In Conclusion......

We know that what and how students learn in their early years of education impacts the rest of their learning years.  When looks at the importance of assessment in promoting lifelong learning for students we are able to draw parallels between the focus of primary, secondary and tertiary education assessments.  When one level of education leads to another we should ensure continuity across them all to ensure the skills that are developed are fostered and honed throughout student’s entire education, ensuring success throughout their educational live while providing the skills needed to promote success through their entire lives. 

The following speech by Sir Ken Robinson (YouTube. 2006) highlights the need for Authentic Assessment for promoting, preparing and providing learning for the future.  Robinson explains the importance for our society of replacing the industrial hierarchy method of education, providing todays’ students with learning opportunities that focus on promoting 21^st century skill such as arts and technology, encouraging creativity and individually that are needed to ensure the growth and survival of our future.

Sir Ken Robinson

References

YouTube. (2006). Sir Ken Robinson. Retrieved from                                                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga2CYYCrtNE

Is There A Need For All The Components Of Authentic Assessment?

The importance of the inter-relationship of all the components of Authentic Assessment is apparent when we look at removing specific components.  It is akin to removing a foundation wall of a building, doomed to fail!!  If we remove the following components the result could be:

•         Real-life focus- without a worthwhile focus students are unable to connect with the importance of the knowledge or skill they are learning.

•         Performing a task- if students are not given opportunities to use knowledge and skills in a real world context severely limiting their knowledge and skill development

•         Construction/Application of knowledge- students would not be encouraged to develop individual way of understanding and incorporation of the knowledge.

•         Student-structured focus- LM’s cannot provide learning for each student if we remove the focus from the individual student learning styles.

•         LM’s provide specific criteria and standards students would constantly be questioning not only the task but also the purpose behind it.

•         Direct evidence- how would LM’s evaluate, create an understanding, develop and encourage each individual student’s ways of learning to promote success both within the classroom and their everyday lives?

What Are Some Areas Of Teaching That Are Related To Authentic Assessment But Are Not Part Of It?

When looking at Authentic Assessment we must be aware that although it is an important aspect of educating for the future, it alone cannot insure student success in education.  LM’s must incorporate a variety of different assessment methods to ensure students are exposed to many diverse forms of testing.  Brady and Kennedy (2012, p.45) state that, “the Authentic Assessment principle of using a variety of strategies that reflects student learning is best served by also including standardised and teacher-devised tests in a teacher assessment repertoire.” 

Focus must also be given to other factors that relate to the successful incorporation of Authentic Assessment, some of these being scaffolding learning, constructivism in education, teachers knowledge, real wold understandings, students sociocultural environments, educational institutional policies and other forms of assessment to list just a few.  Some of the elements for consideration are discussed below:

ž  Sociocultural environments and teachers knowledge- LM must be aware of how, where and what is happening in the students environment to ensure that the focus of teaching is relevant for the students, real-life focus.  Real wold issues can impact upon authentic assessment as Authentic Assessment aims to tie learning in the classroom into their everyday lives (Real-life focus)

ž  Scaffolding in education- ensures LM’s are supporting and encouraging each individualised learning by using direct evidence to plan learning that is student specific while building upon prior-knowledge and skills, ensure understanding and education growth for all students (Direct Evidence, Provide Specific Criteria and Standards)

ž  Constructivism- in education is essential for future orientated students as it focuses on metacognitive processes through co-constructing understanding between LM and student (Performing A Task, Construction/Application of  Knowledge)

ž  Teachers professional knowledge – teachers need to ensure that they engage in professional development to keep abreast of new and extended conceptual information (all Authentic Assessment Components)

ž  Educational institutional policies- the Government documentation that inform LM’s of the content and how to implement it into the learning environment in a successful manner (all Authentic Assessment Components)

ž  Students’ perceptions of learning- how students view learning must be considered when striving for educational success.  Ensuring student awareness of the purpose behind their learning and of their learning development  nurtures their confidence in their abilities, promoting each student to be a life-long, futures orientated learner (all Authentic Assessment Components)

ž  Portfolios- shift the attention from marking against performance indicators to highlighting each individual student’s education knowledge and skill development (all Authentic Assessment Components)

References

Brad,. L. & Kennedy, K. (2012). Assessment and Reporting Celebrating Student Achievement       (4^th ed). French Forrest New South Wales, AUS: Pearson Australia.

