These are not normal days. And while Pacific Crest will always have information, ideas, and strategies to share about teaching and learning, including below this special section, there’s some critical information that I feel I must share first, in my role as Communications Director for the International Academy of Process Educators. --Denna Hintze

“Nothing in the Executive Order is

about curriculum and instruction.”

DEI Programs Are Lawful Under Federal Civil Rights Laws and Supreme Court Precedent (pdf) From a group of deans and professors of law at various universities

Other Resources

• Political Attacks on Higher Education (from the American Association of University Professors: links for facts/support for: Immigration; Science & Research; Federal Funding; Accreditation; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Anticipatory Obedience)
• American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
• National Education Association (NEA)
• Find and Contact Elected Officials (available as of today)
• Tracking Trump’s executive orders on higher education (from the Daily Princetonian)

As of 3 days ago, NASA has cut off international climate science support. Professors and researchers are dealing with recent and ongoing grant funding freezes (NSF, NIH), disappearing datasets, and a higher ed landscape that seems to be changing almost daily. The best any of us can do is stay informed and support one another.

Just a quick reminder: diversity, equity, and inclusion are not dirty words. They are learning skills:

Seeking diversity and Being socially inclusive (publicly pursuing equity)

This means that as we develop these skills or help our students to do so, we increase our/their ability to learn. These skills are especially critical to success for all students, including historically underserved and non-traditional student populations.

This month's columns include:

• Series: The Learning Process Methodology
• Step 5: Performance Criteria
• Tips & Tricks: Reinforcing Performance Criteria in the Classroom
• Get the Faculty Guidebook
• Something to Think About: There is divine beauty in learning...
• Monthly Self-Growth Tip: Sensing when You're Comfortable
• How Performance Criteria Help Duffin Annoy the Cat
• Showing the Target: Criteria in Context
• Self-Paced Teaching Workshop
• Process Education Conference 2025

Once we’ve gone through the steps of the LPM focused on this objective, a perfect target performance would be IDENTIFYING OUR OWN FINGERPRINTS.

So the question arises:

How do you tell whether or not your performance is successful?

Through the use of performance criteria!

Unfortunately, unless we’re already very familiar with a specific performance, it can take some work to draft performance criteria that are “measurable, observable, fair, and challenging” (Faculty Guidebook 2.3.8 Learning Process Methodology).

But there’s good news that more than makes up for the work needed: creating performance criteria will not only help clarify more about how to best go about meeting your learning objective, but also create the optimal context for carrying out all the other steps of the LPM. (If I could only take 1 step of the LPM with me to a desert island of learning, it would definitely be “performance criteria”.)

Definition

In short but very professional terms, performance criteria indicate two or three general areas of performance and what standard you intend to meet in each area to demonstrate that the learning outcome has been met.

They…

1. Indicate qualities or types of performance that will indicate achievement of the objective
2. Describe how the learning outcome will be measured (e.g., by a rubric or exam)
3. Set a standard that must be met for success (e.g., level, grade, number of items completed)
4. Present a clear method of documenting results (e.g., in a report or an exam grade)

Let’s give this a try with our example learning objective of learning to identify fingerprint patterns.

1. Qualities/Performance: We will identify our own fingerprint patterns
2. Measuring: After identifying them, we can compare our actual fingerprint patterns side-by-side with an identification chart and mark our identification of each as either correct or incorrect
3. Standard: Let’s say that we need to correctly identify 8 out of 10 of our fingerprint patterns for the performance to be a success
4. Documentation Method: We will use a single sheet of paper with space for us to write down each fingerprint pattern with X marking incorrect and OK marking correct when they’re compared to a visual guide.

Awesome! We’re really making progress. Now, we need to look more closely at the performance because while we have decided what the criteria are for our performance criteria, we still need to actually WRITE them. Luckily, we have a useful method for doing just that.

