A performance based assessment requires employees to prove or demonstrate that they have

mastered the area being evaluated. Rather than traditional means of evaluation, like scales, rating
systems and tests, performance based assessments require the associate to demonstrate mastery
of the subject or job. The advantage to performance based assessments is that they can be
observed and rated, based on a finished project. A disadvantage is that employees may not
always perform at their best when they know that they are being watched and rated.

Projects
One way to use performance-based assessments is to require projects or programs as proof of
mastery. Employees can demonstrate their skills by pointing to projects that they have completed
or programs that they have developed. With this method, actual, tangible proof is possible and it
is easy to verify if all requirements were met. Evaluators can compare the project to the goal or
expectation from the employee's performance review and verify that the project meets the
standards. Evaluators can then discuss the project with the employee and review the final product
or program to evaluate the associate based on these observations.

Porfolios
Employee-created portfolios of their work products are also an excellent way to conduct a
performance based assessment. With this method, associates create examples of their work
during the year and discuss these work products with their manager. Portfolios work best for
employees who create products, programs, systems or other tangible evidence of their
performance. Training programs are one example of work that could be included in a portfolio.
Marketing programs or software systems are also valuable tools for inclusion in a portfolio.

Demonstration
An actual demonstration of performance mastery can also be used to conduct a performance
based assessment. Demonstrations work for almost all employees and require the manager to
observe the skill that is being evaluated. Evaluators make judgements on the level of mastery, so
it is important to be certain that these measures are observable and agreed upon by both the
employee and the manager. A customer service representative, for example, could be evaluated
on whether or not he can greet a customer within 10 seconds and welcome her to your company.

Behavior-Based
Much like interviewing, behavior-based questions are very effective for performance based
assessments. Using this method, you could ask your employee for specific examples in the
workplace where her skill was used. You might ask for the time when she handled a difficult
employee and look for specific examples demonstrating this skill. Craft your interview with
open-ended questions or statements like, "Tell me exactly how you handled the short deadline for
the xyz project." Behavior based questions require your associate to prove and demonstrate her
mastery for the area being evaluated.

Assignment in Principles of
Teaching
While Project-Based Learning and Problem-Based Learning share much in common, they are
two distinct approaches to learning. In Project-Based Learning, students have a great deal of
control of the project they will work on and what they will do in the project. The project may or
may not address a specific problem. In Problem-Based Learning, a specific problem is specified
by the course instructor. Students work individually or in teams over a period of time to develop
solutions to this problem. This instructional approach is widely used in Architecture Education,
Business Education, Medical Education, and in other situations where "case study" methods
provide a useful focus in teaching/learning.

Project-Based Learning
Definition: Project-Based Learning is an individual or group activity that goes on over a period
of time, resulting in a product, presentation, or performance. It typically has a time line and
milestones, and other aspects of formative evaluation as the project proceeds. My Website on
Information and Communication Technology-Assisted Project-Based Learning is available at
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/PBL/

Project-Based Learning shares much in common with Process Writing. The roots of Process
Writing as taught in the United States are often traced back to the Bay Area Writers Project circa
1975. A six step version of Process Writing is:

1. brainstorming

2. organizing the brainstormed ideas

3. developing a draft

4. obtaining feedback

5. revising, which may involve going bask to earlier steps

6. publishing

Here are some general ideas about Project-Based Learning

1. Project-based learning is learner centered. Students have a significant voice

in selecting the content areas and nature of the projects that they do. There
 is considerable focus on students understanding what it is they are doing,
why it is important, and how they will be assessed. Indeed, students may
help to set some of the goals over which they will be assessed and how they
will be assessed over these goals. All of these learner-centered characteristics
of PBL contribute to learner motivation and active engagement. A high level
of intrinsic motivation and active engagement are essential to the success of
a PBL lesson.

2. From student point of view, Project-Based Learning:

1. Is learner centered and intrinsically motivating.

2. Encourages collaboration and cooperative learning.

3. Requires students to produce a product, presentation, or performance.

4. Allows students to make incremental and continual improvement in

their product, presentation, or performance.

5. Is designed so that students are actively engaged in "doing" things

rather then in "learning about" something.

6. Is challenging; focusing on higher-order skills.

b. From teacher point of view, Project-Based Learning:

1. Has authentic content and purpose.

2. Uses authentic assessment.

3. Is teacher facilitated--but the teacher is much more a "guide on the

side" rather than a "sage on the stage."

4. Has explicit educational goals.

5. Is rooted in constructivism (a social learning theory).

6. Is designed so that the teacher will be a learner.

7. Teacher plays a major role in setting the learning goals of the project.

8. Teacher and students provide formative evaluation.

9. Teacher, students, and others may help in the summative (final)

evaluation.
 10.Rubrics created by a combination of teacher and students. These
facilitate self-evaluation, peer evaluation, evaluation by the teacher,
and evaluation by outside experts.

b. From a research point of view, Project-Based Learning is supported by work

in:

1. Constructivism

2. Situated Learning Theory

3. Motivation Theory

4. Inquiry & Discovery-Based Learning

5. Cooperative Learning

6. Individual & Collaborative Problem Solving

7. Peer Instruction

8. Problem-Based Learning

Activity 1. Working in small groups, share your experiences (both successes and failures) in
making use of Project-Based Learning in math education. As you think about this activity, you
might conclude that PBL is used much more in non-math disciplines as than in math education.
Why do you think this is the case?

