The puzzle of Authentic Assessment

Topic: Authentic Assessments in Social Studies

Call:  Do you have ideas for excellent authentic assignments and assessments? What are your favorite ways to assess student learning that go beyond traditional multiple choice?  Why are they great methods of assessment and how do they reach ensure students have met your objectives?  We are looking for blog posts, articles, etc. that discuss different types and examples of authentic assignments and assessments.  Please include description of assignment/assessment, how it was graded, and how it ensured objectives were met by the students.

Rationale: In the world of multiple choice testing it is important to keep in mind the benefits of authentic assessments.  Authentic assessments engage students in a way that requires them to demonstrate the skills they have learned by applying their knowledge to problem solve.  Often, the assessment involves some type of real world application of their knowledge. Assessment is an important part of what we teach.  But how important is the content we teach students, unless we allow them to demonstrate the practical application of that knowledge? As we work to build our collection of creative teaching resources, authentic assessment ideas, resources, and samples are imperative to our success.

Teaching with Authentic Assessments:

What is Authentic Assessment? This site explores the use of Authentic Assessment in a case study of the School of the Future in NYC.  It includes a great video of an introduction to how authentic assessments are used in the classroom.  This is an excellent example of an educational program and its teachers seeing the benefits of authentic assessment in the classrooms.  What else could be better from the School of the Future?

The Authentic Assessment Toolbox is a one stop shop for getting started with authentic assessments.  It includes current research on the importance of authentic assessments, the differences between selected response and constructed responses, and the different types of assessments considered authentic.   The lists of product and performance tasks linked to specific instructions on how to execute these assessments is only the beginning of the wealth of information on this site.   Dr. Mueller, creator of the site, includes information on creating rubrics, portfolios, how-to online workshops, and even a glossary of terms.

Minds in Bloom is another great blog that discusses the benefits of authentic assessment within the classroom.  With a few tricks of the trade, essential steps to remember, and ideas for all ages, this site is another valuable resource.  This post also addresses the connection of authentic assessment to the Bloom’s Taxonomy higher levels of understanding.

Social Studies Authentic Assessment Ideas

This post by a graduate student, “How Authentic is my Assessment?” is just one of the many ideas for ways authentic assessment can be used in the classroom.  In this post, she explains her lesson where the students created an advertisement for the colony they created.  I chose this post because it included her rubric–you have to be able to assess the authentic assessment!  This blog also led me to a great link she posted where anyone can use the free rubric creator.

A Revolutions unit plan reflection blog where the teacher talks about how he believed their authentic assessments enabled the teachers to continuously assess student learning progress.  The best part about this blog is it includes links to the lesson plans and activities (resources are always a plus!).

This post on WebQuests explains how teachers can use technology to create authentic assessments.  WebQuests are very popular in history classes and are a fun way to scaffold students through an introduction to research for problem solving.  There are several sites that have ready-made history Webquests.