presentation of real life problems in grasps

Use GRASPS for Real-World Assessment

Innovative educators understand that there is more to learning than processed worksheets and tests.

Innovative educators understand that there is more to learning than processed worksheets and tests. That's why real-world tasks and assessments are finally making it out of just the elite schools and are becoming more prevalent in mainstream education. At the Tech & Learning Leadership Summit experts in the area of technology and education came together to discuss a variety of topics including how technology supports bringing real learning experiences to the classroom.

G.R.A.S.P.S. Model

One model popular among attendees was one adapted from Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. It is called GRASPS, which is an acronym standing for:

Provide a statement of the task. Establish the goal, problem, challenge, or obstacle in the task.
Possible sentence starters:
Your task is to… The goal is to… The problem or challenge is… The obstacle to overcome is…
Define the role of the students in the task. State the job of the students for the task.
You are… You have been asked to… Your job is…

A: Audience

Identify the target audience within the context of the scenario. Example audiences might include a client or committee.
Your clients are… The target audience is… You need to convince…

S: Situation

Set the context of the scenario. Explain the situation.
The context you find yourself in is… The challenge involves dealing with…

P: Products or Performances

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Clarify what the students will create and why they will create it,
You will create a … in order to… You need to develop a … so that

S: Standards

Provide students with a clear picture of success. Identify specific standards for success. Issue rubrics to the students or develop them with the student.
Your performance needs to… Your work will be judged by… Your product must meet the following standards… A successful result will…

Note that it is unnecessary to use all or even any of the sentence starters. You can replace a prompt with your own. These are provided to help the learning designer think about the task. Generally one sentence starter can be used to write

cross posted at The Innovative Educator

Lisa Nielsen ( @InnovativeEdu ) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator . Nielsen is the author of several books and her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , Tech&Learning , and T.H.E. Journal .

Disclaimer : The information shared here is strictly that of the author and does not reflect the opinions or endorsement of her employer.

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presentation of real life problems in grasps

Unveiling the GRASPS Assessment Model: A Holistic Approach to Project-Based Learning

As educators, we strive to create authentic, meaningful, and engaging learning experiences for our students. One powerful framework that can help us achieve this goal is the GRASPS assessment model. Developed as part of the Understanding by Design framework by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, GRASPS is an acronym that represents six key components of a well-designed performance task. In this blog post, we'll explore the GRASPS model in depth and offer real-world examples to inspire your teaching practice.

What is the GRASPS Assessment Model?

GRASPS stands for G oal, R ole, A udience, S ituation, P roduct , and S tandards for Success. Each of these six elements helps teachers design performance tasks that closely mirror real-life situations, promoting deeper understanding and improved learning retention. Let's break down each component and provide examples to illustrate its importance.

The goal is the clearly defined purpose of the task. It establishes what students are expected to accomplish and helps them understand the task's significance. By setting a clear goal, students can better focus their efforts and gauge their progress.

Example: In a biology class, the goal might be to "Design a sustainable ecosystem within a terrarium that supports plant and animal life."

The role defines the perspective or position that students will assume while completing the performance task. By taking on a specific role, students gain insight into different perspectives and develop empathy and understanding.

Example: In a social studies project, students might take on the role of a "United Nations representative tasked with creating a plan to improve access to clean water in a developing country."

The audience refers to the real or simulated group of people the students' work is intended for. Identifying an audience helps students consider the needs, interests, and preferences of others, ultimately resulting in more effective communication and collaboration.

Example: In a persuasive writing assignment, students might be asked to "Write a letter to the local government, advocating for the implementation of green energy initiatives in the community."

The situation provides the context and background information necessary for students to understand the task's relevance and urgency. It often describes a real-world problem, challenge, or opportunity that students must address.

Example: In a math project, students might be presented with the following situation: "Your city is experiencing a rapid increase in population, and the local government needs you to analyze population growth trends and suggest appropriate housing solutions."

The product or performance is the tangible outcome that students will create to demonstrate their understanding and ability to apply their knowledge. It can take various forms, such as written work, presentations, or physical objects.

