Authentic assessment
Authentic assessment is a form of evaluation that involves demonstration of concepts and skills. It involves an assessment of what students learn in class to the real world contexts. Under authentic assessments, students are tasked to apply their knowledge and skills in authentic projects and tasks (Luongo-Orlando, 2003). The aim of these assessments is to assist students in integrating what they learn in class, and use such skills in collaborative environment. It involves expression of oral and written skills and an analytical concept in assessing different literacy levels and abilities, amongst students.
A task in considered authentic if; students construct their own responses rather than dwell with the ones present, and if the tasks replicate real world challenges. Such assessments come in form of rubric tests, real world examples, practical tests or workshops. In my teaching practice, I would apply research and report writing, as authentic assessment measures (Romer, 2003). While conducting a research, students integrate learnt skills in coming up with findings revealing the causes of cognitive behavior, in a setting. The process involve facing the reality in societal or world’s setting, and coming up with practical reports used in generalizing behavioral trends. For instance, having students conduct a research on the causal relationships in social studies and marriages amongst students; with such a study, students will have an opportunity to select their own tasks in data collection and reflect upon their skills (Swennen and Klink, 2009).
Differences between authentic assessment and traditional assessment measures
Traditional assessments involve forced-choice evaluations on multiple choice answers, true-false matching, and filling in blanks (Luongo-Orlando, 2003). The student’s tasks, under these assessments, are to recall information, and typically select answers to complete a task. The tests are usually formulated and standardized by teachers so that they match the capability of students.
Contrary to authentic assessment, traditional assessments are grounded on the following philosophical concepts: To be a productive person, a student must be in possession of certain criterion of skills and knowledge (Bond, 1998). This is in contrary to authentic assessments where the perception is that, productive individuals are those who have the capability to perform meaningful projects, in the real world. Secondly, traditional assessments hold that success is determined by theoretical tests. Authentic assessments, on the other hand, determine a student’s success by performing real world challenges and coming up with effective solutions.
Traditional assessments involve selection of responses while authentic assessments involve performing tasks. The former involves a contrived task while authentic assessments involve practical and real world practices. Traditional assessments are teacher structured and include a lot of recognitions and recalling. Authentic assessments, on the other hand, are student structured and involve construction and application of learnt skills. The tests in traditional assessment provide an indirect evidence of students’ abilities while in authentic assessments the tasks provide a direct evidence of the students’ abilities (Valencia, 2008).
Advantages of authentic assessments over traditional assessments
Often, teachers use a mix of authentic and traditional assessments (Swennen and Klink, 2009). However, authentic assessments have become more popular in use, as compared to traditional assessments, due to the results they provide. Authentic assessments provide direct results; they measure ability in applying learnt skills to practical scenarios. They prepare students on how to cope with real world challenges and provide means of coming up with sustainable solutions. They provide a more meaningful means of interpreting theoretical concepts learnt in class, as compared to traditional assessments, which involves a recall of what is learnt.
Authentic assessments provide a better constructive and practical nature of learning, as compared to traditional assessments (Swennen and Klink, 2009). They not only use the knowledge learnt in class, but they also use these information in constructing meaningful concepts in the world. They allow students to be creative in coming up with meaningful and practical solutions. In contrast to traditional assessments, authentic assessments encourage and incorporate teaching, learning and testing. In traditional assessments, teaching is separated from assessments, i.e., tests are administered after acquisition of skills.
Authentic assessments act as a platform of establishment of abilities (Bond, 1998). Through the variety of demonstration paths, teachers determine the strengths or weaknesses of every student. Traditional assessments do not allow for such variability in skills demonstration; on one hand, the use of multiple choice tests, may be a significant criterion in establishing students’ abilities, but, on the other hand, there lacks demonstration of such skills (Romer, 2003). Traditional assessments make sure that every student is compared in a common domain, and offer a comparability measure of different understanding levels, amongst the students. This only favors best test-takers students, but fails to give such students’ room to demonstrate their skills. Authentic assessments are a means of establishing the abilities of students and act as a strategy in distinguishing the students who are better in skills development from those with practical abilities. From such, a teacher develops a teaching strategy that suits all students.
Reference.
Bond, L.A. (1998). Rethinking assessment and its role in educational reform. The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Retrieved from, http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as700.htm.
Luongo-Orlando, K. (2003). Authentic assessment: Designing performance-based tasks for achieving language arts outcomes. Markham, Ont: Pembroke Publishers.
Romer, T. (2003). Learning and assessment in postmodern education. Educational Theory, Vol. 53(3).
Swennen, A. & Klink, M. (2009). Becoming a teacher educator: Theory and practice for teacher educators. Dordrecht: Springer.
Valencia, S. W. (2008). Authentic reading assessment: Practices and possibilities. Newark, Del: Ira, International Reading Assoc.