Writing Performance Criteria

Method for Developing Performance Criteria for Individuals and Groups (based on FGB 4.1.7 Writing Performance Criteria for Individuals and Teams):

1. Identify key stakeholders for the performance (who observes, is affected, or is impacted?)
2. Describe the performance expected by all stakeholders, including the performer(s).
3. Brainstorm a list of areas of quality that can be observed within the expected performance (think about tasks, products, or skills).
4. Minimize redundancy and overlap among the areas of quality (ask: does each quality add value to the performance?).
5. Select and describe critical areas of quality that most contribute to the desired performance (ask: how does this area of quality show itself?).
6. Clarify connections among aspects within each area of quality in terms of how they work together to produce the desired outcomes.
7. Create clear statements of performance by synthesizing relationships among aspects within each area of quality.
8. Put the statements in a logical order (they can be ordered from first observable to last in the performance, most general to specific, or even most to least important from the perspective of an evaluation/test)

OK. Let’s roll up our sleeves and see what we can do!

STAKEHOLDERS:

We’re the stakeholder because this is something we want to do just for ourselves. But if we were teaching someone else to identify their fingerprints, such as in a forensic science 101 course for law enforcement, the stakeholders would probably be the law enforcement agency, the government, whether local, state, or federal, the institution offering the course, the person teaching it (we would want to be a successful teacher!), and of course the people learning. Good thing we’re the only person concerned about our fingerprints.

EXPECTED PERFORMANCE:

We will identify the patterns each of our fingerprints make. This could be made much more official and could be extended to identifying a set of say 50 different latent fingerprints from different crime scenes.

LIST AREAS OF QUALITY:

OK. This is where we really have to drill down on the performance. Doing some advance reading (and after falling down a few REALLY INTERESTING rabbit holes about the history of fingerprints like The Fingerprint Sourcebook), we learn that we want to carry out the performance of identifying them...

1. without using any reference chart (once we’ve done the work of learning all about identifying fingerprints in theory)
2. by taking our prints rather than just looking through a loupe, which was our first thought but would make it much more difficult to evaluate our identification
3. by taking no more than 2 minutes per fingerprint
4. using the 3 main types identified by Sir Francis Galton: Arch, Loop, and Whorl, but also the subtypes of each: Arch (plain or tented), Loop (ulnar or radial) and Whorl (plain or central pocket)
5. and also identifying at least 2 ridge characteristics of each print: core, ending ridge, short ridge, fork or bifurcation, delta, hook, eye, dot or island, crossover, bridge, enclosures, or specialty.

Wow. Learning enough to write these performance criteria is helping us learn more about the whole subject!

MINIMIZE REDUNDANCY/OVERLAP:

We have been careful in thinking through these aspects of performance and there doesn’t seem to be any redundancy or overlap. Each area adds quality to the overall performance.

DESCRIBE CRITICAL AREAS OF QUALITY:

Areas of quality would include CORRECTLY IDENTIFYING our fingerprints as to type, subtype, and ridge characteristics from CLEAR AND READABLE prints we take. Also being able to carry out the identification WITHIN A SPECIFIC AMOUNT OF TIME. (These are all aspects of the performance that can be of higher or lower quality.)

CLARIFY CONNECTIONS:

The prints have to be clear and readable for us to correctly identify them within a specific period of time.

STATEMENTS OF PERFORMANCE:

This isn’t a huge performance so there aren’t a lot of characteristics to each area of quality. If we were going to identify prints in order to compare a set of latents with prints on file to try and catch a criminal, the performance would be much more elaborate and we would have to think about things like how many areas of similarity (matches) between two sets of prints would constitute evidence, for example. But this is all just for fun (though now we’re invested enough to want to learn more!) so we can be happy enough with “clear and readable”, using the fingerprint guide we found online for our types (http://6enders.weebly.com/fingerprints.html), and a kitchen timer to time our allotted 2 minutes per print.