Example: In an English literature class, students might be asked to "Create a modern adaptation of a classic play, incorporating contemporary themes and issues."

Standards for Success

Standards for success outline the specific criteria that will be used to evaluate the students' work. These criteria should be clear, measurable, and aligned with the learning goals. Providing students with a rubric or checklist can help them self-assess their progress and strive for excellence. You can also use this area to tie the model to your own curriculum standards.

Example: In a science experiment, students might be assessed on "The accuracy of their data collection, the clarity of their written report, and the effectiveness of their presentation."

Why Use the GRASPS Model?

The GRASPS assessment model offers numerous benefits for both teachers and students:

Authenticity: By simulating real-life situations, GRASPS encourages students to apply their knowledge and skills in meaningful ways.

Engagement: The model promotes active learning, as students take ownership of their learning process and work towards a clear goal.

Transferability: The skills and knowledge gained through GRASPS tasks can be more easily transferred to other contexts and situations.

Assessment: Performance tasks designed with GRASPS allow teachers to assess students' understanding and application of knowledge more effectively than traditional tests.

In conclusion, the GRASPS assessment model is a powerful tool for designing engaging and authentic performance tasks that promote deep understanding and long-lasting learning. By incorporating the six components of GRASPS into your instructional design, you can create performance tasks that not only assess content knowledge but also foster the development of essential skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication.

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GRASPS Assessment Design and Student Metacognition

The why of grasps assessment design.

GRASPS is a model advocated for by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to guide teachers in designing authentic performance-based assessment. It’s a form of assessment that engages learners to employ their thinking skills and demonstrate application of essential knowledge, conceptual understanding, and skills acquired throughout a unit of learning.

Wiggins defined authentic assessment as “…Engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replica of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field.” (1993, qtd. by Jon Mueller).

The main takeaway for me is that teachers can use the GRASPS assessment model to:

engage students through contextualized learning;
provide simulations of real-world situations or challenges that adults might encounter;
create opportunities for students to practice transfer of learning;
foster curiosity and building experiences of students;
develop project management skills of students .

The WHAT of GRASPS assessment model

To help educators construct authentic assessment, Wiggins and McTighe’s came up with GRASPS model. GRASPS is an acronym for teachers to:

G oal: establish the challenge, issue or problem to solve;
R ole: give students a role that they might be taking in a familiar real-life situation;
A udience: identify the target audience whom students are solving the problem for or creating the product for;
S ituation: create the scenario or explain the context of the situation;
P roduct/ P erformance and P urpose: paint a clear picture of the WHAT and WHY of the product creation or the performance;
S tandards & Criteria for Success: inform students how their work will be assessed by the assumed audience.

Is the GRASPS assessment model misunderstood?

A set of sentence stems has been provided to help teachers construct a performance task and often is introduced in IB workshops. It might be because limited time was allotted for teachers to explore thoroughly the designing principles of using the GRASPS assessment model; therefore, the summative task is sometimes described in the format of a GRASPS performance task but fails to illustrate an actual real-world problem or issue that can inspire students to take authentic or simulated action on.

An example might be:

G oal: Your goal is to write a short story.
R ole: You are a middle school student.
A udience: Your target audience is your teacher, and students and parents in our school community.
S ituation: You have been asked by your school community to write a short story. (This section is sometimes omitted by teachers as a clear situation is not identified.)
P roduct/ P erformance and P urpose: write a 800 word short story to entertain others.
S tandards & Criteria for Success: You will be assessed against criteria B, C and D.

It might look good at first by framing the assessment through GRASPS model, but it’s like déjà vu all over again. It is definitely a step-up when teachers begin to use this model when creating a summative assessment task. However, this is still very much like a traditional assessment task. First of all, the range of the target audience is too big. The way an author writes to entertain young children, teens, or adults is very different. The situation described above is unlikely to happen as it is vague and more details are needed.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is that MYP teachers often inform students that they will be assessed against criteria B, C, and D. But what do criteria B, C and D mean? If we want students to organize, produce text, and use language (MYP Language and Literature criteria BCD), wouldn’t it be more effective for teachers to clearly specify the criteria and engage students in understanding the assessment objectives and strands? We can’t expect students to develop assessment capabilities without explicitly involving them in developing assessment literacy.

