Science Matters
Electricity and Magnetism Formative Assessment #2
Leave it to science to get scholars out of a jam. Young scientists use what they've learned about electricity and magnetism in the previous eight lessons in the series to build tools that will allow them to find their way out of the...
EngageNY
Launching the Performance Task
This word or that, this picture or that. Individuals dive into the lives of The Little Rock Nine and the connotation used in the book A Mighty Long Way as they begin the performance task. The task scenario establishes literature lovers...
EngageNY
Final Performance Task: Presentation of Photograph and Song Selections
The presentation is the thing. Learners combine all their skills by creating a pitch for their films about the Little Rock Nine. They explain to classmates why they selected the images and songs using self-created prompt cards. The end...
Curated OER
Thrilling Information: Music and Reading
Here’s a cross-curricular program music activity that uses Peer Gynt to engage class members. Groups take one section of “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” choreograph their section of the tune to represent the story as they imagine it,...
National Park Service
Should America Have Gone to War in 1812?
Using an incredibly engaging activity and detailed lesson plan, your learners will serve as advisors to President Madison on whether to participate in what would become the War of 1812! Utilize a variety of effective instructional...
Curated OER
Final Papers: Writing Prompts for Evaluating Team and Individual Performance
To be used in connection with a group project or at the end of a unit, this handout contains two essay writing prompts. The first prompt asks a group of learners to work together to evaluate their groups' performance as well as each...
Curated OER
Pre-AP Strategies for Assessment Design in Latin Courses
As a Latin educator, do you know how to appropriately design assessments for your advanced learners? If you're teaching an honors or advanced placement course, read this article for some professional development.
Massachusetts Department of Education
Similarity through Transformations
Create the ultimate miniature golf course. The 93-page model curriculum unit from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education contains nine lessons on understanding similarity in terms of both Euclidean geometry...
Curated OER
Alternative Assessments for Novel Units
Students can be assessed on novel units using alternative/performance assessments.
Fluence Learning
Writing About Informational Text: The Dred Scott Decision
Looking for a performance assessment that asks individuals to demonstrate their competency in writing about informational text? Use Frederick Douglass' essay "On the Dred Scott Decision," and an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's 1857 speech...
Leading Learner
Using Music to Tell a Story or Describe a Scene
Young composers demonstrate their understanding of the stylistic features of descriptive music, including pitch, tempo, dynamics, rhythm, and timbre, by developing a melody and countermelody for a main character in a story. As part of...
Smarter Balanced
Zoos
How do the experiences of animals living in zoos differ from animals living in the wild? To prepare for a performance assessment on this question, class members are introduced to key concepts and vocabulary, and then groups use a Venn...
Media Smarts
Scripting a Crime Drama
Develop novice script-writers. Small groups sift through a sample script, noting any script-writing conventions to share with the whole class. Using these conventions and plot structures, these groups compose a script for a 10-minute...
Teach Engineering
A New Angle on PV Efficiency
Let me get an angle on this! Investigate the orientation of a photovoltaic panel and its effect on efficiency. By using a light source, learners collect and plot current output to determine the ultimate orientation. The resource includes...
Fluence Learning
Writing an Argument: Innovation in America
Are American young people prepared to become tomorrow's leaders in technological innovation, or does an obsession with being cool sidetrack essential skills? That is the question freshmen and sophomores must address in a performance task...
Fluence Learning
Writing an Opinion: Buddies that Bark or Purr-fect Pets?
Which animal is best for you—a dog or cat? Why? Engage third graders in an opinion writing assessment that prompts them to read facts about both pets, and then write and decide which pet is best for them.
EngageNY
Ratios and Unit Rates
This turn-key unit on ratios and unit rates walks through a 30-lesson unit on teaching proportional reasoning, with each lesson broken into detailed teaching notes and time allotments for all parts. An unbelievable resource when taken...
Smarter Balanced
How the Brain Works
Cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem, pituitary gland, and spinal cord. Prepare your class for a performance task assessment on the brain and how it works with a scripted plan that defines these terms and identifies the functions the parts...
Smarter Balanced
How We Learn
What's the best way to learn the elements of the periodic table? The inventions of Thomas Edison? Patience? To prepare for the performance task assessment on how people learn, class members share ideas about ways to learn in a variety of...
Classics for Kids
"Mars" from The Planets
Gustav Holst's The Planets provide young musicians an opportunity to examine how composers can create a suite: a collection of smaller pieces grouped to explore a single topic. After listening to "Jupiter," they examine "Mars" in detail,...
EngageNY
Author’s Read: Final Performance Task
Scholars submit their final performance task, a letter to a publisher about an athlete's legacy. As a culminating activity, they share their work with classmates in small groups.
Curated OER
Performance-Based Assessment Practice Test (Grade 10 ELA/Literacy)
Get an idea of how your class members might perform on the Common Core tests with a comprehensive practice test. The assessment includes literary and informational passages for learners to read an analyze. Pupils respond to a series of...
Pearson
Performance Based Assessment Practice Test (Algebra II)
A full-length practice test like this one, especially one that includes a number of open response questions, is a phenomenal tool in a class as rigorous as algebra 2. Here the learners can really get that hands-on experience wrestling...
Pearson
Performance Based Assessment Practice Test (Geometry)
The incredibly broad topic base of a geometry class makes full-length practice tests like this one, especially ones that include a number of open response questions, invaluable. Here the class can really get that hands-on experience...