STATEMENTS IN LOGICAL ORDER:

Our performance is IDENTIFYING EACH OF OUR FINGERPRINTS

1. Prints are taken using a pigment ink pad and a sheet of white paper, with each print labelled as to hand and finger with a space below each for us to note information (OK. This is where we realize that the performance is maybe a little more complex than we first thought because now we’re describing a form we need to make and use. And this is a GOOD THING because performance criteria are WORKS-IN-PROGRESS. The more familiar you become with a performance and the quality you want in that performance, the more precisely you can describe that performance with criteria!)
2. The information we will provide for each is major type and subtype (arch: plain or tented, loop: ulnar or radial, whorl: plain or central pocket) and at least two ridge characteristics for each (core, ending ridge, short ridge, fork or bifurcation, delta, hook, eye, dot or island, crossover, bridge, enclosures, or specialty)
3. We will complete b) for each of our fingerprints, recording this information on our form, within a 2-minute period of time for each print.

We did it! It was work but NOT busywork AT ALL because in learning enough to write our three performance criteria, we’ve managed to figure out what we need to learn to learn how to identify fingerprints (ORIENTATION). We also found new reasons to learn about fingerprints (WHY), sources to read and review (PREREQUISITES and INFORMATION), learned a lot of new terminology, including that what we did is called dactyloscopy (VOCABULARY), clarified our learning goals (LEARNING OBJECTIVES), thought about how to move forward from here (PLAN), encountered some great graphics and tables (MODELS), and did quite a bit of thinking about how we’ll assess our learning (SELF-ASSESSMENT).

While some of these are earlier steps in the LPM and some later, each is closely connected to performance criteria or doing the work to write performance criteria. (For an independent learner, this step is truly the one to take to the desert island).

Teaching and Curricula

When it comes to teaching another, the value of the performance criteria step is most often considered in terms of identifying and measuring quality. But if you can help learners to understand what performance criteria are and how they work, you have increased their ability to be independent learners who have the information and tools they need to assess and improve their own learning.

One of our innovations in curricula design is to include the performance criteria for an activity just prior to exercises or problems, which are really just opportunities for students to actually PERFORM. This lets them know exactly what to aim for as they begin their work. 

Recommended references

• Faculty Guidebook 2.3.8 Learning Process Methodology by Cy Leise, Steve Beyerlein, and Daniel Apple
• Faculty Guidebook 4.1.7 Writing Performance Criteria for Individuals and Teams by Tris Utschig
• Faculty Guidebook 4.1.8 Issues in Choosing Performance Criteria by Marie Baehr
• Faculty Guidebook 2.4.9 Writing Performance Criteria for a Course by Cheryl Hinton

• Provide written and oral clarification of the expected level of performance in the early stages of a learning experience
• Model the level of performance and integrity you expect in participants/learners; invite students to assess the performance you model.
• Deepen understanding of performance criteria by having learners assess each other’s work using these criteria.

(from FGB 3.1.9 Creating Meaningful Assessment and Documentation Systems)

This is the design philosophy behind the Faculty Guidebook and why we touch on it in nearly every topic we feature!



“There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. ”

— Elie Wiesel (writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor)

Wiesel is perhaps better known for another quote:

“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.”

Monthly Self-Growth Tip

Sensing when You’re Comfortable

“Comfort is the enemy

of progress.”

– P.T. Barnum

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

– Neale Donald Walsch

“The more you seek discomfort, the more you develop resilience.”

– Andy Molinsky

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”

– Fred DeVito

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.

– M. Scott Peck

All these quotes point to a key truth: An important characteristic of an ideal zone of development is feeling a sense of discomfort. When we are, we must ask ourselves: Why am I uncomfortable? Often it is because we are aware of a challenge confronting us that is beyond our current capabilities, thereby requiring us to grow before we can achieve success. That means giving up our current expectations of ourselves in favor of expecting more and therefore doing more. Sometimes it’s because we only believe the challenge is beyond our current capability. In those cases, we still have work to do before we can succeed, but it's developing will to try anyway, risking failure.



More on Performance Criteria:

How They Help Duffin Annoy the Cat

They say that if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. That’s worth keeping in mind, but let’s back up a little bit and not judge the goldfish (who happens to be named Duffin).

Duffin has absolutely no desire to climb trees, but he IS interested in receiving our assessment-based feedback on a performance HE selects.

One of the first questions we should ask is, “What performance do you want us to assess?”

Duffin says, “I want to work on blowing bubbles, so give me feedback about that.”

