Exemplars in Learning Tasks
The term exemplars in learning tasks denotes particular, representative examples that clearly show particular concepts or skills from a given subject area. They are very important for the learners' guidance because they set the clear performance standards and also they help comprehension via practical examples.
Exemplars are the practical models that illustrate the requirements and outcomes of the successful models. The most vivid illustration of this is a writing class where, by being offered a high-quality essay as an exemplar, students get to see the effective structure, vocabulary, and style, and thereby improve their writing skills.
By means of exibiting them, utilizing them as benchmarks for evaluation and involving students in their interpretation, teachers can introduce exemplars. As an example, a teacher of science can display a model lab report to decipher the characteristics of a good one and thereby instill a desire among learners to set similar standards for their own work.
Incorporating exemplars in formative assessments helps students attain self-assessment and peer feedback through comparing their work with the models of high-quality work. For instance, in mathematics classes, learners can scrutinize a solved problem which demonstrates a solution strategy, and this will guide them on the parameters to use to spot the errors in their personal strategies and in the process, they become better problem-solvers.
As a typical instance in art education, a painting that stands out is the one that learners analyze in order to master concepts like the use of colors and compositional arrangement. Thus, studying Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' that is the most suitable example can not only develop the students' understanding regarding brushstrokes but also emotional communication simultaneously, eventually, they will be able to use these techniques in their paintings.