Introduction to Blended and Online Teaching: Post #4

Do you believe that authentic assessment is possible in every subject area? Can students at every grade level demonstrate mastery through authentic assessment? Why or why not? It it practical to ask teachers to complete these types of activities in the current, high stakes testing environment?

I do believe that authentic assessment is possible in every subject area.  Some areas will be a bit trickier and require a bit more creativity and thought than others, but I feel it is possible.  As a kindergarten teacher, and an educator who has a little experience with other grade levels up through fifth grade, I feel as thought all students could demonstrate mastery through authentic assessment.  At the kindergarten level, the logistics of it and creating an evaluation tool can be a bit difficult, but it can be done.  

I enjoyed the video and article about the School of the Future (SOF) because I love the way it portrayed authentic assessment. It is about real-life, engaging and promoting critical thinking.  If we work toward the majority of our assessments being just that, we are working toward creating better adults for the workplace.  They will be prepared for life, and all the curveballs life throws!

In addition, I liked the point Michele Eaton made in her video, "Assessment Tools for Online Learning," when she stated that it was important to create an assessment where the answers couldn't just be googled.  If we want to get a true read on the understanding of the students in our classrooms, we have to ensure that our questions require critical thinking.

In the article "Ten Takeaway Tips for using Authentic Assessment in Your School," my favorite tip was to permit the student to take charge of their own assessments occasionally throughout the course of the unit.  Taking amongst one another, given thoughts and opinions can be a great indicator of the level of understanding.  If they can talk about it and explain their point of view to another student - they get it!

In conclusion, while I feel authentic assessment is important, it isn't practical to ask teachers to make the transition this as the only method of assessment.  I think it certainly has it place in the classroom, but teachers only have so much planning time.  I think it would be reasonable to require a certain amount of documented authentic assessment each semester and work as a school district to increase that amount each year.  I would love to see the standardized testing required by the state to be replaced by a more authentic assessment.