The following considerations should be kept in mind to support quality assessment when providing students with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of healthy living concepts and to apply their living skills through a drama-based performance task.
The task(s) should:
- focus on the evaluation of overall expectations and allow students to demonstrate their comprehensive achievement of overall expectations;
- require students to apply their knowledge and skills to make healthy living choices and to advocate for self and others (note that application of knowledge and skills is the predominant focus of the Health and Physical Education curriculum expectations);
- use an appropriate combination of methods, such as an oral performance followed by a written personal reflection;
- use an appropriate assessment tool such as a rating scale or rubric;
- be feasible, equitable, open, engaging, and authentic, and allow students to make connections to their lives; and
- allow students some choice in how they demonstrate their learning of healthy living concepts, such as being allowed to choose an individually appropriate art form (e.g., a group skit, an individual performance, a dance, a song, a spoken word poem) or combination of art forms. Consider using the RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) strategy to provide students with the role they will assume, the audience they will address, the art form they will use, and their topic.
Ensure that students have a clear understanding of the task and the success criteria before they begin their work.
Opportunities for Assessment
To maximize healthy living learning when using drama-based activities, educators should plan instruction and assessment around clearly defined learning goals. It is important to begin by identifying a learning goal using the overall curriculum expectations from the appropriate grade, and then co-construct the success criteria with students so that students have a clear understanding of what success “looks like” and “sounds like”. These criteria can be expressed beginning with an I can statement. Once these elements have been established, appropriate drama-based activities can then be selected to support students learning the healthy living concepts and skills.