Authentic Assessment: Performance & Application

Meaning of Authentic Assessment

• It is a performance-based evaluation method.
• It serves as an alternative to traditional assessments.
• It requires students to apply specific skills, knowledge, and competencies in real-world tasks.
• The application in real-world tasks measures and shows their level of expertise.
• Authentic assessment asks students to perform tasks to demonstrate knowledge application and skills in real-world contexts as defined by Mueller in 2014.
• Authentic assessment connects real-world situations outside the school environment with the school environment itself as defined by Allen et al., in 2012.
• Authenticity involves engaging with worthy problems or questions, where knowledge is used to create effective and creative performances says Wiggins.

Importance of Authentic Assessment

• It maximizes learning achievement and acts "for" learning.
• Authentic assessment provides insights into how students apply knowledge and skills in real-world situations.
• It allows students to demonstrate their competency and proficiency for improvement.
• It allows engagement in authentic situations through relevant simulations to acquire application of concepts practice.
• It is designed to prepare students for real-world scenarios, including future academic or professional pursuits.
• It also serves "of" learning/evidence of learning achievement by gauging proficiency in particular competencies and skills.
• It reveals the proficiency status in relation to real-world standards.
• It directly shows competence and proficiency.

Characteristics of Authentic Assessment

• Structure and Logistics
• Intellectual Design Features
• Grading and Scoring Standards
• Fairness and Equity

Structure and Logistics

• These are more public and involves an audience or panel.
• Relying on realistic time constraints.
• Known questions or tasks are offered.
• It is more like portfolios or a series of games instead of a one-time event.
• Collaboration with others is needed.
• Assessments recur and are valuable for rehearsal and retaking.
• Assessment and feedback are central, influencing school schedules, structures, and policies.

Intellectual Design Features

• Authenticity is essential and avoids being intrusive or arbitrary.
• Serves as an enabler, guiding students towards sophisticated skill and knowledge use.
• It presents contextualized, complex intellectual challenges, rather than atomized tasks.
• Includes student's own research or use of knowledge, where content becomes a means.
• It assesses student habits and repertoires, moving beyond mere recall.
• Presents representative challenges designed to emphasize depth.
• Engaging and educational.
• Involves ambiguous or ill-structured tasks/problems.

Grading and Scoring Standards

• It involves criteria assessing essential skills rather than counting unimportant errors.
• It is referenced to performance standards (criterion-referenced), not graded on a curve (norm-referenced).
• Demystifies success criteria, making them inherent successful activity.
• Self-assessment is part of the overall assessment.
• An aggregate grade is avoided in favor of multifaceted scoring systems.
• Schoolwide aims is exhibited as a standard

Fairness and Equity

• It aims to uncover and highlight hidden strengths.
• A constantly examined balance is struck between acknowledging achievement and innate abilities or prior training.
• Minimizes unnecessary, unfair, and demotivating comparisons.
• It accommodates diverse student learning styles, aptitudes, and interests.
• It can and should be attempted by all students, with scaffolding provided as necessary.
• Standard test design is reversed to ensure accountability supports student learning.

What Authentic Assessment will do for your students

• Authentic assessment analyses what they’ve learned and applies it their own experience.
• It allows creativity to show what they’ve learned instead of memorizing facts for a test

Question to Ponder

• If a student from Prof. Stone gets an essay-type question on basketball officiating, would they agree or disagree with said assessment method?

Benefits of Authentic Assessment

• Presents a more accurate picture of student learning.
• Helps sharpen critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
• Supports improved communication and collaboration skills.
• It enables teachers to provide differentiated instruction for all learners.
• Authentic Assessments test application of knolwedge and use of real-world skills.
• It goes beyond memorization, and pushes learners to analyze, evaluate, and create.

Benefits Shown In Simple Terms

• It benefits students because they are able to show their skills effectively.
• It benefits teachers because they get a clearer picture of students' knowledge and areas for improvement.
• By challenging learners with real-world application and complex problems, transferable soft skills are developed.

Question to Ponder

-If a nurse is instructed to write an essay on how a nurse could soothe a nervous patient in the operating room, would they agree or disagree with said assessment method?

Developing Career and Life Readiness

• Authentic assessments prepare students for work and life
• This includes evaluating technical and transferable skills.
• Learners receive real-world practice and meaningful feedback and can communicate their abilities to future employers,

Promoting Learner Engagement

• It promotes meaningful problem solving and personal investment in learning.
• Choice is given, the student is encouraged to reflect, and can develop a deeper understanding of their progress,
• Meaningful conversations between students and educators are fostered through authentic assessments.
• Collaboration is promoted and connections within the learning community are strengthened though feedback, group work and peer assessment.

Supporting Fair Assessment

• It prioritizes student's success through varied tasks not just through testing
• Scaffolded designs allow for improvement while evaluation focuses on strengths rather than mistakes.
• Assessment strategies promotes and supports equity in assessment.
• Learners can incorporate lived experiences, personal interests, cultural practices, and individual identities into their work,

Challenges and Limitations of Authentic Assessment

• It can require more time and more resources than traditional methods.
• It requires teachers to create rubrics, design carefully, and give detailed feedback.
• It may require special materials
• It has subjectivity, and may be more subjective than traditional ones.
• It has limited scope; some learning objectives (memorization) are better suited assessed through short answers of multiple choice tests.
• Can be biased if tasks rely on specific cultural or background knowledge
• Grading open-ended tasks is difficult.
• Despite challenges, authentic assessment better sets you up for the real world.
• Difficulties can be addressed by combining methods of inclusivity

Principles of Authentic Assessment

• Focus on what really matters
• Provide valid indicators
• Support student learning
• Use teacher time efficiently

Focus on What Really Matters

• Focus on form of learning they value most.
• Typically, schools assess their students" ability to remember factual information, thereby implicitly expressing their value of factual knowledge.

Provide Valid Indications

• An assessment strategy is VALID if it actually assesses the outcomes it claims to assess.

Using Assessment to Support Learning

• Assessments should not just measure what students know but also help them improve!

Practices in assessment include following:

• Clear communication of expectations
• Students involvement
• Helpful feedback
• Opportunities and incentives for students to improve

Using Teachers’ Time Efficiently

• Time is needed for change and progress
• Clear expectations helps saves time by eliminating the need to reiterate what is expected
• Student and peer review saves time and also provides students with a learning tool for their learning