Develop student metacognition through GRASPS

In my humble opinion, through the use of the GRASPS assessment model, we can also create opportunities for students to develop their metacognition. In order to create a product or solve a problem effectively and efficiently, students first need to clarify the task, identify their strengths and weakness, set appropriate, challenging goals, analyze the context, chunk the big task into small subtasks within the timeline, seek feedback for improvement, and self-evaluate their work against the success criteria before the final submission. During the process of product creation, teachers provide both explicit and implicit feedback and guide students to monitor their progress. Frequent check-ins are essential. It should never be the case that teachers give students a big project and only find out that students have not addressed a requirement one or two days before the due date.

Refocus GRASPS implementation

Teachers and students can both benefit from the use of the GRASPS assessment model. In this poster design, I refocused the use of the GRASPS assessment model and created essential questions respectively to guide teachers in designing the GRASPS authentic assessment, and students in developing their metacognition through conducting the GRASPS assessment.

As mentioned previously, teachers do not always set up a clear situation for the assessment task. In the MYP framework, when illustrating the situation or creating the scenario for the task, teachers can refer back to the MYP global context exploration predetermined. It is also through the careful design of the scenario or situation, students can be challenged to think about intercultural communication and thus develop international-mindedness.

This poster can be downloaded as a PDF file by simply clicking on the image below.

Mueller, Jon. “What Is Authentic Assessment?” Authentic Assessment Toolbox , jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm#definitions .

Spencer, John. “Five Structures for Helping Students Learn Project Management.” John Spencer , 20 Aug. 2019, www.spencerauthor.com/project-management/ .

Quigley , Alex, et al. “ Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning .” Education Endowment Foundation , (Education Endowment Foundation), 27 Apr. 2018, educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/metacognition-and-self-regulated-learning/.

基于整体表现的GRASPS评估设计与学生元认知

如果希望閱讀本篇文章的中文版，請拜訪 www.sohu.com/a/403764639_120362876 謝謝IB教學研的翻譯。

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3 thoughts on “grasps assessment design and student metacognition”.

Really interesting !!!

Hi Alison, Thank you for this comprehensive summary of GRASPS, very helpful when reflecting on assessment practices. I noticed that the graphic model posted above is actually linked to your Sanity-Saving Feedback Strategies. Would you please share the correct link with me? I world really appreciate it. Thank you, Karli Lomax, [email protected]

Dear Karli, Thank you for your message. 😀 I just fixed the link. If you click the image, the correct PDF will be downloaded. Best, Alison

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Nuha Iter. Using Performance Task-GRASPS to Assess Student Performance in Higher Education Courses. American Journal of Educational Research . Vol. 5, No. 5, 2017, pp 552-558. https://pubs.sciepub.com/education/5/5/12 ">Normal Style
Iter, Nuha. 'Using Performance Task-GRASPS to Assess Student Performance in Higher Education Courses.' American Journal of Educational Research 5.5 (2017): 552-558. ">MLA Style
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Using Performance Task-GRASPS to Assess Student Performance in Higher Education Courses

This qualitative study explores student ability to integrate the use of knowledge and skills and demonstrates how students utilize skills in real-world situations through performance tasks using the performance task — GRASP S (Goals, Rules, Audience, Situation, Product/Performance, Standards) model. This study was carried out in the Introduction for Education course for 44 students in a teacher qualification program. Interviews, performance task-GRASPS reports, student focus group conversations, student reflections, and student products were used. Grounded theory was employed to analyze qualitative data. Findings show that students explained many educative features, including their views and beliefs toward performance tasks and authentic assessment. Students also understood their abilities through their products and reports about their roles in real-life situations. In addition, students demonstrated what they achieved and developed by themselves, and they felt happy and enjoyed their roles in real-life situations. The students reported that the evaluation method improved their self-confidence. Diversity was observed among the products and performances; students addressed the same challenges differently. This method develops the performance of university professors in authentic assessment by establishing performance tasks and using various rubrics to assess various products. These findings indicate that teacher educators must use authentic assessments and performance tasks to make students interactive in courses and utilize rubrics in evaluation that provide students real description of their performances.

