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CATESOL Book Review: Implementing Integrated Performance Assessment by Bonnie Adair-Hauck, Eileen W. Glisan, and Francis J. Troyan
10/29/2024
Michelle Skowbo
By Sonia Estima and Kara Mac Donald
Chapter 1: Rationale: Why the Need for Integrated Performance Assessment?
The opening chapter, Rationale: Why the Need for Integrated Performance Assessment, shares the development and increased need for learners and speakers of languages other than English to have both linguistic and cultural competencies in today’s interconnected world. The National Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project [NSFLEP]) was developed to inform curriculum design and classroom instruction. The standards are built around five core areas i.e., Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities, known as the Five Cs of Foreign Language Education. With the established new standards, there follows a need to create assessment that measures learners’ proficiency development in the five core areas. Some background is shared about the predecessors for evaluating language proficiency for readers to see where the current NSFLEP falls in foreign language education and assessment. These proficiency guidelines for assessment have provided most state or national schools a common tool to assess language proficiency and/or curriculum and guide instruction. What was lacking has been an instructional based proficiency assessment, and so the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) was established to meet the needs of K-16 instructors, and fill in gaps, around implementation of meaningful assessment in the classroom in meeting the five core areas of the National Standards. The chapter describes the development of the backwards design and work in the field that has informed it.
Chapter 2: Description and Design Features of Integrated Performance Assessment
The chapter begins with describing the structure of the IPA tool that is built on individual segments of the assessment that correlate to each of the three forms of communication and learning (i.e., interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational) of the NSFLEP, mentioned in the first chapter. The IPA naturally is aligned with the ACTFL proficiency skill level descriptors. Each assessment task begins with a scenario description of place and context the student is in and objective of the upcoming tasks the student will participate in. Each task segment relates to a subsequent task, which results in a presentation or written outcome. Each task allows the learner to pass through the three forms. During the interpersonal phase, students negotiate among each other and make adjustment to maintain the conversational interaction. During the interpretive phase, learners seek to find meaning and new insights based on what content they interact with and the interpersonal conversations they engaged in. During the final stage, the presentation phase, learners share a tangible outcome, either an oral presentation or written essay that engages others to further communicate to negotiate meaning and understanding. After each phase of performance assessment is discussed, the chapter moves to describe how to assess performance by discussing rubric structured around
Chapter 3: Research on the Integrated Performance Assessment: A Historical Perspective
In some ways similar to Chapter 1, this chapter provides readers a broader perspective of IPA by examining when it was first designed and its development through decades of funding from ACTFL, a division of the U.S. Department of Education established IPA in the late 1990’s. The remainder of the chapter takes a chronological path to explore how it was initially updated based on field testing. After first being implemented and researched in the K-12 sector, its applicability was examined in the higher education sector. Various studies around the use of IPA are shared and its growing interest in the field.
Chapter 4: Linking IPA and Instruction – A Tool for Backward Design
Chapter 4 discusses how Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) can be effectively used in a backward design approach to align instruction with assessment. The model presented ensures that teaching is purposeful, beginning with the identification of desired learning outcomes, followed by designing assessments, and finally planning instructional activities. The chapter outlines three key stages: 1) Identifying Desired Results: Teachers define learning outcomes and essential questions, focusing on language objectives; 2) Determining Assessment Evidence: Both formative (ongoing) and summative (final) assessments are designed to measure progress; 3) Planning Learning Activities: Activities are then selected to prepare students by promoting meaningful, real-world communication.
This chapter highlights how backward design ensures that every classroom task contributes toward a meaningful language performance. For ESL teachers, it offers practical strategies to build student proficiency through real-world tasks. Teachers should start by identifying clear language outcomes, ensuring that assessments and activities are aligned with those goals. Next, the incorporation of real-world texts relevant to students’ language proficiency levels helps develop comprehension skills necessary for authentic communication. Students need ample opportunities to engage in unscripted conversations, as well as presentational tasks like speeches, with feedback and revision cycles that focus on clarity and audience understanding.
Chapter 4 provides detailed steps and examples of how teachers can implement the inclusion of ongoing assessments to help scaffold learning and address misunderstandings before any summative assessment. The authors offer several samples of how integrated assessment can be applied to different settings and proficiency levels.
