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From http://cercll.arizona.edu/lates-language-teacher-symposium/

LaTeS: Language Teacher Symposium
Planning with the End in Mind: Performance Towards Proficiency
April 21, 2018
University of Arizona

Thoughtfully designed performance assessments provide evidence and feedback on learners’ cultural understandings and abilities to communicate in real-world situations with competence and confidence in the language they are learning. Learners will be more successful in demonstrating their communication skills if the performance tasks they complete are cognitively engaging, intrinsically interesting, and personally relevant. The principles of Backward Design guide teachers in the selection of purposeful learning experiences to build learners’ communication skills and cultural understandings.

Beginning with the end in mind, in this workshop participants will deconstruct sample performance assessment tasks to identify the knowledge and skills that learners are expected to demonstrate. They will discuss how closely the tasks reflect real-world contexts where learners need to use the target language. Next, participants will discuss criteria to use in evaluating learners’ performances. The participants will then compare the criteria they generated to the model rubrics that were used for the sample performance tasks. They will evaluate sample performances using the criteria from the sample rubrics and any additional criteria suggested to enhance the evaluation of the task. They will discuss the degree to which the rubrics successfully reflect high quality performance. Next, participants will brainstorm the kinds of activities that will prepare learners to successfully complete the final performance tasks. After analyzing the model performance assessment tasks, participants will develop standards-based performance assessment tasks and rubrics for their own teaching context.

For full details about this professional development opportunity, go to http://cercll.arizona.edu/lates-language-teacher-symposium/