1. Introduction

Students should be knowledge producers and not only knowledge consumers or keepers. The question is how this can be achieved. Allowing students to experience challenges when facing real-life situations and solve these problems enables them to produce solutions, manage situations, and develop different perspectives. These approaches integrate knowledge and skills in various ways. Thus, methodologies must be developed to assess well-being from the personal perspective of children and young individuals that can contribute useful, relevant, and reliable data; these data can then be a basis for policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation (O’Toole, & Kropf, 2012). Authentic assessment recognizes human rights, because this type of assessment is suitable to evaluate inner diversity, intelligences, abilities, and learning styles. Motivational theories such as Vroom’s expectancy theory (1964) states that individuals are motivated by three beliefs. First, individuals must feel that their level of effort will lead to a corresponding level of performance. Self-efficacy or a person’s belief in their own ability to achieve their desired goal (Gist & Mitchell, 1992) is the most critical component of this model. Individuals without a high level of self-efficacy will not be motivated. The second component of expectancy theory links motivation and outcome. The most critical type of learning ensures that performance is measured fairly and accurately, minimizing bias. Expectancy theory also suggests that individuals must value the reward. Whether or not a student actually values a high grade may be out of the educator’s control; nevertheless, this insight may help diagnose a particularly low level of motivation 11 . Adam’s equity theory (1965) posits that people maintain a fair relationship between performance and rewards in comparison with others. Adams (1965) states that views of justice are related to inputs, outputs, and social comparison. Inputs are contributions that are used to obtain a certain type of return on a personal investment. Contributions can involve time, effort, skills, and determination 13 . Assessment is a rich source of feedback for students. Authentic assessment is effective, because it allows an educator to provide positive feedback in a more motivational form than the usual numerical grade in a test (Litchfield, Mata, & Gray 2007). For most university instructors, authentic assessment is a radical paradigm shift from teacher-centered to student-centered teaching and learning. The majority of instructors continue to teach the way they were taught, namely, via lectures and objective tests. Any one form of teaching or assessment is insufficient to adequately teach a subject or measure learning progress and student performance. Most university courses consist primarily of three components: lectures, traditional assessments, and assignments. Assignments lag behind and are often few during a semester given that the standard objective testing is often used. A course is usually composed of a midterm and a final exam 9 . Wiggins and McTighe (1998) said, “evaluation, assessment, performance tasks, and other acceptable evidence” are used for evaluative purposes, and their linear model goes directly from desired results to determine acceptable evidence. Determining acceptable evidence involves completing sets of assessment methods, such as (a) performance tasks or projects, (b) quizzes, tests, academic prompts, (c) informal observations, discussions, and (d) student self-assessments 4 . Backward design theory is more likely to be the same as an assessment model, in which the politics of those in areas of measurement and psychometrics are prioritized and thus legitimated. Backward assessment criticizes traditional paper-pencil tests, including standardized tests. Backward theory posits that classroom teachers should be aware of the potential for student engagement as part of their design consideration 4 . The hallmark of backward curriculum theory is its great emphasis on assessment and its focus on how student learning increased. In this backward planning model, the entity of assessment is prioritized in which teachers are seen as assessors as opposed to developers (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). Performance task is aligned with one or more desired results, which will yield appropriate evidence of the identified understanding. Involving complex and real-world (i.e., “authentic”) applications of the identified knowledge, skills, and understanding written in the goal, role, audience, situation, and product (GRASPS) form allows students to demonstrate understanding with some options in the performances and/or products. The performance task is meant to assess and requires one or more of the six facets of understandings. The scoring rubrics includes distinct traits of understanding and successful performance. The scoring rubric highlight what is appropriate, given the evidence needs suggested by the desired results 18 . Performance tasks using GRASPS are outlined below. The culminating activities that the students produce are the products that are based on the goal of a performance task. Each task contains between five and eight products that represent cross curricular topics.

