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Considering Options in Task Design To what extent will the task allow for student choice? To what extent will students need to acquire outside resources Will students work on the task individually and/or in pairs/groups? To whom will students present their products and performances? How long will students be involved in this task? Who will be involved in evaluating student products and performances? How will assessment results be reported?

Performance assessment tasks serve to supplement and reinforce existing curriculum. The questions articulated above provide teachers with several questions to consider as tasks are designed. In addition, the following may be considered:

For how long should students be involved in a performance task?

While there is no specified time limit nor minimal time specifications, teachers should examine their curriculum to see where and how long would be appropriate to engage students in a performance tasks. Some tasks may be more limited in scope and last for one class period, while others may have interdisciplinary connections or extended projects which may last for weeks.

As constructing and implementing performance tasks takes time, particularly in the beginning, teachers may want to start small, i.e., start by developing s short task focusing on a limited number of indicators that can be completed in a day or two. As more tasks are developed, the teacher's proficiency and comfort level will be increased and the teacher may wish to extend the time and scope of the next task.

When and how should tasks be designed with interdisciplinary connections?

There are times when two or more curricular areas lend themselves well to integrated tasks. When a social studies unit can be enhanced by involving students with a piece of literature or when problem solving involves both mathematics and science, for example, then teachers would serve their students well by drawing the critical connections between the content areas. However, when teachers force connections in order to involve as many teachers as possible, they may do more harm than good by delivering inconsistent instruction.

Just as curriculum guides and Scope and Sequence guides are used to help plan instructional and assessment tasks, so too must they be used to see where appropriate interdisciplinary connections may be made. If connections will help to strengthen, reinforce, or extend students' understandings and abilities, then an interdisciplinary connection may be warranted. If however, there is uncertainty or if you have to search beyond the scope of the curriculum, then perhaps there is no connection.

Once the decision is made to connect two content areas within the scope of a single task, the teachers involved would establish some guidelines for constructing the task. These guidelines may include: defining the theme or meaningful context; determining the connections and how they are evidenced in the culminating task; and deciding how activities would be completed within each content area/discipline. In addition, teachers involved would make assessment decisions, including how results would be reported and by whom would tasks be reviewed or assessed.

Another connection that teachers of other disciplines/content areas may wish to explore beyond content connections is that of skill reinforcement. Tasks may be designed to teach and assess a set of skills, such as comparison or abstract reasoning. Teachers may agree on the skill(s) to be addressed in the task and address the skills as appropriate for their content area. The graphic organizers and general process may be similar for all areas, yet the content and how the skills are used in conjunction with the content will vary.

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