ICT-Assisted PBL in Math Education

As noted elsewhere in this Website, there are many possible goals for Math Education. These
goals can be expressed as a quite specific scope and sequence, such as textbook series tend to do.

In addition to a scope and sequence approach, one can look at some guiding themes of principles.
In the What is Mathematics? section of this Website, for example, we have listed three quite
general areas of expertise that might be developed by a person studying mathematics:

1. Mathematics as a human endeavor. Mathematics has a very long history.

Mathematics has beauty. Mathematics is an important aspect of aspect of
past and current cultures. Mathematics is "the queen of the sciences."

2. Mathematics as an interdisciplinary language and tool. Mathematics can be

used to help represent, communicate about, and solve problems in many
different disciplines. Many jobs and other aspects of responsible adult life in
our society require some mathematical knowledge and skills.
 3. Mathematics as a discipline. The formal study of and research in mathematics
is at least 5,000 years old. It is a deep and wide discipline with a huge
amount of accumulated knowledge.

Each of these three general areas of mathematics expertise lends itself to both ICT-Assisted
Project-Based Learning and ICT-Assisted Problem-Based Learning. The next three subsections
give a few examples.

Mathematics as a Human Endeavor

Formal mathematics has a 5,000 year history, going back to the time that the Sumerians
developed both writing and mathematics. Some of the important milestones in math are named
after specific people (for example, Euclidean geometry, Pythagorean theorem) and many others
are not (for example, abacus, fractions, decimals).

Activity 2: Select a person or topic from the history of mathematics. Do a project on it designed
to increase your knowledge of your selected topic, and then to effectively share your increased
knowledge with your fellow students.

Activity 3: Do a project on math-oriented aids to the human mind.

Activity 4: Do a project on women in mathematics, or on people of color in mathematics.

Activity 5: Do a project on ways in which ICT is changes and/or could be changing math
education.

Mathematics as an Interdisciplinary Language and Tool

Beginning at least as early as the first grade in US schools, math is taught during a specific time
slot each day. In elementary school, Typically a longer time slot is devoted to teaching reading
and writing. Science and social studies may be taught on alternate days, sharing a time slot.

Think of this situation in terms of transfer of learning. As an example, consider reading. The goal
is to have students develop a level of reading knowledge and skills by the end of the third grade
so that in future grades then can learn by reading. The expectation is that a typical student learns
to read and then reads to learn while he or she is continuing to become a still better reader.
Although reading is part of a language arts time slot, reading and writing gradually become part
of all of the daily curriculum.

Moreover, even though television and computer games consume a great deal of young students'
time, there are a large number of opportunities and situations that encourage reading through the
daily life of a young student. That is, both within school and outside of school, students tend to
be in environments that encourage reading as a way to gain needed information.
Contrast this with mathand especially with the type of math outside the area of computational
arithmetic. Although math is every were in our world, most students make relatively little use of
it outside of the time slot of formal math education in school. Both the teaching of math and the
use of math are minimal in the non-math curriculum at the K-12 level. Teachers typically make
little attempt to help students transfer their steadily growing math maturity into non-math areas.

Perhaps one reason for this is that there can easily be a significant difference between a student's
level of math maturity and that which is needed to apply math in a non-math discipline that is
being taught. As a simple example, consider third grade students who are doing a classification
or sorting activity in science of social studies,. The students are able to do such an activity in
working with colored blocks in their math "class." Thus, with some help in transfer of learning,
they can do it in science or social studies.

However, consider the possibility of students producing a pie chart (circle graph) of the data of
the science or social studies data. This is an activity that is well above the math knowledge and
skills of a typical third grader, even though such students can understand the parts of a whole and
differences in size of the parts in a pie chart.

ICT provides an answer. There is easy to use software that an convert data into a pie chart. Thus,
the procedural aspects of developing a pie chart can be given over to a computer.

This one example suggests a general idea:

1. Look for direct applications of math while teaching non-math topics. If there is
an obvious avenue for transfer of learningdirectly applying math that
students have already learnedmake that application and talk about this
type of transfer of learning. "Transfer of learning" should become part of the
vocabulary of students and a goal in all of their learning.

2. Look for situations in which a computer system can help student

understanding and the knowledge they are gaining by mathematizing in a
visual or other manner some of what is being covered in the non-math
course. This mathematizing process may well draw upon ideas that students
can understand (such as a pie chart) but that are several years above their
current math developmental level.

Activity 6: Develop at least two more examples that have the characteristics 1 and 2 given above.

Mathematics as a Discipline
Math is divided into many different subfields. Students at the K-12 level may have the
opportunity to study arithmetic, algebra, geometry, probability, statistics, trigonometry, and
calculus. At a university undergraduate and graduate level they may have the opportunity to
study additional areas such as abstract algebra, real and complex analysis, topology, non
Euclidean geometry, number theory, numerical analysis, applied mathematics, discrete
mathematics, and so on.

Activity 7: Select an area of mathematics that is at or below the level at which you
are currently studying. Select an audience (students and/or adults) that have not
had formal study in the area you have selected. Do a project that is aimed at
understanding what that area of mathematics is well enough so that you can
communicate it effectively to your fellow students. The end product in this project is
to be a presentation or some other activity that effectively communicates your
insights to your fellow students.

Activity 8: Select an area of math that is above the level that you are currently studying. Do a
project that is aimed at understanding what that area of mathematics is well enough so that you
can communicate it effectively to your fellow students. The end product in this project is to be a
presentation or some other activity that effectively communicates your insights to your fellow
students.