Performance task-GRASPS is a design tool to develop a performance task with an emphasis on context and role playing. The acronym stands for the steps in the process, which include goals, roles, audience, situation, product-performance-purpose, and standards, which are the criteria developed for success. The GRASPS design tool includes a stem statement that a teacher can construct in a scenario for a performance task (Mayes, & Myers, 2015). McTighe 12 said that through the defined STEM performance task editor a teacher can edit a task, remove or add products, or up-load other pertinent information to the task. Rubrics are designed for each task for each type of product. The GRASPS frame includes real-world goals, meaningful roles of students, authentic or simulated real-world audience, and a contextualized situation that involves real-world applications. Students generated culminating products and performance, and consensus- driven performance standards (criteria) are used to determine success. Performance tasks with these features provide meaningful learning targets for learners, worthy performance goals for teaching, and the kind of evidence needed to assess true understanding (Tomlinson, & McTighe, 2006), Biggs and Tang 1 are presented standards model of assessment “that designed to assess changes in performance as a result of learning, for the purpose of seeing what, and how well, something has been learned. Such assessment is criterion-referenced (CRA), that is, the results of assessment are reported in terms of how well an individual meets the criteria of learning that have been set”. In this study these tasks show how a student uses math and science in a real-life situation rather than just providing information on a student’s theoretical knowledge. A performance task rates a student’s learning process, and assessing both product and process provides an accurate profile of a student’s ability and makes them value their work processes and products. This paradigm of assessment gives them an opportunity to apply self-monitoring, self-reflection, and self- evaluation using rubrics and reflection journals. Similarly, Frey et al. 7 have a review for significant studies of assessment indicates the following characteristics that promote learning- oriented assessment and employability:

1. Tasks should be challenging, demanding higher order learning and integration of learning and integration of learning from both the university and other contexts such as work-based settings;

2. Learning and assessment should be integrated, assessment should not come at the end of learning but should be part of the learning process

3. Assessment should encourage metacognition, promoting thinking about the learning process not just the learning outcome.

4. Tasks should be involve the active engagement of students developing the capacity to find things out for themselves and learn independently.

5. Tasks should be authentic, worthwhile, relevant and offering students some level of control over their work;

6. Tasks are fit for purpose and align with important learning outcomes.

Assessment refers to the act of determining the extent to which the desired results are achieved and to what extent they have been achieved. Assessment is the umbrella term for the deliberate use of various methods of gathering evidence of meeting desired results, whether these results are state-content standards or local curricular objectives. The collected evidence we seek may include observations and dialogues, traditional quizzes and tests, performance tasks and projects as well as students “self-assessments” gathered over time 19 , 20 . Thus, assessment is a more learning-focused term than evaluation, and the two concepts should not be viewed as synonymous. Assessment is the process of providing and using feedback against standards for improvement and to meet goals. By contrast, evaluation is more summative and credential-related than assessment. We need not give a grade—an evaluation—to everything we give feedback to. A central premise of our argument is that understanding can be developed and evoked only through multiple methods of ongoing assessment with far greater attention paid to formative (and performance) assessment than typical 18 , 19 , 20 . An extended performance task may develop into a project. A project adapted from Wiggins and McTighe (1999, 2004) is described as follows: “A project is an extended and complex performance task, usually occurring over a period of time. Projects usually involve extensive student inquiry culminating in pupil products and performances which are assessed using a variety of assessment tools.” Tomlinson and McTighe show in their book that educators find understanding by design addresses their need “a model that acknowledges the centrality of standards but also ensures that students truly understand content and can apply it in meaningful ways”; they find it increasingly difficult to ignore the diversity of the learners in their classrooms. For many educators, differentiated instruction offers a framework to address learner variance as a critical component of instructional planning (Tomlinson, & McTighe, 2006).

