Unit 3: Creating Authentic Assessments

Creating Authentic Assessement

According to NEA.org, the website for the National Education Association, there are several steps to creating an Authentic Assessment. In this unit, we will use these steps as the basis of our lessons.

By the end of this unit, participants should be able to:

• identify standards, goals, & tasks for their authentic assessment
• create a rubric for their authentic assessment

Lesson 1: Creating the Assessment

Step 1: Identify your Goals & Standards

Before you can begin creating your assessment, you must first identify the goals & standards that your assessment will cover. Because the purpose of this unit is to create a usable and relevant assessment, keep in mind your current unit of study and create your assessment for this unit.

First, begin with the end in mind and use backwards design. Decide what concepts or skills you are assessing. What are the goals? What should your students be able to do? And how will they know how to display their knowledge?

Next, decide which of the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language) standards are most feasibly assessed based on your current unit of study & create a list of standards & goals.

Step 2: Select Authentic Tasks

Next, you must decide what tasks will be included in your assessment. An authentic task is... "an assignment given to students designed to assess their ability to apply standard-driven knowledge and skills to real-world challenges." (nea.org)

In other words, you should select tasks that force students to use the concepts or skills you are trying to assess in a real-world context. For example, if you are assessing students' knowledge of food vocabulary, you could have them create a menu for a new restaurant rather than giving them a simple matching quiz.

Types of Authentic Assessment tasks include:

• constructed-response questions that involve critical thinking & application of skills
• creating a product
• performance tasks

Click this link to see examples of these tasks in the NEA's Authentic Assessment Toolbox: Examples of Authentic Tasks

Next, decide what authentic tasks you will include in your assessment and create a list.

Lesson 2: Creating the Rubric

Rubrics are an ideal way to evaluate authentic assessments because they include more subjective criteria. Teachers can evaluate how well students have met the criteria and to what degree they have a handle on the concept or skill being assessed.

The two parts of a rubric are the two axis, criteria & the level to which the student has met the criteria. The latter is usually assessed on a number scale.

There are 3 main benefits to using rubrics (nea.org)

• clearer expectations (students can see from the beginning how they expected to display their knowledge)
• more consistent & objective assessment (allows the teacher to be more objective when criteria is explained)
• better feedback (students can more easily see areas that need improvement)

There is no "magic number" for number of criteria for your rubric. Instead, decide what criteria you are evaluating based on the goals and standards you identified in Lesson 1.

First, decide on your criteria & number scale.

Next, create descriptors. For each criteria, ask yourself what the perfect example looks like, what the worst example looks like, and everything in between! Your descriptors should make it obvious to your students how they can show what they know & get full credit.

When your assessment is complete, go on to Unit 4

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