Â鶹´«Ã½

Breakdown

What is it?

According to Wiggins, authentic assessments include the following key components:

1. It's realistic.
2. It requires judgement and innovation.
3. It asks the Â鶹´«Ã½ to "do" the subject.
4. It replicates or simulates the contexts in which adults are "tested" in the workplace, in civic life, and in personal life.
5. It assesses the Â鶹´«Ã½'s ability to efficiently and effectively use a repertoire of knowledge and skill to negotiate a complex task.
6. It allows appropriate Â鶹´«Ã½ to rehearse, practice, consult resources, and get feedback on and refine performances and products.

So why authentic assessment?

John Mueller (2005) shares the following:

Authentic assessments are direct measures. We don't just want Â鶹´«Ã½s to know the content we teach them; we want them to be able to apply it – so our assessments must measure the use and application of the knowledge to tell us whether Â鶹´«Ã½s have learned.

Authentic assessments capture the constructive nature of learning. Authentic assessments allow Â鶹´«Ã½s to take an active role in the learning process and serve as both an assessment and an educational experience.

Authentic assessments integrate teaching, learning and assessment. In a course that uses an authentic assessment model, Â鶹´«Ã½s are provided with multiple Â鶹´«Ã½ to practice skills while they are working toward the larger assessment, while the instructor facilitates the process through formative assessment and regular feedback.

Authentic assessments provide multiple paths to demonstrate learning. Not all of us learn the same way, so it makes sense that we may not all show our learning the same way either. With authentic assessment, instructors can design their courses in such a way that by the time Â鶹´«Ã½s get to the final assessment, they have had a variety of Â鶹´«Ã½ that have empowered them to demonstrate their learning in a number of ways and from multiple perspectives.

To learn how to get started on designing a course in this way, contact the Instructional Support Team for a consultation.

What does authentic assessment look like?

Alignment

There is alignment between your assessment, your content, and your content objectives. To learn more about this, visit our page on Backward Design or check out Mueller's Toolkit page entitled,

Formative Assessments/Knowledge Checks/Feedback

It is important to check in with Â鶹´«Ã½s often through multiple low stakes, formative assessment Â鶹´«Ã½. You can also add in self checks for your learners and make them a part of assessing and reflecting on their own learning. Finally, feedback must be meaningful, timely, and supported with ways to improve. This is where rubrics come in.

Rubrics

Provide your learners with rubrics to help them understand how you will be assessing their work – and how they can assess it themselves. For more on creating impactful rubrics, visit the .

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Resources

• Grant Wiggins discusses his original work that spurred a lot of this authentic assessment discussion and breaks down the definition of authentic assessment further in his article (2014).
• Jon Mueller, a professor of psychology, put together the , a virtual textbook rooted in his experience and research in the field, to guide the creation of authentic tasks, rubrics, and standards meant to measure and improve Â鶹´«Ã½ learning. While the site may look dated, the information is up to date and incredibly helpful. This comprehensive virtual how-to guide walks you through the creation of authentic assessments, and it really pulls out the important information in a very approachable way. You may be interested specifically in the page as well as .
• on episode 337 of the .
• Visit the for links to articles, research, and other resources.

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