2. Research Problem

Students in higher education suffer from the way they are assessed, as described by Tomlinson and McTighe (2006), who said that both teaching and learning were redirected in ways that are potentially impoverishing for those who teach and those who learn. The traditional model is usually used, which includes a first exam, second exam, and final exam to assess the achievement of their students. These exams aim to know what students know and how much they know. This type of assessment does not consider that students have different ideas about one point, and exams do not provide ideas about their mistakes. Educators struggle in assessing different students in various ways to measure their in-depth understanding on the concepts and to make students utilize their skills. The research problem concerns changing the assessment paradigm from the traditional one to one that explores students to understand the content and apply it in meaningful ways as well as finding a frame of assessment that considers the diversity of students. “Because they allow students to construct or perform an original response rather than just recognizing a potentially right answer out of a list provided, performance assessments can measure students’ cognitive thinking and reasoning skills and their ability to apply knowledge to solve realistic, meaningful problems” 5 , a new paradigm of assessment in higher education, such as performance task-GRASPS, is used in this study to address the main problem of this research.

“Performance assessments are common in high-achieving countries, which have long relied on open-ended items and tasks that require students to analyze, apply knowledge, and write extensively” 5 , then students need to explore the different ways to enhance their effectiveness in response to any task given to them. Students in this course are future teachers, and, thus, they must develop good assessment practices and determine the basis of formative assessments. The Introduction for Education course can support this approach by using a new paradigm in formative assessment and by integrating contextually situated evaluation activities that help professors and students develop and improve their assessment practices. Professor will be learning with their students, whose productivity and engagement in the new paradigm in the assessment process will improve.

3. Purpose of the Study

Assessment method must mirror that which is considered to be important, this is when students “learn for life” at the same time as they focus on passing the course, assessment methods govern what student learn, also govern how the students study(summative, or formative assessment), and teachers plan the assessment will also affected when student study 6 . Biggs & Tang 1 said that backwash can be a positive force if only the assessment method is constructively aligned with the learning outcomes and teaching and learning activates. Accordingly the qualitative study examines how students reflect and interact with the new paradigm in assessment based on performance tasks. A qualitative design was used to examine how performance tasks are used to assess student knowledge and skills in teacher qualification program courses and determine how (44) students implement their performance tasks in real-life situations while recognizing the diversity in student products. The research specifically examined students’ interaction with and reflections on the use of backward assessment. Qualitative research approach was used to generate detailed and in-depth data to answer the research questions. This method allowed the researcher to create an interpretive analysis for the students, interactions, and reflections with the performance tasks.

All these aspects are crucial in the authentic assessment of performance based-tasks. Therefore, the research question is about how students accept and react to the new paradigm of assessment and towards their individual performance task?

3. Research Approach and Design

A qualitative design was used to examine how students accept and react to the new paradigm of assessment and towards their individual performance task. The empirical data in this paper were obtained from a case study, which develops evaluation processes in a teacher qualification program in Palestinian Technical University in the Introduction to Education course. The case study was conducted when a teacher qualification program was introduced for the first time in academic year 2014–2015. Teacher qualification program offers certification of teaching to individuals who completed all requirements, obtained a bachelor’s degree, and completed a teacher preparation program.

Many courses merely include a midterm and a final exam 9 . However, the prospective teachers in this program want to practice different approaches of assessing learning. Thus, various assessment processes had to changed or improved to meet the needs of student teachers when they eventually become teachers in their classrooms. The question here is what types of authentic assessment is respectful and meaningful. The shift in the assessment from traditional assessment paradigm to authentic assessment paradigm (Figure 1) is described below.

Fig ure 1 . Assessment paradigms components

In this case, the instructor designed performance tasks using the three following simple steps:

Step 1: Identify the goals (integrate between knowledge and skills) that the pupils are expected to reach in each teaching unit.

Step 2: Set the tasks that will demonstrate the language knowledge and skills that were developed.

Step 3: Develop explicit performance criteria and expected performance levels measuring pupils’ mastery of skills and knowledge (rubrics). A rubric is a scoring tool that outlines the required criteria for a piece of work or the important aspect to assess. It also indicates the weight for each criterion based on its relative importance to the overall task and describes what the performance would look like at different quality levels 18 .

