Principles of Authentic Assessment PDF

Principles of Authentic Assessment Guiding Principles of Authentic Assessment 1. Focus on What Really Matters The most significant question to ask ourselves when judging our assessment practices is whether or not we are assessing what really matters. Are the criteria...

Principles of Authentic Assessment Guiding Principles of Authentic Assessment 1. Focus on What Really Matters The most significant question to ask ourselves when judging our assessment practices is whether or not we are assessing what really matters. Are the criteria we are using—consciously or not—to judge students’ work reflective of the most important educational objectives? What teachers assess has important implications for what students consider important and ultimately what they learn. Assessments that are skewed towards a limited range of desired outcomes, for example, outcomes related exclusively to factual knowledge, fail to assess and possibly inadvertently discourage student growth along other desired dimensions. This concern is at the root of much of the criticism of standardized testing. Many standardized tests used to evaluate students, teachers, and schools focus on those curriculum outcomes that are easily measured by machine-scoreable questions. This leaves a considerable gap between the outcomes that schools are expected to promote and the outcomes used to measure school performance. These practices tend to undervalue some of the most important life skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. Over the course of a unit or term (not necessarily on any given assignment), we should assess for all relevant goals, and the emphasis assigned these goals should reflect their relative importance. Completing what is called a “table of specifications” is one strategy for checking that each goal is weighted appropriately in one’s overall assessment plan.  Question for Discussion : What are the things a teacher can do to ensure that the assessment he/she is going to implement reflects the most important educational objectives? (Hint: Review lesson on Characteristics of High Quality Assessment, Assessment in Learning 1) 2. Provide Valid Indications A second consideration in authentic assessment is validity. Validity can be defined as a close fit between the kinds of attributes actually measured by an assessment device and the intended educational goals. In simplest terms, an assessment strategy is valid if it actually assesses the outcomes it claims to assess. Question for Discussion : Why is the validity of an assessment important? 3. Use Assessment to Support Learning Students would be better motivated and learn more if assessment practices focused more on supporting learning than on measuring learning). More recently, educators are talking about assessment as learning to heighten awareness of the potential to use assessment tasks as opportunities for learning, not simply to provide formative feedback. Self-assessment is an example of an assessment task that is also a learning task as students examine their own work and think through its strengths and shortcomings. Greater validity of assessment measures is in itself an attempt to use assessment to support learning. Assessment practices can support learning in at least four other important ways: clearly communicate expectations;  involve students in the assessment process; provide helpful feedback on learning; and provide opportunities and incentives for students to improve. a. Communicate Expectations. If students know clearly what is expected of them, they are more likely to succeed at the task. One of the most obvious ways in which we could use assessment practices to support learning is by discussing with students the scoring criteria before they perform an assessment task. The criteria will signal to students what are important and what they were required to do to demonstrate their learning. It will be clear to the students what are expected from them if they are informed specifically about the “criteria” upon which they will be marked and the importance of those criteria and the “standards” for achievement of these criteria. TABLE 30.2 SAMPLE STANDARDS b. Involve students in assessment Involving students directly in the assessment process is another way to support learning. Setting criteria and standards. Joint teacher and student negotiation of the criteria upon which students are to be judged increases student understanding of what is expected and ultimately of their performance in light of these expectations. Students can also be involved in deciding upon standards—by articulating what might be required in order for the work to be regarded as excellent, good, and so on. Creating assessment tasks. Another way to involve students is by inviting them to assist in developing the tasks upon which they will be assessed. Self- and peer assessment. Involving students in self and peer assessment can greatly enhance their learning. The very exercise of assessing their peers on the specific criteria related to the lesson would likely reinforce the students’ own understandings of what is expected of them. Furthermore, involving students in assessment encourages students to take greater ownership of their learning. An important dimension of self-assessment is communicating the results to others—either to the teacher, their peers, or parents.  a. Provide feedback on learning We can enhance learning by helping students see how they might improve. Providing students with useful feedback must go beyond assigning a mark or offering a brief summative comment. They need to understand what they did well and where more attention is needed. A carefully prepared rubric can go a long way in providing this feedback, both in terms of indicating how students have done and what might be done to improve their performance. b. Provide opportunities and incentives to improve Where feasible, use assessment to encourage students to learn on their own and to revise and rethink their work. Possible strategies include establishing a habit of assessing key objectives in subsequent units, and making it clear to students that certain abilities will be assessed routinely. Some students may be motivated by supplemental tests or makeup assignments for those who make some effort to improve their understanding. For students who are less motivated to engage in subsequent revisions, we must encourage them by: Asking students to redo only a part of the original assignment Creating additional incentives for revising a draft (for example, revised assignments might be exhibited in a fair, submitted to the newspaper, published in a book, or otherwise shared with adults or other students). Commenting on but do not mark the initial mandatory draft. Establish that only the revised draft “counts” for marks. Asking students weeks or months later to revisit an earlier work to see how much they have progressed in the intervening time. When encouraging students to learn from feedback, it is not simply a matter of them redoing completed assignments, but also formulating plans to use the lessons learned to improve upcoming projects. For example, we might ask students to identify a learning goal, anticipate an obstacle they might face, and suggest how they might overcome it.  Question for Discussion : What assessment practices of your teachers in the past would you consider as supportive of student learning? 4. Using Teachers’ Time Efficiently The final, perhaps one might say the bottom-line, criterion of good assessment is efficient use of teacher time. Although efficiency has no direct relationship to authentic assessment, the pressure on teachers’ time means that changes, however desirable, are unlikely to occur if they are more time consuming. Early planning and preparation of marking sheets and rubrics, clearly articulated criteria and standards, clear expectations, and student peer and self- assessment can help save teacher time. Question for Discussion : What factors should a teacher consider when planning for an assessment that is time-efficient?TABLE 30.1 SPECIFICATION OF GOALS ASSESSED  Summary In implementing authentic assessments in the classroom, teachers should Assess the knowledge and skills that are reflective of the most important educational objectives. Students should be informed of what learning competencies they are expected to demonstrate at the end of every lesson. Teachers should use assessment strategies that assess outcomes they claim to assess and those that enhance student learning. These assessment strategies should be time-efficient.