That’s important information but what, specifically, will we focus on as we watch him perform bubble blowing? Just knowing the performance in general terms isn’t enough. We need to know more; we need enough detail so we can determine criteria that will best isolate the areas of quality he wants to improve. Does he want to improve how many bubbles he can blow (one possible criterion) or does he want to increase the size of the bubbles he blows (another possible criterion)?

“I want to blow lots of bubbles because it annoys the cat,” says Duffin.

OK, we can work with that! A good measure for that criterion is bubbles per minute. We get our stopwatch ready and can measure how many bubbles he blows in a minute. That data will then inform the feedback we give.



Having criteria determined and agreed upon prior to starting the assessment process allows both the performer and assessor to focus on quality in this area—the performer by producing it and the assessor by observing, measuring, and basing feedback on it.

Go, Duffin!

The previous article was about criteria and how we can’t provide a helpful assessment without them. Recall that Duffin wanted feedback on his bubble blowing but until we had criteria for that performance, we were dead in the water (sorry, Duffin).

We needed to know the criteria for Duffin’s targeted performance—where to LOOK in order to give the desired feedback. And Duffin needed our feedback in order to know what to DO to achieve his targeted performance.

It usually works the other way around in the classroom: We know the criteria of any targeted performance we assign to students (what we want to SEE) and share those criteria, effectively describing the targeted performance for our students (what we want them to DO). What could be more straightforward?

At base, it doesn’t matter if our students are in kindergarten or at the post-doctoral level; their understanding of a performance we want from them is not the same as our understanding of it. If we’re past our first year of teaching, we will have seen many instances of the performance we’re asking of them and we will have spent a lot of time thinking about the criteria that define the performance target we want them to hit. Hitting the target is what it’s all about; none of us are trying to hide it from our students. On the contrary, we want them to see it clearly! This is why we share performance criteria with them. It’s also why we provide them with feedback based on those criteria.

Unfortunately, to students it often sounds like we’re saying, “I want you to hit the target over there,” and clarifying its location by sharing latitude and longitude coordinates.

What can help to fill the gap between the way we see the target and the way our students see and work to hit it, is a model. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a model of a target performance is worth a thousand performance criteria, at least when students are unfamiliar with the performance. It shows them, in a way no criteria list can, what and where the target is. Once they see the target, they can do the work to hit it…and at that point, the criteria start to make sense because they now refer to something real that can be pointed to, discussed, and assessed, instead of an abstract performance not yet begun.



Self-Paced Teaching Workshop

It’s (still) a thing! And ready for anyone to use.

At an introductory cost of just $200, it’s also an amazing value.

Welcome to the University of Rhode Island participants! Your special grant-funded registration went off without a hitch and we’re thrilled to have you here.

If you’re also interested in turning your classroom into one that is learner and learning-centered, this is the single-best offer you’re going to get! In fact, this self-paced workshop ALSO offers the opportunity to grow and develop as an educator, no matter your current level or experience. The activities and resources provide participants with a greater understanding of Process Education/active learning and key educational processes (learning, teaching, curriculum and activity design, and assessment). Numerous tools and techniques are introduced to help faculty facilitate students’ skills with respect to critical thinking, assessment, cooperative learning, journal writing, guided discovery learning, and problem solving.

The 2025 PE Conference is hosted by the Academy of Process Educators and the University of Indianapolis (UIndy)

Tuesday, June 3 through Thursday, June 5

1-day pre-conference workshop (Developing Performance to Unlock Your Limitless Capability) on Monday, June 2

Breakout sessions will be focused on:

• Innovating with PE Tools & Techniques for the Post-Covid Era
• Leveraging Instructional Technologies: AI, LMS, eLearning, Distance Education
• Reconciling Life’s Challenges
• Enhancing Reflective Practice
• Deploying Learner-Centered Communication
• Incorporating International Perspectives
• Advancing Wellness & Self-Care
• Cultivating Mentorship

Other information:

The conference will be presented in a hybrid format. In-person participation at the University of Indianapolis is encouraged because of the many advantages of sharing time and space together. However virtual options for participating will be available.