Authentic assessment why is important

Teachers are able to give meaningful feedback to students in an engaging manner. Authentic assessment is a method that attempts to measure how well students can apply their knowledge in different scenarios. To achieve this, the teacher must create tasks and assignments that mimic a real-world environment.

It emphasizes learning and understanding concepts. Teachers provide a score, but they must explain why they give that score.

The assessment is often related to the work itself. Assignments that require solving problems and getting creative are often used in authentic assessment. Students can work on projects in the area they aim to impact. So, students of social work can organize a self-help group for women in rural areas and track their performance over a period of time. Simulations that mimic a real-life scenario can test learning. For instance, first responders might have to rescue survivors for a mock emergency to measure their effectiveness under pressure.

However, the true meaning of authentic assessment allows teachers to create a space where students feel more comfortable to share their knowledge and engage with other students. Teachers and students can get more results from authentic assessment than traditional standardized testing because it emphasizes the actual process of learning instead of just checking off material students learned from textbooks.

It ensures learners have absorbed the information and can use it as needed. Break it down: Many students get overwhelmed easily, so teachers should help them out by breaking down the project into many small steps.

For younger students, steps should be assigned to a time line, while students in middle school and above can schedule the tasks on their own and learn about self-discipline at the same time. They should approach it with the same creativity with which they expect their students to complete the work. Go backwards: As teachers set out to design the lessons, they should first start with the assessment and what they want the students to demonstrate at the end.

By knowing which objectives they want to see students meet, they can design their lessons accordingly. This will help them to further synthesize what they have learned and it will give teachers an inside look into what the children thought of the project. Additionally, students will feel glad to know that the teacher cares about their opinions. 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.

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. 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 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. 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. 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.

Thus, it is recommended e. Variety of measurement can be accomplished by assessing the students through different measures that allows you to see them apply what they have learned in different ways and from different perspectives. Typically, you will be more confident in the students' grasp of the material if they can do so. But some variety of assessment can also be accomplished within a single measure.