VKP Glossary

	Click on the links below to explore the concepts:
	Active Learning Authentic Assessment Authentic Learning Cognitive Apprenticeship Constructivism Distributed Intelligence Inquiry-Based Learning Intermediate Cognitive Processes Learner Centered Novice and Expert Learners Peer Review Prior Knowledge Problem-Based Learning Scholarship of Teaching Uncoverage Understanding

Authentic Assessment

From: M. Suzanne Donovan, John D. Bransford, and James W. Pellegrino (eds.), How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice, xvii.

Assessments must reflect the learning goals that define various environments. If the goal is to enhance understanding and applicability of knowledge, it is not sufficient to provide assessments that focus primarily on memory of facts and formulas.

From: John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking (eds.), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, http://books.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/ch6.html.

The key principles of assessment are that they should provide opportunities for feedback and revision and that what is assessed must be congruent with one's learning goals.

From: Grant Wiggins (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 2(2).
http://ericae.net/pare/getvn.asp?v=2&n=2.

Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks. Traditional assessment, by contract, relies on indirect or proxy "items"--efficient, simplistic substitutes from which we think valid inferences can be made about the student's performance at those valued challenges.

Authentic assessments require students to be effective performers with acquired knowledge. Traditional tests tend to reveal only whether the student can recognize, recall or "plug in" what was learned out of context.
Authentic assessments present the student with the full array of tasks that mirror the priorities and challenges found in the best instructional activities: conducting research; writing, revising and discussing papers; providing an engaging oral analysis of a recent political event; collaborating with others on a debate, etc. Conventional tests are usually limited to paper-and-pencil, one-answer questions.
Authentic assessments attend to whether the student can craft polished, thorough and justifiable answers, performances or products. Conventional tests typically only ask the student to select or write correct responses--irrespective of reasons. (There is rarely an adequate opportunity to plan, revise and substantiate responses on typical tests, even when there are open-ended questions).