How Do The Components of Authentic Assessment Affect Each Other?

The teaching, learning, assessment domain.(Cumming & Maxwell)

The diagram above highlights the interconnectivity between teaching, learning; assessment and achievement.  We can recognize the role assessment plays in effective learning, emphasizing that success providing authentic assessment can only be achieved by LM’s ensuring an understanding of the interrelationship between all areas of teaching.  This understanding of interconnectivity in attaining success follows through to LM’s providing effective Authentic Assessment (Cumming and Maxwell, 1999).

The diagram below presents the components of Authentic Assessment, demonstrating their part in the cycle that is Authentic Assessment.

As LM’s it becomes apparent that we must focus on providing connectivity between all areas of learning, giving equal focus to each.  This will ensure we are providing assessments that allow each student to demonstrate their individualised understanding of the learning experience while building skills such as HOT, creativity, perseverance and self-confidence that are imperative for success in both education and life.  The Professional Standards for Teachers highlights the importance for LM’s to focus on each of Authentic Assessment component to ensure that we are not only encouraging successful student learning but also propelling it towards the future (2005, p .2).   We can see this through the understanding of the focus behind each Authentic Assessment component listed below:

ž  Real-life focus- allows LM to represent learning in relation to socio-cultural understandings of students through focusing on process and production

ž  Performing a task- builds skills such as creative thinking, problem solving, reasoning and comprehension.

ž  Construction/Application of tasks- builds students resilience for task repetition when repeating tasks to ensure understanding while building their self-confidence in their abilities to learn and achieve success in education and life

ž  Student-structured focus- affords each student the opportunities to voice their conceptual understanding in ways that are comfortable to them, promoting learning diversity within the cohort

ž  LM Provide specific criteria and standards- tasks are constructed considering the 3 educational standards, content, performance and work-design (Wiggin, p.106).  Provides students with specific criteria guaranteeing and individualised understanding of both the task and the LM’s expectations in a manner which is logical to them (Wiggin, p. 126)

ž  Direct Evidence provides LM’s with proof of students’ individual understanding and ways of working, allowing the design of curriculum based learning that promoting educational success through providing understanding for each student

We can see the links between the components of Authentic Assessment permits LM’s to pro-actively focus on the developmental and learning differences of each student.  This allows for the celebration of strengths and building of students self-confidence in their learning abilities which provides the motivation and perseverance needed to promote success in futures-orientated education (Cumming and Maxwell, 1999. p. 3).

References

Queensland Department of Education. (2005). Professional Standards for Teachers Guidelines for Professional Practice. Retrieved from            http://education.qld.gov.au/staff/development/pdfs/profstandards.pdf

Cumming, J., & Maxwell, G. S. (1999). Contextualising Authentic Assessment. Retrieved   from                                                                                                                                        2http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/341851/47CummingMaxwell1999.pdf

Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative Assessment Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco:CA.

What Are The Components of Authentic Assessment?

Assessments do not always follow a stringent format but contain certain attributes that link them to a specific category. When looking at traditional and authentic assessment we understand that within each of these forms of assessment there will be a variance in how and what information is asked for, however, there are specific attributes that allow us to classify what model is being incorporated. 

To understand what the attributes of Authentic Assessment are a little better we can look to the model constructed by Professor of Psychology Jon Mueller that differentiates between traditional and authentic assessment (2011).