Chapter 5: Modeling and Feedback in the IPA
Chapter 5 highlights the critical role of feedback in the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) process, focusing on how it can guide students to improve their language performance. The chapter stresses the importance of feedback that not only evaluates current performance but also provides direction for future growth, framed by three guiding questions:
The Feedback Loop in IPAs
The chapter introduces the concept of a feedback loop, which fosters a dialogic, participatory process between teachers and students. This approach contrasts with traditional feedback methods, engaging students in co-constructing their performance assessments. It emphasizes the importance of feedback as a social interaction, with a focus on interpretive and interpersonal tasks. Effective feedback is task-related, offering students specific cues and strategies for improvement.
The concept of co-constructive feedback is central to this chapter. This involves a collaborative dialogue where teachers guide students toward self-assessment and reflection, helping them identify areas for growth. Two key types of feedback are introduced:
Assisting questions, which support students in reaching higher levels of performance, are prioritized over assessing questions that merely gauge current ability. This helps foster self-reflection and student ownership of their learning process.
For teachers, this chapter offers valuable suggestions and guidance on how to implement feedback that can help students improve their language skills through active engagement – a shift from traditional top-down feedback to a co-constructive, dialogic model where students actively participate in evaluating their progress and setting improvement goals. Finally, familiarizing students with rubrics allows them to participate in peer assessments, reinforcing learning goals through collaborative feedback.
Chapter 6: Examples of IPAs from the Field
Chapter 6 provides a collection of Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) from K–12 and university settings, covering various languages and different contexts. These IPAs were created for specific instructional contexts and might not be universally applicable, but they still serve as models and inspiration for other teachers who may be able to adapt and modify them as needed to suit their specific needs and those of their students. The IPAs presented in chapter 6 are framed as critical assessments that track learners' progress in using language for communication and advancing literacy, as outlined in the Common Core State Standards. The chapter emphasizes that literacy and proficiency development should be seen as a continuum, with interpretive tasks redesigned to reflect this.
Interpretive mode tasks allow students to demonstrate both literal and interpretive comprehension, with task difficulty varying based on the learners' age, background knowledge, and prior experience. For example, third graders might focus on predicting story outcomes, while adult learners could infer abstract viewpoints from a text. The format and complexity of the tasks are adaptable to the learners' level. The chapter offers several examples of how different teachers employed authentic texts that naturally support rich, interpretive tasks.
The chapter also provided examples of how to align IPA tasks with the Common Core goals, to provide evidence of student progress. The IPA examples provided in chapter 6 progress from novice to advanced levels, with educators providing details on task design, instruction, and assessment strategies. Teachers are guided to keep IPA performance tasks in mind throughout instruction, helping students build the skills and knowledge needed for successful assessment outcomes.
Chapter 7: Washback Effect of the Integrated Performance Assessment: Impact of the IPA on Teacher Perceptions, Classroom Instruction and Learning
Chapter 7 discusses the "washback effect" of Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) on teaching, learning, and teacher perceptions. Washback refers to the influence that assessments have on educational practices, ideally improving instruction and learning. The authors explore how IPAs, which incorporate real-life tasks and provide constructive feedback, can have a positive impact on curriculum design, teaching methods, and language learning.
The chapter emphasizes the link between well-designed assessments and improved classroom practices, noting that IPAs help align assessments with the Common Core's literacy goals. Teacher reflections from the ACTFL IPA research project showed that the majority of teachers found the IPA beneficial for improving teaching strategies and future assessments. Teachers reported greater awareness of integrating communication modes into lessons, designing tasks with authentic materials, using standards-based rubrics, and enhancing student engagement through open-ended tasks.
However, challenges were also identified, including finding age-appropriate materials, preparing students for unscripted communication, and aligning rubrics with traditional grading systems. The chapter concludes by acknowledging the need for further research to fully understand the long-term effects of IPA on teaching and learning practices.
Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) can be a useful tool for ESL teachers to enhance their instructional practices. The book provides an overview of how IPAs can impact student motivation, performance and self-reflection. Through the detailed step by step implementation strategies and guides, and the classroom examples and discussion, the book helps raise awareness and guides teachers in how to modify lesson plans to better address their students' needs.
For ESL teachers, the takeaway is the potential of IPAs to integrate language learning with Common Core standards and foster student self-reflection and increased autonomous learning. Further research is necessary to explore how IPA training impacts long-term instructional changes and student outcomes.
Conclusion
The text is very accessible as the chapters are short and can be read individually based on the reader’s interests or needs, or the text as whole can easily be read in a short amount of time while applying the content in instructional practice. The chapters that provide historical background to assessment are invaluable for both veteran and novice teachers.
Michelle Skowbo
Implementing Integrated Performance Assessment by Bonnie Adair-Hauck, Eileen W. Glisan, and Francis J. Troyan
By Sonia Estima and Kara Mac Donald
Chapter 1: Rationale: Why the Need for Integrated Performance Assessment?
