EDTECH 503: Mod 4 - Learning Analysis and Assessment

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“When it comes to authentic assessments, does a checklist cut it?”

What is Authentic Assessment?

I constantly asked myself this question throughout the assessment design process this week. As a former K-12 teacher, I found the best learning and highest levels of student motivation came when the learning occurred during the multiple stages of project development. It did not come when disconnected learning units were occasionally punctuated by multiple choice tests. Knowing what you have to complete, be it a travel website in Spanish or a persuasive essay for a competition, and why that matters can go a long way.

In other words, the why was often as important as the how. If a student is not sure how their newly constructed knowledge can be used in meaningful ways, there is risk that the student will “drop” the new information to make make mental space for more significant information. Therefore, to encourage long-term learning, an instructional designer should attempt to include authentic assessments when possible.

What is an authentic assessment, anyways? Smith and Ragan (2005, p. 108) draw upon various scholars' definitions in order to come to a complete picture of authentic assessment. Initially they define authentic assessments to be those that are not “separated conceptually from the remainder of the learning process.” By this definition, creating an authentic assessment could simply be a matter of placing the assessment in the curriculum at the right stage, such as after a series of tasks in a long process, or making sure the assessment truly tests the skills necessary for completing a task, like actually welding one piece to another instead of taking a multiple choice test on proper welding procedures.

However, later Smith and Ragan (2005, p. 112) mention authentic assessment in terms of performance assessments, and it is here they mention that these assessments will also typically test "higher-order thinking skills" and have "real world" applicability. Along the sames lines as Smith and Ragan, John Mueller’s (2014) explanation appropriately takes it a step further by adding an authentic assessment is “a form...in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills.” This better fits my understanding of an authentic assessment - it’s not just a matter of making the assessment fit “conceptually” with the rest of the learning process, but one of creating an assessment that requires performance that closely mirrors performance on the job or other authentic situation.

I like this conception of authentic assessment. It makes sense to me and fits naturally into my existing schema for proper assessment techniques. However, I do understand that just because an assessment isn't authentic, doesn't mean it isn't valid, reliable, or provide opportunity for demonstrating mastery of concepts.

Collaborative Learning: Peer Suggestions

Since my Instructional Design (ID) project is largely procedural in nature, using a checklist seemed like the natural choice for assessment. Many of my peers provided excellent feedback this week for my ID project. For example, I got some great suggestions regarding my forms of assessment and ways to expand beyond checklists.

At this point, let provide a little background information. My project is very procedural in terms of the tasks it requires learners to complete while constructing a final product, and because of this, my choice of assessment is primarily a checklist of items used to determine if the learner had or had not completed the task. Take a quick look at the project goal and you’ll begin to see what I mean:

The target audience will be Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA) at a large research university that are currently teaching at least one course for the university’s College of Education.

After two hours of instruction, learners will be able to use a course-provided iPad to record classroom activities, edit the file using iMovie, save the file to a laptop, and then upload the video to a module in an online course using the Moodle Learning Management System.

As far as evaluating each task for completion, there is not much room for interpretation or scale (in the form of a rubric); so many of the tasks are binary in nature. For example, did the learner turn on the iPad? Did the learner position successfully log in as an administrator on the website? Unlike, say, a written evaluation that requires a learner to critique two contrasting viewpoints, the tasks for my ID project do not leave much room for partial or “developing” mastery.

Therefore, moving forward I should start to research other methods of formative assessment for procedural tasks. As far as summative assessments, I think I’m set - the learner will have completed multiple artifacts by the end of the program that can be evaluated using a criterion-based rubric. So for the formative assessments, I plan to draw on the recommendations of my peers, a bit of digging online, and referring to some of our course texts for ideas.

References

Mueller, J. (2014). What is authentic assessment. Retrieved from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whatisit.htm


Smith, P., & Ragan, T. (2005). Instructional design. (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Jossey-Bass Education.