Authentic Assessment: New Ways to Measure Student Performance
By Anthony Cody
7/30/08
From an Edutopia reader comes this question: "With so many of today's schools focused on state achievement tests, many teachers are 'teaching to the test.' However, this does not adequately prepare students for life outside of school. Does anyone have any suggestions for the alternate assessment that this article was describing? I am looking for some way to increase student learning while maintaining state standards at the same time."
We can agree on the limitations of standardized tests, but as teachers, we must nonetheless find ways to measure student learning. In place of narrow tests, innovative educators are developing new authentic assessments. Here are some interesting new looks at the subject:
Portfolios
Ted Nellen proposes digital portfolios and shares a suggestion he made recently to Al Gore.
Peer Review
"I suggested as a means of fostering authentic assessment that we have the scholars produce Web pages that are public and can be peer reviewed. The work of the scholars can be digitized and copied to CDs, DVDs, and flash drives. A national clearinghouse could be established for archive purposes. The Web pages can be sent to colleges as part of the entrance application. They can be used when a scholar moves from one town to another, across state lines or within a state. The work of the scholar tells us more than any test score ever will."
Exhibition
Another form of assessment is exhibition. The Coalition of Essential Schools recently held a National Exhibition Month to showcase student work.
"This year's National Exhibition Month was a successful campaign, as throughout the month of May (in some cases in April and June), schools and support organizations across the country made their exhibition work public and advocated for the use of exhibitions in their local contexts.
"Close to a hundred schools and organizations across twenty-five states participated, recognizing and documenting student exhibitions, submitting letters to the editor of local papers, hosting public events to showcase exhibitions, and educating media and local leaders about the benefits of exhibitions."
But Wait -- There's More
For a general overview of what authentic assessment is all about, Jonathan Mueller has put together the Authentic Assessment Toolbox.
Last, the University of Wisconsin at Stout has put together a great set of authentic-assessment resources for teachers.
Do you know of any other resources or have suggestions? Please share your thoughts.
I would like to add the idea
Submitted by Michael Kirsch (not verified) on November 25, 2008 - 20:00.
I would like to add the idea of project assessment. At the alternative high school I work at we are encouraged to be creative and are blessed with more flexibility than many district schools. I like to use the culminating project apporach on occasion.
We do some traditional note taking and book work but, I like to end my unit of study with a hands on project that requires students to apply what they have learned creatively. Here is an eaxmple; we just completed our studies about arthropods and they used the information to depict acurrate models (meeting specific requirements of course) of arthropods using clay, paint, and assorted clay modeling tools. They made displays labeling the various parts then summarized in a brief report the functions and uses of the parts that characterized the phylum arthropoda.
It was a relaxed atmosphere and the students enjoyed being creative and the projects came out very well.
Scaffolding and Formative Assessment
Submitted by Nikkie (not verified) on August 29, 2008 - 13:15.
I have another thought to add to this great list.
I'd like to point out the value of SCAFFOLDING. This is a term coined by child psychologist Lev Vygotsky to refer to targeted hinting that can be provided if a student cannot answer a question on his/her own.
Example: You show a child a number sequence and ask him/her to identify the pattern, but he/she is unable to do so. To scaffold the question, you can say "In this pattern, a 2 is being added each time. Now, can you tell me what the next number will be?"
This technique can be applied to teaching just about ANYTHING. What's incredibly important here is that a series of targeted hints that respond to specific student misunderstandings can actually provide the student with a learning opportunity WITHIN the assessment.
This is very different from mind-numbingly filling in bubble sheets. It's FORMATIVE assessment, not SUMMATIVE assessment... a valuable tool in the classsroom, but often misunderstood, since assessment is assumed to be paper and pencil, timed and stressful.
Such a shame that we're over-testing our kids but not assessing them meaningfully.
Thanks for the informative post!
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