Performance task designee:

The researcher is the teacher educator for the course in the teacher qualification program. She establishes a performance task to assess student understanding for education, teaching, and learning in schools and to reform their perceptions towards global teachers. The sample consisted of 44 introduction for education course students. All of them are female, (30) of them pre-service science teachers, the other’s (14) pre-service math teachers, and they participated voluntarily in this research, though they had no prior experience with this type of tasks. The following steps are followed to implement this study:

1. Modified the scale of the course grades and used 40% of the grade as the performance tasks

2. Followed the steps of building these tasks to face one real-life challenge in their real life, such developing high-quality teachers who are able to change schools to meet global demands and 21st century learning or other real-life challenges

3. Table 1 lists the performance task demonstrated to the students.

Table 1. Performance task-GRASPS scenario

Download as PowerPoint Slide Tables index View option Full Size Next Table

4. The challenge, which is a real-life problem, is given to the students and discussed with them for 60 minutes.

5. The performance assessment task steps and template are given to students and discussed with them by allowing them to share their ideas about each step.

6. The rubric related to the standards is distributed to the students for them to learn while building their product.

7. The task is implemented individually and in groups.

8. Each student chose the role suite based on his or her personal, knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

9. All students start working on their tasks with a high degree of responsibility.

10.(44) Students who attend the introduction for educational course in the first semester 2014/2015 finalized their tasks individually or in dyads.

11.One month is spent to finalize their tasks.

12.Rubrics are used to evaluate the products which differ from each other.

13.The students are given feedback according to the rubric by stating their weak and strong points.

4. Data Collection

The products, which were sent by all the students before the deadline, were classified based on the type of products, performance, and purpose of their task using two types of rubrics. The first, which is commonly used, is presented in Table 2 . The second rubric suits the content of the products. The students are allowed to present their products, and all of them exhibited high positive attitudes towards their work. The students know what they do and the purpose of their work. They use passion statements to say how much they appreciate their work, because they chose their role and the type of products for the first time and they finalized their actual work. Individual interviews were conducted to explore their experiences in this task, and the students were asked to write their statements. Questions include the following: How does this task differ from other tasks? Are you happy with this work? Why? How do you distinguish your work from others? What do you recommend? Data were collected from three types of resources, namely, students’ products, notes about their presentation, and their statements from the interviews.

Table 2. Task standards and rubric

Download as PowerPoint Slide Tables index View option Full Size Previous Table

5. Data Coding and Analyzing

The data were initially coded from different sources using words, phrases, and descriptive codes. To improve the validity and the reliability of the research, a meeting was initiated between one faculty member in the teacher qualification program and a group of students to discuss the coding tables and the draft of the findings. Through the meeting, the final interpretation of the results was confirmed and agreed on. The students’ interviews and reflections were analyzed using grounded theory following these procedures: organization, familiarization, coding, and categorization for their words and the products of (44) students (pre-service teachers). The following statements are sample from student’s reflections:

• Tasneem said, “I’m very happy with this task because this is the first time I collected information by myself and expressed about my point of view.”

• Israa noted, “This is the first time I explored that I am able to write more paragraphs by myself.”

• Anwar said, “I’m happy because I practiced my role in a real life situation.”

• According to Mays, “This is the first time I wrote everything from my analysis and observations without using Google.”

• Layl said, “This is the first time that I feel that I understand everything, and I can discuss with others.”

• Jamila and Mariam stated, “It is amazing to write everything by ourselves, and this is the first time that we depended on our ability. We’ll repeat this experience.”

• Hadeel said, “I will not forget this challenge because I dealt with all the processes.”

• Duaa stated, “I’m interested and happy with my products even though it is not high quality, because it is the first time I worked by myself.”

• According to Muna, “This task enhanced my confidence.”

The following statements indicate the findings.

• (18) Students practice their role in real-life situations, and (26) students practice their role in role playing.

• The student products include poster (1), classroom sessions in different specializations (6), research reports (18), workshop reports (3), university media lecture report (1), formal meeting minutes (1), university president decision (simulation by one student) (1), and action research reports (6).

