A comparative case study of a 'performance assessment:' How policy without differentiation affected general and gifted education teachers struggling in a high-profile school

The four teachers in this case study were within a group creating assessment tasks for sixth-graders in the general and gifted programs at Verona Elementary School. The teachers' perceptions during planning were documented through observations, interviews, and written responses over six months, drawing upon critical theory and interpretivist methodology. Overall the teachers developed instructional activities instead of a performance assessment, overlooking technical criteria such as validity while measuring student performance rather than learning.; Following documentation of teacher perceptions, subsequent student behavior and products in both programs are described, and five findings emerge: (1) the use of media (such as PowerPoint or poster) rather than task drove final presentations as the activity required strategies (e.g. online research) most students lacked in both programs and consequentially they pursued performance goals rather than learning goals; (2) while teachers presented students with an undifferentiated activity in each program, without addressing instructional needs (e.g. Limited English Proficiency), differentiation was being practiced in the classroom by students coping with peer deficiencies; (3) “gifted” students experienced cognitively challenging teaching practices more often than “general” students, even when teachers in both programs were observed using “indirect” or “constructivist” teaching methods; (4) facing disparities in the balance between opportunity-to-learn and differentiation, teachers lacked assessment strategies tied to their perceptions of student instruction, their approaches to teaching, and their curriculum; (5) teachers in the general and gifted education programs were modeling many of the lessons they wanted students to learn based upon their professional experiences of the world in the school environment, regardless of state standards and testing.; These findings provide: (1) a process-oriented examination of the expectations and priorities that led up to student outcomes, as called for in related research literature; (2) documentation of policy implementation spanning the general and gifted education programs, therefore relevant to states with policies spanning general and gifted programs; and (3) a record of practices and concerns over six months at Verona, beyond recent impressions conveyed by the media and in research reports. In this study all names have been changed to protect the identity of the participants and their school.