Creating Authentic Assessments
Authentic assessment encourages the integration of teaching, learning and assessing.
An authentic assessment includes;
- an authentic task for students to perform,
- a rubric/scoring guide by which the performance on the task will be evaluated.
Developing an authentic assessment is a four step process.
Step 1
Identify your outcomes of what you want your students to know and be able to do. Outcomes are typically one-sentence that will begin with a phrase such as “Students will be able to …” (SWBAT). Your outcomes need to be aligned with each of your course student learning outcomes.
Step 2
Select an authentic task. An authentic task is an assignment to assess how learners apply objective-driven knowledge and skills to real-world challenges.
Authentic Tasks
- You are less interested in how much information students can acquire than how well they can use it.
- There is no one right answer, students are constructing new knowledge that differs from other students.
- Authentic Tasks are seamlessly integrated with assessment.
The combination activities you create for student learning are used to measure the students’ ability to apply the knowledge or skills to real-world challenges.
Types of Authentic Assessments
Step 3
Identify the criteria for the task. The criteria is used to evaluate how well students completed the task and, how well they have met the standard or standards. These questions identify the criteria for good performance on the task.
ASK:
- “What does good performance on this task look like?”
- “How will I know they have done a good job on this task?”
Recommended Guidelines- Is each criterion…
Step 4
Create the rubric. A rubric is comprised of two components: criteria and levels of performance.
- Every rubric has at least two criteria and at least two levels of performance.
- The criteria, characteristics of good performance on a task, are listed in the left-hand column in the rubric.
- For each criterion, determine to what degree the student has met the level of performance.
Return to Step 1.
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