The opening chapter, Rationale: Why the Need for Integrated Performance Assessment, shares the development and increased need for learners and speakers of languages other than English to have both linguistic and cultural competencies in today’s interconnected world. The National Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project [NSFLEP]) was developed to inform curriculum design and classroom instruction. The standards are built around five core areas i.e., Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities, known as the Five Cs of Foreign Language Education. With the established new standards, there follows a need to create assessment that measures learners’ proficiency development in the five core areas. Some background is shared about the predecessors for evaluating language proficiency for readers to see where the current NSFLEP falls in foreign language education and assessment. These proficiency guidelines for assessment have provided most state or national schools a common tool to assess language proficiency and/or curriculum and guide instruction. What was lacking has been an instructional based proficiency assessment, and so the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) was established to meet the needs of K-16 instructors, and fill in gaps, around implementation of meaningful assessment in the classroom in meeting the five core areas of the National Standards. The chapter describes the development of the backwards design and work in the field that has informed it.
Chapter 2: Description and Design Features of Integrated Performance Assessment
The chapter begins with describing the structure of the IPA tool that is built on individual segments of the assessment that correlate to each of the three forms of communication and learning (i.e., interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational) of the NSFLEP, mentioned in the first chapter. The IPA naturally is aligned with the ACTFL proficiency skill level descriptors. Each assessment task begins with a scenario description of place and context the student is in and objective of the upcoming tasks the student will participate in. Each task segment relates to a subsequent task, which results in a presentation or written outcome. Each task allows the learner to pass through the three forms. During the interpersonal phase, students negotiate among each other and make adjustment to maintain the conversational interaction. During the interpretive phase, learners seek to find meaning and new insights based on what content they interact with and the interpersonal conversations they engaged in. During the final stage, the presentation phase, learners share a tangible outcome, either an oral presentation or written essay that engages others to further communicate to negotiate meaning and understanding. After each phase of performance assessment is discussed, the chapter moves to describe how to assess performance by discussing rubric structured around
Chapter 3: Research on the Integrated Performance Assessment: A Historical Perspective
In some ways similar to Chapter 1, this chapter provides readers a broader perspective of IPA by examining when it was first designed and its development through decades of funding from ACTFL, a division of the U.S. Department of Education established IPA in the late 1990’s. The remainder of the chapter takes a chronological path to explore how it was initially updated based on field testing. After first being implemented and researched in the K-12 sector, its applicability was examined in the higher education sector. Various studies around the use of IPA are shared and its growing interest in the field.
Chapter 4: Linking IPA and Instruction – A Tool for Backward Design
Chapter 4 discusses how Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) can be effectively used in a backward design approach to align instruction with assessment. The model presented ensures that teaching is purposeful, beginning with the identification of desired learning outcomes, followed by designing assessments, and finally planning instructional activities. The chapter outlines three key stages: 1) Identifying Desired Results: Teachers define learning outcomes and essential questions, focusing on language objectives; 2) Determining Assessment Evidence: Both formative (ongoing) and summative (final) assessments are designed to measure progress; 3) Planning Learning Activities: Activities are then selected to prepare students by promoting meaningful, real-world communication.
This chapter highlights how backward design ensures that every classroom task contributes toward a meaningful language performance. For ESL teachers, it offers practical strategies to build student proficiency through real-world tasks. Teachers should start by identifying clear language outcomes, ensuring that assessments and activities are aligned with those goals. Next, the incorporation of real-world texts relevant to students’ language proficiency levels helps develop comprehension skills necessary for authentic communication. Students need ample opportunities to engage in unscripted conversations, as well as presentational tasks like speeches, with feedback and revision cycles that focus on clarity and audience understanding.
Chapter 4 provides detailed steps and examples of how teachers can implement the inclusion of ongoing assessments to help scaffold learning and address misunderstandings before any summative assessment. The authors offer several samples of how integrated assessment can be applied to different settings and proficiency levels.
Chapter 5: Modeling and Feedback in the IPA
Chapter 5 highlights the critical role of feedback in the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) process, focusing on how it can guide students to improve their language performance. The chapter stresses the importance of feedback that not only evaluates current performance but also provides direction for future growth, framed by three guiding questions:
- Where am I going? – Clarifying learning goals for students
- How am I doing? – Assessing current performance against goals
- Where to next? – Providing actionable steps for improvement
The Feedback Loop in IPAs
The chapter introduces the concept of a feedback loop, which fosters a dialogic, participatory process between teachers and students. This approach contrasts with traditional feedback methods, engaging students in co-constructing their performance assessments. It emphasizes the importance of feedback as a social interaction, with a focus on interpretive and interpersonal tasks. Effective feedback is task-related, offering students specific cues and strategies for improvement.
