Write Tasks Aligned to Appropriate StandardsDescription
Schools should review their expectations for student learning, Rhode Island Grade Span Expectations (GSEs), applied learning standards, and other appropriate state and national standards when aligning curriculum and tasks. It is critical to do this before writing tasks to ensure that the resulting tasks will be valid entries appropriate for inclusion in a graduation portfolio.
Things to Consider
It is helpful to create a matrix for cross walking and aligning tasks with the GSEs, Rhode Island Common Core of Learning Standards, applied learning standards, and your school's expectations for student learning. When writing tasks, be sure to review periodically, which standards are to be demonstrated by each task.
Tools
Description of Common Tasks
The Rhode Island Skills Commission developed this document, which can be used as a guide to writing tasks. It provides a definition of a task, descriptions of types of tasks, examples of uses of tasks, and a discussion of the role of applied learning in developing tasks.
Process for Writing Tasks
This document was developed by the Rhode Island Skills Commission. It is an example of one model for writing tasks and can be used as guidance for schools writing their own assignments/tasks for inclusion in a graduation portfolio. The tasks that are developed using this process would also be appropriate to use for end-of-course assessments.
Tips for Cloning Tasks
The Rhode Island Skills Commission and its network of schools developed this document to assist schools in cloning or generating new prompts from tasks that have already been developed. Cloning existing tasks will allow you to decrease the time it takes to generate all of your assignments and tasks from scratch. This represents one approach to this process; your school may choose to adopt it or may want to explore other approaches.
Uses of Common Tasks to Demonstrate Proficiency
This document was developed by the Rhode Island Skills Commission. It was developed to illustrate how common tasks help create pathways to proficiency. Districts seeking to use common tasks to fulfill graduation by proficiency requirements and as part of the graduation portfolio may use it as a model as a guide to determining how their assignments/tasks can be combined and be part of a student's demonstration of proficiency.
Guidelines for Judging Prompts
The Rhode Island Skills Commission and its network schools developed this document to help task specialists evaluate prompts that teachers have written and to guide teachers in developing new prompts. It represents one approach to these processes; your school may choose to adopt it or may want to explore other approaches.
Guidelines for Using Student Work for Judging Prompts
This document was developed by the Rhode Island Skills Commission. It describes a process for the revision of tasks, one of several steps in task development. After your school has piloted and scored new tasks you may want to engage in this process of using student work to evaluate and revise common tasks. It is important to evaluate common tasks for validity and reliability on a regular basis. This document represents one approach to this process; your school may choose to adopt it or may want to explore other approaches.
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Coventry High School: Using Common Tasks in the Classroom to Meet Graduation by Proficiency
We have taken the common task template and modified it into a template for a classroom task which is a course specific task designed to meet the PBGR requirements and give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate proficiency and produce portfolio worthy entries. The classroom task is not necessarily a "common" task in that it may or may not be given to a common group of students in a course area, grade, or district but follows the template. It is also not necessarily a "validated" task but could be if it goes through the validation process (still in the works).
We conducted a professional development workshop where we trained the entire faculty to develop classroom tasks or modify existing activities, projects, assessments, etc., to fit the template given. By June 1st, every department in the school was expected to turn in 3 classroom tasks per course offered so that next year, every student in the school will have taken a minimum of 3 classroom tasks in every course they are in.
This is our foundation of giving students multiple opportunities for demonstrating proficiency in every course and giving students a foundation to do their capstone project (every classroom task must incorporate one or more of the following: technology, oral presentation, research). In addition, it is great professional development for teachers and staff as we continue to develop, look at student work, calibrate and score tasks.
