Using Performance-Based Assessment to Authentically Measure Student Learning

Presented by Stacey Sparks, Senior Director of Content Design and Development, CAE; Lisa Karlich, Executive Director of Periodic Assessment, New York City Department of Education; and Mary Jo Conery, Associate Superintendent, Catalina Foothills Unified School District (AZ)

Sponsored by CAE

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States and districts across the country are looking for better ways to bridge the gap between high school graduation and students’ next steps. Many states are incorporating new approaches to ensure students meet their Portrait of a Graduate requirements. One solution is to include open-ended and performance-based assessments that authentically measure students’ learning and skills.

Tune into this edWebinar to hear how two diverse districts—New York City and Catalina Foothills School District (AZ)—are using performance-based assessment across the curricula to get a more accurate picture of students’ abilities to apply and demonstrate their knowledge and skills. The presenters share and explore:

• The essential components of a performance-based assessment
• Why performance-based assessments provide a more accurate measurement of students’ knowledge and skills
• The challenges and successes in developing and administering performance-based assessments
• The response to performance-based assessments from educators, students, and parents
• How the skills being measured using this method relate to college and career readiness

Join us for an information-packed session with education experts who help you ensure students are not only mastering academic content but also becoming competent in essential success skills.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to middle and high school teachers, school and district leaders, and school counselors.

About the Presenters

Stacey Sparks graduated from Princeton University with honors in English literature. She subsequently received a diploma in librarianship from Aberystwyth University. She has worked as an editor in the field of educational assessment at National Evaluation Systems, the American Institutes of Research, and joined CAE in 2012. Stacey served as the senior ELA editor for CAE’s PARCC summative assessment development project and also worked as a test, test preparation, and textbook developer for virtually every educational publisher and test development firm in the U.S. At the National Evaluation Systems, she supervised the development of French and Spanish listening tests. Stacey has collaborated extensively with committees of educators to develop high-quality test items and other educational materials, including four Standards documents for the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards in Washington, D.C. She has also published fiction and nonfiction books and articles for children and adults.

Lisa Karlich started her career in education teaching a combined physics and pre-calculus course in a 6-12 New York City public school. While teaching, she took a lead role in updating the school’s performance-based assessment program, organizing cross-functional teams of teachers to revise and strengthen the rubrics used to evaluate those assessments. Eventually, she moved into an administrative position coaching math and science. Lisa was actively involved in the Coalition of Essential Schools and their Small Schools Project, founded by Ted Sizer and funded by the Gates Foundation, mentoring the start up of small schools across the country, facilitating numerous workshops, and co-authoring revisions to the CES Benchmarks for Classroom Practice and Organizational Structure. With over 20 years in public service, she is currently the executive director of periodic assessment for the New York City Department of Education, cultivating the broader reach of formative assessment, and in particular performance-based assessments, to inform and improve instructional practice.

Mary Jo Conery is the associate superintendent in the Catalina Foothills Unified School District (CFSD) in Tucson, Arizona. During her 29 years in CFSD, she has been a teacher, curriculum coordinator, elementary principal, assistant superintendent, and associate superintendent. Mary Jo has also been a teacher and peer coach in Virginia and the principal of an early education school in Wisconsin.

Mary Jo provides oversight to K-12 curriculum, assessment, and educational technology, and has facilitated strategic priorities for three strategic plans since 2005. The current plan, Envision21: Deep Learning, preserves the focus on 21st century skill building but reframes the skills as deep learning proficiencies with attention to self-regulation and mindsets. Mary Jo has presented the district’s work at numerous national conferences and has consulted with districts on CFSD’s long-term, systemic implementation efforts and results on 21st century education, including the development of curricula and common performance tasks that measure 21st century skills.

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Since 2002, educators have relied on CAE’s performance-based assessments to provide them with accurate, actionable insights into their students’ mastery of the skills essential to academic success in secondary school and college, and the skills most in-demand by employers—problem solving, critical thinking, and written communication.