By Nathan Inouye

When I ask teachers what emotions come to mind when they hear the word assessments, many immediately say “anxiety” or “stress.” I’m not surprised—I feel similarly when I think back on my own experiences in school. I mostly remember summative, end-of-unit, or end-of-semester tests as the primary types of assessments I encountered.

However, in January 2024, the California State Board of Education accepted the California Science Test Innovation Concept Paper[i], which outlined an approach for the future design and development of the CAST. A team of science experts, including teachers, conducted research on different types of assessments and shared their recommendations in this innovation paper. Their findings expand the range of assessment types to include performance tasks embedded in learning (PTELs), which provide teachers and students with authentic and engaging classroom learning experiences.

PTELs are formative assessments that give teachers actionable information to support student learning more immediately. Equally important, they allow science teachers to implement student-centered learning before integrating a PTEL that aligns with their prior instruction. This alignment provides feedback about how well students are transferring their understanding from the lesson to the task. When a PTEL connects directly to classroom learning, it becomes relevant and authentic to students and the teacher.

Teachers can select phenomena that require students to use all three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)—disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts—to make sense of what they observe. For example, after a third-grade class studies weather, the teacher might ask students to help plan a vacation to a location that fits the teacher’s interests, such as skiing or spending time on a warm beach. In groups and independently, students analyze data from two cities before discussing which one might be the best vacation spot, depending on the teacher’s preferences.

At the end of this PTEL, students receive profiles of two different teachers along with their activity likes and dislikes. Each student then independently recommends a vacation location and provides evidence from the data to justify their choice. This type of formative assessment allows the teacher to observe students as they analyze and interpret weather data, identify patterns, and determine the best time of year to visit a location based on desired conditions such as snow or sunshine for different types of activities. Students who experience this kind of assessment may begin to think differently about what a classroom “assessment” can look and feel like.

If you want to learn more about classroom PTELs or find grade-specific examples, you’re in luck. Funding from California Senate Bill 153 supported the creation of a database of NGSS-aligned performance tasks—including the one described above, “My Teacher Needs a Vacation”[ii]. This digital repository, released in January 2026 by Authentic Tasks for Learning and Assessment in Science (ATLAS), is available to classroom teachers for free.

[i] CA State Board of Education: January 2024 Agenda Item #03: “California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress: Approval of the Receipt of the California Science Test Innovations Concept Paper.”

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[ii] “My Teacher Needs a Vacation” was co-authored by the Beach Cities 3rd Grade Team, WestEd, and the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

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