• Their grades are distributed as shown in the following chart:

The figure above shows that the grades of the students are high between (28–38) degrees, and the majority of the students (124) obtained (30) degrees.

• Most of the feedback given to most of students are as follows:

- Errors of grammar and usage make the meaning unclear.

- Language style and word choice are ineffective and /or inappropriate.

- Introductions, transitions, and other connecting materials may be lacking or unsuccessful.

- Any abrupt transitions do not interfere with the intended meaning.

- Details are lacking.

- Information may include some inaccuracies.

• Most skills were achieved by students within the following tasks:

- Implementing interviews with teachers, deans, principals, parents, students, student teachers, and supervisors.

- Implementing classroom observation

- Simulating characters such as educational minister, PTUK president, dean, and trainer

- Analyzing qualitative collecting data: points of views, opinions, and observations

- Making conclusions.

- Building future visions and recommendations.

- Organizing reports.

• The attitudes of students changed; the students’ opinions about this task and the challenge were positive by the time of completion.

7. Conclusion

1. Various rubrics can be used to assess different products.

2. Students said that they can make products without depending on the internet.

3. Students said that they feel happy and enjoy their roles in real-life situations.

4. Students said that the evaluation approach improved their self-confidence.

5. Students take different roles to face a challenge and created a report about their experiment.

6. Diverse products and performances were achieved.

8. Recommendation

1. GRASPS should be utilized to evaluate performance tasks in all courses.

2. Student recommendations must be considered in reforming the course content.

3. Their results can be used as data to reform policies and practices related to the qualification program.

4. Teacher educators use authentic assessments and performance tasks to make students interactive in the courses.

5. Using rubrics in evaluation provide real descriptions to students about their performances.

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Challenges in Implementing the Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product/Performance, and Standards (GRASPS) Model in Selected Schools in Cavite

2020, Academia Lasalliana Journal of Education and Humanities

Educational reforms are continuously crafted to improve many aspects of teaching and learning including the development of authentic performance tasks engineered through the Goal, Role, Audience, Situation, Product/Performance, and Standards (GRASPS) Model. These real-world problems provide opportunities enabling students to produce solutions, manage situations, and develop different perspectives while also enabling teachers to transform their students to be knowledge producers and not merely knowledge consumers or keepers. With the rapid growth of studies about the effectiveness of performance assessments, the implementation of GRASPS creates its own space in the world of educational research. Against this backdrop, the study sought to determine the impediments experienced by teachers and students in selected schools through an expert-validated instrument. Based on the responses of 65 teachers and 367 participating students, findings revealed that in using GRASPS, the problems of teachers were as follows: administering group tasks, the insufficient time to meet all the target outputs, and the inadequate facilities for the fulfilment of complex tasks. On the students' part, the problems were: lack of guidance in doing the performance assessments, ways to collaborate with others during group tasks, and the limited time to complete them. Further research could be done on the teachers' and students' time management and planning, scaffolding for transfer techniques, and cooperative learning to further the implementation of authentic learning and to enhance the existing faculty development programs in different schools.

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This qualitative study explores student ability to integrate the use of knowledge and skills and demonstrates how students utilize skills in real-world situations through performance tasks using the performance task—GRASPS (Goals, Rules, Audience, Situation, Product/Performance, Standards) model. This study was carried out in the Introduction for Education course for 44 students in a teacher qualification program. Interviews, performance task-GRASPS reports, student focus group conversations, student reflections, and student products were used. Grounded theory was employed to analyze qualitative data. Findings show that students explained many educative features, including their views and beliefs toward performance tasks and authentic assessment. Students also understood their abilities through their products and reports about their roles in real-life situations. In addition, students demonstrated what they achieved and developed by themselves, and they felt happy and enjoyed their roles in real-life situations. The students reported that the evaluation method improved their self-confidence. Diversity was observed among the products and performances; students addressed the same challenges differently. This method develops the performance of university professors in authentic assessment by establishing performance tasks and using various rubrics to assess various products. These findings indicate that teacher educators must use authentic assessments and performance tasks to make students interactive in courses and utilize rubrics in evaluation that provide students real description of their performances.

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