View Content #23259

As discussed in this week’s Topic of the Week, a key piece of using assessments as a learning tool in order to help learners successfully navigate the “real, ‘messy’ uses of knowledge in context—the ‘doing’ of a subject,” is contextualization (Wiggins, 1993, p. 207). For the activity of the week this week, here is a sampling of some examples of contextualizing an assessment:

1.The book prompt: Listen to two friends talk about their families, then answer the multiple choice questions. The revised prompt: Your friend needs to plan a surprise birthday party for her grandmother. Listen as she talks about her family in order to help her plan a surprise party everyone will like. Fill in the chart of each family members’ likes and dislikes to help you organize your thoughts.

2.The book prompt: Describe the things in your house in one written paragraph. The revised prompt: Your friend from Japan is vising the U.S. for the first time next month and will stay with a host family. Since homes are different in Japan than they are in the U.S., your friend sends you an email to ask you what your home is like. Respond to your friend’s email and describe your home so your friend has a better idea what to expect.

3.The book prompt: Read the paragraph about San Juan, Puerto Rico and the paragraph about Guadalajara, Mexico. Answer multiple choice questions about the two destinations. The revised prompt: You are thinking about spending a summer in either San Juan, Puerto Rico, or Guadalajara, Mexico. You decide to read about each on a travel blog. After reading about them, make a pro and con list for each location based on the information you learned in the travel blog.

4.The book prompt: Describe your favorite actor/actress and why you like them to a friend. The revised prompt It’s almost the Oscars and you and your friends are excited! While talking about the Oscars you and your friend get into a discussion about who is the best actor/actress. They don’t think your favorite actor/actress is any good. Record your conversation with your partner as you try to convince them that your favorite actor/actress is the best.

5.The book prompt: Complete this paragraph about Jean’s last trip to Guadeloupe by filling in the past tense of the verbs. The revised prompt: You and your co-worker Jean are travel agents. You both put together a new travel package for tourists based on Jean's last trip to Guadaloupe. In order to convince people to purchase the travel package, you and Jean need to give a presentation about Jean's last trip there. Jean provides you with a basic list of things in Guadeloupe (e.g. aller à la plage de Grande Anse – go to the Grande Anse beach, manger des accras – eat accras, etc.), but it’s up to you to create the finished presentation describing what he did on his trip.

References:

Wiggins, Grant P. (1993) Assessing student performance: Exploring the purpose and limits of testing. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.