Your Turn: Draft an Authentic Assessment

Purpose

Creating an authentic assessment requires thoughtful planning and deliberate alignment with learning outcomes. This is an ungraded practice activity to give you an opportunity to apply what you've learned about authentic assessment to a specific outcome in your course. There's nothing to turn in; we just wanted you to have a chance to give it a whirl. ;-)

Instructions

Use the following six steps to create an authentic assessment that offers your students an opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills in real-world contexts. Feel free to use one of your existing assignments as a starting point.

Step 1

Learning outcomes are the knowledge and skills that you want your students to acquire through your course. If you haven't yet, clearly identify the most important learning outcome(s) that you want to assess through this particular authentic assessment. (SLO-level outcomes won't be useful here; aim for topic/unit-level outcomes.)

Step 2

Next, choose the type of authentic assessment that aligns with your learning outcomes and fits well with your discipline. As we've discussed, there are several types of authentic assessments.  

Step 3

Once you have identified the learning outcome(s) and chosen the assessment type, you're ready to create the assessment prompt. The assessment prompt should be a real-world problem or scenario that requires students to apply their knowledge and skills. The prompt and instructions should be clear and concise and include all the necessary information for students to complete the assessment successfully.

Step 4

An effective scoring rubric clearly outlines the criteria for grading the assessment. It should include the specific criteria for evaluating the quality of students' work, such as the accuracy of the solution, the use of evidence, and the effectiveness of the communication. The rubric should also include the grading scale and the weighting of each criterion.

Step 5

Before administering the assessment to students, we recommend pilot testing the assessment with a small group of students or colleagues. This will help you identify any problems with the assessment prompt or scoring rubric and make necessary adjustments before using it with your class.

Step 6

Administer the authentic assessment to your students, and provide them with feedback that aligns with the scoring rubric. The feedback should be specific and constructive, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each student's work.

Submission

There is no submission. This is intended as guided practice for your professional development.

The steps above were generated by ChatGPT-3 ;-) and edited after critical reflection by me. Source: ChatGPT-3. May 2, 2023. Query: "Write an assignment for college instructors on creating an authentic assessment in their discipline." Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/.