The concept of co-constructive feedback is central to this chapter. This involves a collaborative dialogue where teachers guide students toward self-assessment and reflection, helping them identify areas for growth. Two key types of feedback are introduced:
- Type 1 (Descriptive): Teacher provides detailed feedback on student performance.
- Type 2 (Co-constructive): Teacher and students engage in a dialogic process where students identify their competencies and set goals for improvement.
Assisting questions, which support students in reaching higher levels of performance, are prioritized over assessing questions that merely gauge current ability. This helps foster self-reflection and student ownership of their learning process.
For teachers, this chapter offers valuable suggestions and guidance on how to implement feedback that can help students improve their language skills through active engagement – a shift from traditional top-down feedback to a co-constructive, dialogic model where students actively participate in evaluating their progress and setting improvement goals. Finally, familiarizing students with rubrics allows them to participate in peer assessments, reinforcing learning goals through collaborative feedback.
Chapter 6: Examples of IPAs from the Field
Chapter 6 provides a collection of Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) from K–12 and university settings, covering various languages and different contexts. These IPAs were created for specific instructional contexts and might not be universally applicable, but they still serve as models and inspiration for other teachers who may be able to adapt and modify them as needed to suit their specific needs and those of their students. The IPAs presented in chapter 6 are framed as critical assessments that track learners' progress in using language for communication and advancing literacy, as outlined in the Common Core State Standards. The chapter emphasizes that literacy and proficiency development should be seen as a continuum, with interpretive tasks redesigned to reflect this.
Interpretive mode tasks allow students to demonstrate both literal and interpretive comprehension, with task difficulty varying based on the learners' age, background knowledge, and prior experience. For example, third graders might focus on predicting story outcomes, while adult learners could infer abstract viewpoints from a text. The format and complexity of the tasks are adaptable to the learners' level. The chapter offers several examples of how different teachers employed authentic texts that naturally support rich, interpretive tasks.
The chapter also provided examples of how to align IPA tasks with the Common Core goals, to provide evidence of student progress. The IPA examples provided in chapter 6 progress from novice to advanced levels, with educators providing details on task design, instruction, and assessment strategies. Teachers are guided to keep IPA performance tasks in mind throughout instruction, helping students build the skills and knowledge needed for successful assessment outcomes.
Chapter 7: Washback Effect of the Integrated Performance Assessment: Impact of the IPA on Teacher Perceptions, Classroom Instruction and Learning
Chapter 7 discusses the "washback effect" of Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) on teaching, learning, and teacher perceptions. Washback refers to the influence that assessments have on educational practices, ideally improving instruction and learning. The authors explore how IPAs, which incorporate real-life tasks and provide constructive feedback, can have a positive impact on curriculum design, teaching methods, and language learning.
The chapter emphasizes the link between well-designed assessments and improved classroom practices, noting that IPAs help align assessments with the Common Core's literacy goals. Teacher reflections from the ACTFL IPA research project showed that the majority of teachers found the IPA beneficial for improving teaching strategies and future assessments. Teachers reported greater awareness of integrating communication modes into lessons, designing tasks with authentic materials, using standards-based rubrics, and enhancing student engagement through open-ended tasks.
However, challenges were also identified, including finding age-appropriate materials, preparing students for unscripted communication, and aligning rubrics with traditional grading systems. The chapter concludes by acknowledging the need for further research to fully understand the long-term effects of IPA on teaching and learning practices.
Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA) can be a useful tool for ESL teachers to enhance their instructional practices. The book provides an overview of how IPAs can impact student motivation, performance and self-reflection. Through the detailed step by step implementation strategies and guides, and the classroom examples and discussion, the book helps raise awareness and guides teachers in how to modify lesson plans to better address their students' needs.
For ESL teachers, the takeaway is the potential of IPAs to integrate language learning with Common Core standards and foster student self-reflection and increased autonomous learning. Further research is necessary to explore how IPA training impacts long-term instructional changes and student outcomes.
Conclusion
The text is very accessible as the chapters are short and can be read individually based on the reader’s interests or needs, or the text as whole can easily be read in a short amount of time while applying the content in instructional practice. The chapters that provide historical background to assessment are invaluable for both veteran and novice teachers.