This section introduces you to a variety of assessments to measure student performance and mastery of Texas Standards. Categories of Assessments There are many ways to categorize assessments. For our purposes, we will divide the categories into selected response assessments, constructed response assessments, and performance assessments. An example of a selected response assessment of Internet-based instruction may be to have students take a written test on facts they were able to access using the web or identifying the right sequence of steps to accomplish something. Constructed response assessments include fill in the blank, short answers, show your work, and visual depiction activities.
Students create answers to questions or prompts.
These give teachers a better sense of how well students can convey information and demonstrate some skills like mapping, graphing, and so on. Performance assessments generally require students to demonstrate something that meets specific criteria. This could include, for example, demonstrations of how to conduct a search, posting artwork on the web, producing a book, enactments, scientific demonstrations or exhibits, research papers, and so forth. Some of these are projects, some are performance tasks, and some are culminating activities. Typically, performance assessments illuminate students' skills, conceptual understandings, ability to apply knowledge and skills, performance execution abilities, and process abilities.