One of the reasons I have chosen authentic assessment is because of the way it does promotes student engagement, which in this context is so important, especially with the advent of new technologies which provide students new tools to express themselves through real world connections. That is why I was so fascinated with Jon Mueller’s article on “The Authentic Assessment Toolbox: Enhancing Student Learning through Online Faculty Development.” I wholeheartedly agree with his definition that authentic assessment must be connected to real problems and tasks that ask students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills through meaningful applications. I think this kind of assessment is much more meaningful, and has greater value of the characteristics of the learner and the individual, rather than subject them to these norm-based standardized tests, which in no real context measures the true value of the learner.
The three lessons or activities that are shown here(hypothetically), and later (realistically) implemented will all be a part of a module that will focus on the 4th grade social studies content standard on the Gold Rush. The first assessment will be an online quiz based on students reading an article. After reading the article students will go to my classroom website and take the quiz. I chose this way of assessment because of its ability to get immediate feedback, enhance motivation, facilitate self-assessment, and also provide efficient scoring.
Assessment 1-Online Quiz
Online Quiz:
The second lesson the students will be required to participate in is to reflect on a question about the Gold Rush. Students will access this question through my classroom webpage and proceed to the classroom blog where they will respond to the question at hand. They will also be responsible for responding to other entries by their classmates. It will be very important to monitor the discussion, and offer feedback of my own. I am currently working with 4th graders so this will be very important, because I think we all know what kids at that age are capable of, so it is essential to set guidelines, and use of proper etiquette. This asynchronous kind of communication and discussion is crucial because it provides students with a time to reflect on the question, a way of synthesizing the information, encourages collaboration with their classmates, and also provides self-assessment. In addition I will include a rubric for their blog entries
Assessment 2-Asynchronous Discussion/Blog
Question: Who were the key individuals in California during the Gold Rush and why did they prosper while others did not?
Rubric:
The third and final assessment, will be based on a final project that the students will create on the Gold Rush using Photostory. This project also includes a rubric. Students will also be responsible for presenting their project to the class. This encompasses both design and creation of a product, as well as, a presentation made by the students. Both encourage motivation. Designing and creating will develop synthesis of the information to the point of mastering the skill. This type of assessment also allows for self-reflection.
Assessment 3: Final Project/Presentation
Rubric:
I know for myself, both as a teacher and a student that where I did my best work was with authentic assessment connecting me to real world issues, problems, and tasks in very meaningful ways. Isn’t that what it is really all about?
References:
Maxwell, M. (June, 2004). Continuous assessment; guaranteed learning? Distance Education Report. Retrieved on-line May 23, 2010 from http://blackboard.csusb.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_41304_1
Mueller, J. (July, 2005). The Authentic assessment toolbox: Enhancing student learning through online faculty development. Merlot Jounal of Oneline Learning and Teaching 1(1). Retrieved on-line May 23, 2010 from http://blackboard.csusb.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_41304_1
Simonson, M.,. Smaldino, S., Albright, M., and Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education, 4th Ed. Allyn & Bacon. Boston, MA.
Teaching Through Collaboration Blog 
Robert, I have to confess that the first thing I did was take your test without reading the article to see how much of my history I remembered. We won’t discuss the results. 😉 I am impressed with your assessment and the progression from simple comprehension to synthsis in three steps. You made good use of Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Providing parental access to the blog would be a great way for parents to see what their children are doing in class and observe their progress by watching the photostory. Well done. I do have one questions. Does you classroom blog provide you administrative power to remove or edit blogs posted by your students in the event of inappropriate contetn? P
Robert I love this unit. I love to see programs that are designed to create life time learning for students. I have a feeling that most of these students will want to visit Sutter’s Mill sometime in their life. Your assessments promote that natural progression toward higher thinking skills. I think it will be really interesting to have the students blog and respond to each other’s blogs. You will have quite a job keeping up with the blogs, but I think the students will suddenly discover a desire to read and write. They will probably bug you all day to check up on what people wrote to them. I like the quiz that you designed. It will give them immediate feedback and that is good. Plus you don’t have to spend hours grading it. I am off to Idaho in a few.
I didn’t take the quiz right away, but I did after reading Donna’s comment. LOL
I think it is a great idea to get kids this young into the idea of blogging and interacting online. It will take some monitoring and maybe even prodding to get more than “like your blog” comments (but that can be true with any age).
I think photostory is a great idea also. When I beta tested my project I used an assignment where students became a molecule of water at the headwaters of any river in the world. They had to blog with photos and illustrations of ocean currents documenting their trip around the world. I had good results with that project and I think you will as well. It can really open the world for them and let them see it is real.
BTW, I am impressed with your utilization of DSUSD issued webspace!
–Kenny
Wow, great work, Robert!
The all three assessment (the online quiz, the reflective writing, and the photostory development) seem to very relevant to your target audience and to the content. It would be better if CA content standards are included because the course is designed for your 4th grade students.
I agree with you on that authentic assessments allow students to connect their projects/assessments with real world situations. Last week I visited Johnson elementary in the school district (Desert Sand) you are working at and observed one teacher who guided students to develop photostory projects on the US state. Students really seem to enjoy their project.
In order to highlight sprit of authentic assessments into photostory project, you might want to make a scenario through which students can make connections between their projects and the assessment. For example, instead of telling them to a photostory project, you may project a specific real world scenario for example,
“you are a newspaper reporter in the era of CA gold rush. You need to tell people what is going on …”
This is a just brainstorming…I believe you can create a more convincible scenario.
Kenny chose the authentic assessment strategies too. Please take a look at his posting if you haven’t done so.
PS: This comment is nothing to do with this week’s project. I like your website a lot that will serve as a great supporting tool for your students and parents. You may want to change the backgournd image of the website. It seemed too busy… that may increase extraneous cognitive load (based on the Cognitive load theory we learned together).
Baek
Hi Robert, Well ditto to all the positive comments above. In Jonathan Mueller’s article he points out that the K-12 educators often lead the way for the IHE educators and this is a good example. I’m struggling with the issue of immediate feedback for quizzes that goes beyond right/wrong. I’d like to structure re-teaching into the quiz as soon as a student gets a wrong answer. I’m interested in integrating instruction and assessment into one interaction – as it happens in many classroom teaching-learning interactions. I wanted to do it for this assignment but I don’t have the technology skills yet. I’m sure there’s a resource I’m missing that could do it. Anyway, thanks for the successful model! Sue
It’s great that you’ve included three completely different assignments; one for the test-takers, one for the writers, and one for the presenters. I took your online quiz and I love how it shows the percentage as you get one right or wrong. I think getting your 4th graders to begin discussion through blogging will benefit them for future grades. If they’ve never done blogging before, you might want to sample what you are looking for. That’s what I did when I had 5th grade. I modeled what a good response would look like and vice versa. The only thing about modeling is that they tend to do exactly what you modeled, even if it has nothing to do with the topic (they’re funny like that). I’m big on presentations, even for my 1st graders right now. They are presenting environment dioramas and reports that they made. What makes me so happy is they are having so much fun doing this project, and they don’t even know that it’s an assessment. That’s the best kind of assessment, when it’s stress free!
Robert, I think you did a great job, but I am confused about how this is “authentic”. Authentic to me would be making a chart about how the price of gold has gone up since the economy has tanked, and why gold has been important before the Gold Rush and since. What “real world” issues or problems are the students connecting to? My browser isn’t working right, so maybe I missed something in the links.