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Authentic Assessment

Authentic assessment evaluates student learning through real-world tasks rather than traditional tests. It measures performance, achievement, motivation and attitudes. Examples include portfolios, performances and self-assessments. Authentic assessment tasks are meaningful, challenging activities that integrate skills and require higher-order thinking like analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The process of deriving solutions is assessed in addition to final products. Authentic assessment provides direct evidence of a student's ability to apply their knowledge and skills. It allows students to construct their own understanding and demonstrates what they have learned in a way that traditional tests do not. Teachers create authentic assessments by identifying standards, developing tasks that require students to meet those standards, defining criteria for good performance, and using rub

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Safaa Mohamed Abou Khozaima
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353 views

Authentic Assessment

Authentic assessment evaluates student learning through real-world tasks rather than traditional tests. It measures performance, achievement, motivation and attitudes. Examples include portfolios, performances and self-assessments. Authentic assessment tasks are meaningful, challenging activities that integrate skills and require higher-order thinking like analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The process of deriving solutions is assessed in addition to final products. Authentic assessment provides direct evidence of a student's ability to apply their knowledge and skills. It allows students to construct their own understanding and demonstrates what they have learned in a way that traditional tests do not. Teachers create authentic assessments by identifying standards, developing tasks that require students to meet those standards, defining criteria for good performance, and using rub

Uploaded by

Safaa Mohamed Abou Khozaima
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Authentic assessment

Definition:
Authentic assessment is an evaluation process that involves multiple forms of
performance measurement reflecting the student’s learning, achievement, motivation,
and attitudes on instructionally-relevant activities. Examples of authentic assessment
techniques include performance assessment, portfolios, and self-assessment.

characteristics of student performance that should be considered in


authentic assessment:
J. Michael O’Malley, supervisor of assessment at the Prince William County Public
Schools of Virginia, and Lorraine Valdez Pierce, of the Graduate School of Education at
George Mason University, have listed characteristics of student performance that should
be considered in authentic assessment.
• Constructed Response: The student constructs responses based on experiences he or
she brings to the situation and new multiple resources are explored in order to create a
product.
• Higher-Order Thinking: Responses are made to open-ended questions that require
skills in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
• Authenticity: Tasks are meaningful, challenging, and engaging activities that mirror
good instruction often relevant to a real-world context.
• Integrative: Tasks call for a combination of skills that integrate language arts with other
content across the curriculum with all skills and content open to assessment.
• Process and Product: Procedures and strategies for deriving potential responses and
exploring multiple solutions to complex problems are often assessed in addition to or in
place of a final product or single-correct-response.
• Depth in Place of Breadth: Performance assessments build over time with varied
activities to reflect growth, maturity, and depth, leading to mastery of strategies and
processes for solving problems in specific areas with the assumption that these skills will
transfer to solving other problems.

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Why Use Authentic Assessment?

Authentic Assessments are Direct Measures

We do not just want students to know the content of the disciplines when they
graduate. We, of course, want them to be able to use the acquired knowledge and
skills in the real world. So, our assessments have to also tell us if students can apply
what they have learned in authentic situations. If a student does well on a test of
knowledge we might infer that the student could also apply that knowledge. But that
is rather indirect evidence. I could more directly check for the ability to apply by
asking the student to use what they have learned in some meaningful way. To return
to an example I have used elsewhere, if I taught someone to play golf I would not
check what they have learned with just a written test. I would want to see more direct,
authentic evidence. I would put my student out on a golf course to play. Similarly, if
we want to know if our students can interpret literature, calculate potential savings on
sale items, test a hypothesis, develop a fitness plan, converse in a foreign language, or
apply other knowledge and skills they have learned, then authentic assessments will
provide the most direct evidence.

Authentic Assessments Capture Constructive Nature of Learning

A considerable body of research on learning has found that we cannot simply be fed
knowledge. We need to construct our own meaning of the world, using information
we have gathered and were taught and our own experiences with the world
(e.g., Bransford & Vye, 1989; Forman & Kuschner, 1977; Neisser, 1967; Steffe &
Gale, 1995; Wittrock, 1991). Thus, assessments cannot just ask students to repeat
back information they have received. Students must also be asked to demonstrate that
they have accurately constructed meaning about what they have been taught.

