Performance Assessment: Showing What Students Know and Can Do, June/2015

It’s not just about what students know. What can students do with their knowledge?

Tests show us what learners know, but well-designed performance assessment goes much further. It shows students the true purpose and value of their learning. It allows them to do something with their knowledge, transferring concepts and skills to situations beyond the ones in which they were learned.

In Performance Assessment: Showing What Students Know and Can Do, educational consultant, professional developer, and author Susan M. Brookhart, Ph.D., shares her expertise on the topic of classroom performance assessment, bringing together practical, research-based information to deepen educators’ understanding of:

1. What performance assessment is and what purposes it serves
2. Designing performance tasks to teach and assess learning
3. Using rubrics to support formative and summative assessment

Readers learn how to clearly describe the criteria in tasks and rubrics while keeping the criteria in line with desired learning outcomes. Brookhart explores four general categories of performance assessment: simple processes, simple products, complex processes, and complex products, and addresses sampling issues and effective application with group work. The book then provides real-world recommendations for making performance assessment a routine part of instruction.

About The Author:

Susan M. Brookhart, Ph.D., is an independent educational consultant and author based in Helena, Montana. Dr. Brookhart’s interests include the role of both formative and summative classroom assessment in student motivation and achievement, the connection between classroom assessment and large-scale assessment, and grading. She was the 2007-2009 editor of Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, a journal of the National Council on Measurement in Education. She is author or co-author of 16 books and more than 60 articles and book chapters on classroom assessment, teacher professional development, and evaluation. She serves on the editorial boards of several journals.

Dr. Brookhart received her Ph.D. in Educational Research and Evaluation from The Ohio State University, after teaching in both elementary and middle schools. She was a full-time faculty member at Duquesne University, most recently as Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership. She currently serves as a Research and Professional Development Consultant in the Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning in the School of Education at Duquesne.