Implementing and Assessing Student Performance Skills and Learning: A Policy Role-Playing Exercise

Patricia L Oreilly

doi:10.5296/ije.v5i1.3137

Abstract

Performance skills are important in all public institutions and workplaces, and they play a central role in social engagement and leadership. The ability to perform effectively and intelligently requires individual skills that improve with practice and guidance. We ask our students to perform in the classroom on a regular basis, and they are both formally and informally evaluated for this. However, we spend little time thinking about how performance could be better designed into our post-secondary education. This paper looks at the literature findings related to both performance skills and the utility of role playing and suggests ways to incorporate student performance development into public policy studies. A three-stage process which can be broken down into smaller units for easier application is provided and analyzed in the paper. It also introduces the importance of what the author calls ‘performance learning’ for our post-secondary social science programs, with a focus on developing better student understanding of the importance of power, discourse and informal relations in social studies. Preliminary findings from policy student groups utilizing these methods are also presented.

Highlights

Instructors constantly strive to accurately assess students’ learning, that is, the knowledge students have gained in a subject
Performance skills are important in all public institutions and workplaces, and they play a central role in social engagement and leadership
This paper looks at the literature findings related to both performance skills and the utility of role playing and suggests ways to incorporate student performance development into public policy studies

Summary

Introduction

Instructors constantly strive to accurately assess students’ learning, that is, the knowledge students have gained in a subject. Through the use of more structured forums for performance learning, students can both enhance their own professional performance skills and gain a better understanding of the complex messy nature of public social engagement - as it is practiced With this in mind, this paper looks at some of the means by which we might organize, monitor and evaluate our students’ performances in political exercises in order to encourage knowledge and development of performance skills and performance learning. It looks at the importance of encouraging performance skills in students and provides simple assessment techniques for evaluating student presentations and classroom or tutorial debates It provides a three-part policy exercise which could be used either individually or in a progressive developmental process to enable students to enhance their interactive performance skills and to better understand the limitations encountered by policy makers. This paper presents some early finding and conclusions from the author’s use of the policy exercises in various political studies courses over several years

Encouraging Student Performance Skills and Performance Learning

Three-Stage Policy Exercise

Assessing Student Performance Skills and Performance Learning

Findings

Conclusion