Check Out These Teacher-Designed Performance-Based Assessments

The Chicago Equity-Centered Innovation Forum is an EdSystems collaboration with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to support the implementation of innovative instructional models as strategies for dismantling systemic inequities in traditional educational approaches. One key place that is happening is in the CPS competency-based education pilot schools. These pilot schools provide a student-centered learning experience that emphasizes academic rigor and nurtures agency, collaboration, leadership, adaptability and flexibility, individuality, and exploration. The experiences are brought to life through performance-based assessments, which help students move beyond memorization and recall to foster and develop academic and adaptive competencies.

Last year, the Chicago Equity-Centered Innovation Forum and CPS competency-based education schools collaborated with national expert Dr. Karin Hess to provide training and social justice exploration to help teachers design subject-specific performance-based assessments that address real-world and real-community inequities that resonate with students. Teachers who successfully completed the professional development earned a micro-credential. They also produced some pretty amazing performance-based assessments. One teacher noted they were “pleasantly surprised by how a small project can make an impact.” Another said that developing a performance-based assessment helped them get out of the “habit” of teaching.

Check out these performance-based assessments, and maybe they’ll inspire you to work on some innovation of your own:

• Civics and Computer Science – Anti-Bullying Campaign
• Mathematics – Community Improvement
• Physics – Athletic Performance in Society
• Spanish – Bullfighting
• US History – Good Trouble