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Furthermore, students must be given the opportunity to engage in the construction of
meaning. Authentic tasks not only serve as assessments but also as vehicles for such
learning.

Authentic Assessments Integrate Teaching, Learning and Assessment

Authentic assessment, in contrast to more traditional assessment, encourages the


integration of teaching, learning and assessing. In the "traditional assessment" model,
teaching and learning are often separated from assessment, i.e., a test is administered
after knowledge or skills have (hopefully) been acquired. In the authentic assessment
model, the same authentic task used to measure the students' ability to apply the
knowledge or skills is used as a vehicle for student learning. For example, when
presented with a real-world problem to solve, students are learning in the process of
developing a solution, teachers are facilitating the process, and the students' solutions
to the problem becomes an assessment of how well the students can meaningfully
apply the concepts.

Authentic Assessments Provide Multiple Paths to Demonstration

We all have different strengths and weaknesses in how we learn. Similarly, we are
different in how we can best demonstrate what we have learned. Regarding the
traditional assessment model, answering multiple-choice questions does not allow for
much variability in how students demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have
acquired. On the one hand, that is a strength of tests because it makes sure everyone is
being compared on the same domains in the same manner which increases the
consistency and comparability of the measure. On the other hand, testing favors those
who are better test-takers and does not give students any choice in how they believe
they can best demonstrate what they have learned.

Rubric: A Scoring Scale


Assessment requires teacher evaluation of student performance. To aid in making
such judgments accurate and valid (teachers measure what is intended to be
measured), and reliable (performances tend to be measured in the same manner from
one situation to the next), a scoring scale or rubric should be established. Often the
levels of evaluation in a rubric are classified as 1 = basic, 2 = proficient, and 3 =
advanced. The criteria for each performance level must be precisely defined in terms
of what the student actually does to demonstrate skill or proficiency at that level.
Examples of rubric scales that reflect student progression in the use of information are
as follows:
Demonstrated indicator of student performance: Integrates new information into one’s
own knowledge.
Basic: Puts information together without processing it.
Proficient: Integrates information from a variety of sources to create meaning that is
relevant to own prior knowledge and draws conclusions.
Advanced: Integrates information to create meaning that connects with prior personal
knowledge, draws conclusions, and provides details and supportive evidence.
Demonstrated indicator of student performance: Distinguishes among fact, point of
view, and opinion.

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Basic: Copies information as given and tends to give equal weight to fact and opinion
as being evidence.
Proficient: Uses both facts and opinions, but labels them within a paraphrased use of
the evidence.
Advanced: Links current, documented facts and qualified opinion to create a chain of
evidence to support or reject an argument

How Do You Create Authentic Assessments?


Authentic Assessment: Students are asked to perform real-world tasks that
demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills
I tend to think of authentic assessment development in terms of four questions to be
asked. Those questions are captured in the following graphic:
Questions to Ask:
1) What should students know and be able to do? This list of knowledge and skills
becomes your . . .
STANDARDStop
2) What indicates students have met these standards?To determine if students have
met these standards, you will design or select relevant . . .
AUTHENTIC TASKS
3) What does good performance on this task look like? To determine if students have
performed well on the task, you will identify and look for characteristics of good
performance called . . .
CRITERIA
4) How well did the students perform? To discriminate among student performance
across criteria, you will create a . . .
RUBRICtop
5) How well should most students perform? The minimum level at which you would
want most students to perform is your ...
6) What do students need to improve upon? Information from the rubric will give
students feedback and allow you to ...
CUT SCORE or BENCHMARK ADJUST INSTRUCTION
Summary of Steps

1. Identify your standards for your students.


2. For a particular standard or set of standards, develop a task your students
could perform that would indicate that they have met these standards.
3. Identify the characteristics of good performance on that task, the criteria, that,
if present in your students’ work, will indicate that they have performed well
on the task, i.e., they have met the standards.

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4. For each criterion, identify two or more levels of performance along which
students can perform which will sufficiently discriminate among student
performance for that criterion. The combination of the criteria and the levels
of performance for each criterion will be your rubric for that task
(assessment).

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Types of Authentic Assessment

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