Steps to creating Authentic Assessments

Identify Learning Objectives:
- What is this assessment intended to measure?
- Use this format to construct your learning objectives: Students will be able to...
Select an Authentic Task:
- What will students do to demonstrate the objectives?
Identify Criteria:
- What characteristics will you look for to indicate students have met the objective(s)?
Create a Rubric:
- How will you measure student performance of the task?

Rubrics

Rubrics benefit both instructors and students and they are an important tool when including authentic assessments as part of the overall assessment plan. A rubric can be used as an objective scoring mechanism to grade students’ work. It also offers a description of an instructor’s definition of high quality work. More importantly, it offers students a clearly defined framework of the instructor’s expectations. This is an invaluable tool that students can use as a guide to monitor their own work while they are completing their assignments.

How to write great rubrics

How Rubrics can inspire your students' best work

Examples of Authentic Assessments

Portfolios

Portfolios are an interesting way for students to document what they have learned over a specific period of time. It is a personal documentation of students’ work. A student portfolio might include reflective/creative writing samples, compilation of research, video recordings, peer reviews, images/illustrations, and group work.

Investigations/Case Studies

Teachers may choose to incorporate short investigations, or case studies, into their assessment plans to gauge how well students have understood basic concepts and skills. Most short investigations and case studies begin with some form of a prompt, or question, that requires students to apply what they have learned to solving a problem.

Observations

Directly observing students while they perform a particular set of tasks is another way to assess students’ real-time thinking skills (e.g., watching a student-teacher teach/lead a class). Observations are valuable assessments tools as the permit the instructor to observe not only how a student performs a particular task, but also how they addressed specific challenges and thought through the process. “Observing and questioning students while they are engaged in…activities can yield invaluable information not only about their skill, but also about their thinking processes, their attitudes, and their beliefs” (Lester, 1996, p. 4).

Open-Response Questions

Open-response questions are also common forms of authentic assessments. One benefit of open-ended questions is that they can be easily added to a variety of other types of assessments (e.g., exams, etc.). Similar to investigations/case studies, open-ended questions usually begin with a prompt that students are asked to answer. However, there is great latitude that exists with the complexity of the question which could range from writing a brief written response to, developing a hypothesis, or solving a complex problem.

Journals

Journals can also be used as assessment tools to help instructors learn how students think though specific activities or understand the course content. Oftentimes, journals entries are used as a means of describing how to solve specific problems or reflect on the learning process. Journals also offer students the opportunity to use the language of the specific discipline in their writings. From these writings, instructors will learn if students can appropriately apply terms and concepts in their writing and alerts then to gaps between course content and student understanding.

Implementing Authentic Assessment