Curriculum Standards for Performance Tasks

Question 1 in Chapter 1 asked, “What should students know and be able to do?” This question leads us to the development of curriculum standards that identify the important content and process skills that will serve as the foundation for a curriculum. The Creature Feature task requires the student to know the relevant science content, to make detailed observations, to make and support an inference, to use the writing process, and to manage time well. Creature Feature was valid because it was well connected to standards. A deficiency in any of these standards will cause the student to “miss the mark.”