The following table shows performance assessment formats appropriate for documenting achievement of the Dance TEKS. Teachers should bear in mind that multiple assessments provide more complete information on student achievement than any one type of assessment alone.

Whatever formats are selected, dance teachers should align their assessment practices with the following principles:

• Assessment provides information on a variety of dimensions of dance content and uses multiple sources of information.
• Teachers continually monitor students' creative processes, providing formative evaluations so students learn self-assessment and learn to explain their thinking processes in the creation and performance of dances.
• Students are assessed only on content or skills that they have had an opportunity to learn.
• Criteria for satisfactory performance are made explicit before students begin a new task, and students themselves often participate in generating the criteria.
• The teacher communicates student achievement clearly to students, parents, and other professionals.
• Targeted feedback is much more helpful in improving dance performance than non-specific praise.
• Evaluation is more than the grading of a finished product; it includes student self-evaluation.
• Dance teachers provide descriptive evaluation to supplement numerical or alphabetical grading systems. 

Rubrics

Rubrics communicate a clear continuum of performance levels and help students learn to critique their own knowledge and skills and assess their growth. Rubrics are often shown in a table. 

The first step in developing a rubric is to determine the critical dimensions of the performance or project that will be assessed. These dimensions are placed in the far left-hand column of a table. Next, decide on the number of skill levels to be delineated. This number determines the total number of remaining columns in the table.

Now, describe the differences among performances along each continuum. This is easiest if a sample of performances is available. Samples can be grouped by level of knowledge and skill demonstrated, and common characteristics can be described. Without samples, teachers make their best predictions. Involving students in this process can create a great deal of "buy-in" on the part of learners. Students can provide descriptions of successful and unsuccessful performances, verbalizing the skills and knowledge portrayed in sample performances. Once a rubric has been used, it should be revised for future use. Teachers should also retain representations of sample performances that illustrate desirable demonstrations of knowledge and skills. Using multiple samples of strong performances shows learners that there are multiple ways to demonstrate high standards.

Characteristics of effective scoring rubrics include:

• A scale based on criteria that reflect the knowledge and skills assessed by the task
• Specific information about learning that helps the teacher make instructional decisions and communicates to students what they have learned and what they still need to learn
• Clear and easy to understand descriptors
• Ease of use
• Examples of student performances
• Reliable scores (i.e., ratings of various scorers are fairly consistent).

Teachers who have not used a rubric before may experience a steep learning curve. The development and use of rubrics becomes more efficient and effective over time. Here are some cautions for first-time users:

• Don’t expect to get the rubric exactly right the first time. Like all assessment tools, a rubric must be field-tested and adjusted based on actual use.
• The rubric is not a checklist. The rubric provides a guide to analyzing the total performance or project.
• A student performance or project may not fall neatly into one level. It may have characteristics of more than one level of performance. In this model of scoring, the score assigned should be the one that most closely resembles the performance.