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.