Traditional ------------------------------------------- Authentic

Selecting a Response ----------------------------------- Performing a Task

Contrived -------------------------------------------------------------- Real-life

Recall/Recognition ------------------------------ Construction/Application

Teacher-structured ------------------------------------ Student-structured

Indirect Evidence ------------------------------------------- Direct Evidence

From this model we can begin to see that Authentic Assessments are focused on a hands-on, real-life directed approach to individualised promotion of HOT skill development for students’ personal and professional futures.  It is moving away from focusing on students’ abilities to retain and repeat facts to building skills and confidences within students to allow for lifelong learning needed for their future (Epstein. 2012).  To ensure this process is happening within the classroom Greenleaf, Gee and Ballinger have produced a simple checklist that LM’s are able to use when considering tasks and constructing Authentic Assessment to ensure that the assignment is indeed authentic in is checking of both student conceptual understanding and process skills in relation to the learning focus (1992. p.8).  This simple checklist is attached below for your reference:

Teachers Checklist For Authentic Assessment

Does The Task Have….	Yes	No
·      Have clear, specific criteria and standards?
·      Match clearly defend objectives?
·      Focus on real world situations?
·      Actively engage the learner as a decision maker?
·      Allow for many ways to demonstrate achievement and progress?
·      Easily embed into instruction?
·      Accurately represent the curriculum?
·      Show progress over time
·      Provide continuous and ongoing feedback?
·      Provide multiple measures of a learner?

References

Greenleaf, C., Gee, M.K., & Ballinger, R. (1992). Authentic Assessment: Getting Started.   Retrieved from www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED411474.pdf

Epstein. A. (2012).  Authentic Assessment Overview. Received from              http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/educational-           testing/4911.html?page=1

Mueller. J. (2011).  Characteristics of Authentic Tasks. Retrieved from             http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/tasks.htm

What Is Authentic Assessment

McMillan tells us that, “Authentic Assessment involves the direct examination of a student’s ability to use knowledge to perform a task that is like what is encountered in real life or in the real world.  Authenticity is judged in the nature of the task completed and in the context of the task,” (2004. p. 198).  From this we can see that Authentic Assessments ensures students are provided with an understanding both the benchmarks and criteria of marking before they commence the assessment task.  These Authentic Assessments require students to design, create, deliver and justify the thinking behind their response (McMillan, 2004, p. 198).  We will explore Authentic Assessment using a systems analysis approach to deconstruct and analyse the importance of its incorporation into today’s classrooms to maximise students educational and life success (Marzano et al., 1999, p. 246). 

Newman’s (2010) image of the Framework for 21st Century Learning highlights the need for change within our education system, ensuring we provide students with the skills, knowledge and expertise needed within both their personal and professional lives to ensure success for our future.  When looking at these skills we begin to see the parallels with the skills that develop through the inclusion of authentic assessment within educational institutions.

The concept behind this type of assessment may appear simple; however, deeper examination reveals the key concepts to be considered to ensure its success are-

ž  student’s ability to build and integrate knowledge

ž  incorporation of their unique understanding of their socio-cultural environment 

ž  individualised higher order thinking (HOT) abilities

ž  knowledge identification skills

ž  habits of mind (HoM)

We know that these skills are essential for lifelong, futures orientated learner that are needed for our society of today and tomorrow, therefore, providing the connection between learning today and Authentic Assessment (Wiggins, 1998, p. 25). 

The Department of Education, Training and Employment’s statement, “The teacher designs authentic assessment activities and experiences by engaging students in tasks that simulate life experiences.  Teachers are required to use a variety of authentic assessment tools that allow students to demonstrate their abilities to process and apply information, skills, and concepts in different ways,”  shows that the Australian Government understands the importance of focusing on the inclusion of 21^st century learning for the growth and development of our nation (2009, p. 29).

References

Department of Education, Training and Employment. (2009). On The Same Page. Retrieved        from             http://pan.search.qld.gov.au/search/search.cgi?profile=education&query=authentic+as            sessment&collection=qld-gov&form=simple

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D.J., Arradondo, D.E., Blackburn, G.J., Brandt, R.S., Moffett,              C.A., Paynter, D.E., Pollock, J.E., & Whisler, J.S. (1997). Dimensions of Learning (2^nd ed.).Alexandria, Virginia, USA: ASCD Publications.

McMillan, J. H. (2004). Classroom assessment principles and practice for effective             instruction (3^rd ed.). Boston, MA, USA: Person Education Inc.

Newman, B. (2010). Partnerships  for 21^st Century Skills. Retrieved from             http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/tag/partnership-for-21st-century-skills/

Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative Assessment Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Performance. San Francisco, California, USA: Jossey-Bass.