evidence of students’ access to opportunities to
learn across the state.
Because performance-based assessments require students to construct a response or
perform an open-ended task, they are an important tool for measuring higher-order
thinking and skills, such as the ability to apply knowledge and use reasoning to solve
realistic problems, evaluate the reliability of sources of information, and synthesize and
analyze information to draw conclusions.