Here are the first few links I viewed:
TeacherVision- Where I learned that authentic assessment is basically testing students on their street smarts. That's right, you heard it here, street. smarts. I am amazed, I've been saying all along that being really book smart is only so good, but if you can't apply it out in the real world you are pretty much S.O.L. (sorry, blunt is how I work). And now researchers are agreeing with me (*Squeal*)
Eduplace- This website told me that authentic assessment was a way of having students learn important knowledge and then having them apply it to a real-world scenario. As an educator you can still give tests and have your students write papers, but you should be teaching and therefor assessing ideas that are important outside of the classroom.
So after having read both of these sites I went back to the article and took out a few things I thought were important, and that I agreed with. One of those lovely snippets is as follows
"Students are entitled to a more educative and user-friendly assessment system. They deserve far more feedback -- and opportunities to use it -- as part of the local assessment process."
This could not be more true. Students, of all ages, need prompt feedback in order to learn. There is no way a student is going to do better on the next paper if they have yet to get back the previous paper. There is no point in testing a math solution without going over ALL the questions that were wrong. This is another form of Authentic Assessment. As a teacher we need to be sure that our students are learning. My other professor said, last night, that there is no teaching going on unless there is learning going on. I wrote that down. I think that knowing this is SO important. If we as teachers aren't checking to make sure our students are learning then we are failing to teach, and thus failing them. Students deserve to know how they are doing, and I am pretty sure they will do better if they are more engaged.
Another piece of this article that caught my attention was this
"A good education makes knowledge, skill, and ideas useful. Assessment should determine whether you can use your learning, not merely whether you learned stuff."
These two sentences solidified my opinion that children need to be street smart. No where in the article does the writer use those words, but really, it's true. We can teach kids all we want about the Civil War, The Great Gatsby, Factoring Polynomials and Dissection but if they can't use these skills and the information learned then what good is it? I am a key example, I am terrified to take my Praxis 1 exam this summer, I'm dreading it, not because I can't read or write, but because I am horrible at Math. My teachers did not give me any real-world reason to learn about why it takes so long for two trains to get from Boston to New York, taking different tracks. It was boring, and the assessments I was given seemed routine and pointless.
All of that being said, I love that I am in an education program. I am learning so much about how the profession is changing and requiring that teachers do more to engage their students. Authentic Assessment is just one way. If we can engage our students they will want to learn. And one key way of engaging is providing knowledge that will stick with them for purposeful reasons, just not just because a curriculum calls for it.
I was terrified about taking my Praxis as well. I studied from a book I bought at Barnes & Noble for about 20.00 and it was worth every penny. It reviewed and taught me so much about how the test was prepared. I learned how to write the essay the way they were grading it and also a lot of math that I had not learned in high school, and I even majored in math in college! Also another thing I had not learned was how to use venn diagrams. I gave my book away or I would bring it to you! :) You'll do great!
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