what are authentic tasks in education

Increasing Authenticity in the Classroom

Real-life scenarios enhance lessons and shouldn’t require teachers to completely overhaul their practices.

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One of the important lessons we have learned from Covid-19 is that the real world permeates the classroom whether we like it or not. Of course, a virus isn’t the only real world that we face on a daily basis. From political strife to global warming, our students and teachers are constantly interfacing with the world outside the classroom and often finding it hard to juxtapose both in class curriculum and outside contexts.

Teachers want to leverage the real world in their classrooms. But how?

Before looking at a few helpful habits, let’s define authenticity . Authenticity may be best defined as a set of experiences in which teachers and students engage in contexts and content that align with real-world experiences, and students have choice in the experiences. As such, authenticity is not a binary concept in the classroom. The question is not whether we have authenticity. The question is, to what degree are we exhibiting authenticity at this time?

Beyond increasing the degree of authenticity in the classroom, we need to find ways to make practices doable for time-starved teachers. One way to consider moving toward authenticity in the classroom is stacking new habits with what teachers are already doing in the classroom. Stacking is the idea that we integrate a new habit with habits we already have in place.

Stacking is focused on embedding a habit before, during, or after something we already do. The following stacking prompts may be helpful:

• Before I do the following, I will...
• After I do the following, I will...
• In between, I will...

To move toward increasing authenticity in our classroom, high-leverage authenticity habits fall within three key areas: contexts, content, and choice. Let’s review each area and evaluate important questions and a few suggested habits.

Context is the degree to which students and teachers are engaging in contemporaneous, real-world situations, opportunities, challenges, and people.

Students are drawn to problems of the present and problems that connect to them in some way. They are buzzing with questions such as what’s happening now, how does that connect to me and the people I care about, and how can I help solve that problem?

Such questions are all powerful motivators for kids. The past and future are used as fuel for students’ contemporaneous drive. The following questions and habits are wonderful ways to promote a greater level of real-world contexts in the classroom.

Key questions and suggested habits:

• How does this task, activity, or lesson connect to my life presently?
• Where does this idea apply right now in the world? Across how many contexts?
• Who is working on these problems presently?
• Who can I engage within these contexts to learn about opportunities and challenges, various perspectives, and potential people and organizations that I may be able to work with over the course of study?

Before starting a new unit, teachers may want to introduce students to a real-world professional or community member impacted by a problem who will task them with working to understand and solve the challenge. This would include interviewing community members and reading about the current situation.

Another habit to consider would be embedding a question on each day’s exit ticket that asks students to brainstorm the number of contexts that apply to what the class is learning. Their responses can then be reviewed the next morning via a think-pair-share.

Content is the degree to which teachers and students are engaging in the academic knowledge and skills that are used in the real world.

Research continues to show that the ability to engage in real-world tasks and apply learning requires core content knowledge within the actual real-world situation. To promote the development of core content as a means of increasing authenticity, teachers should consider the following questions and habits.

• To what extent do the task and context relate to the content area (discipline) I’m learning about?
• To what extent do I need to learn surface and deep knowledge in one or more disciplines to get through the authentic challenges I’m working on?

Before students engage in a problem-based experience, teachers can incorporate a pre-assessment and engage in direct instruction for those students who need it. Or, after a lesson is completed, teachers can have students discuss the similarities and differences between what they have learned in class and the knowledge and skills they would need in different real-world situations.

Choice is the degree to which students and teachers have autonomy within the confines of an authentic context.

Students need a level of defined autonomy in the classroom. Clear boundaries surrounding a set of choices for students potentially include the specific question(s) to work on, the products to create, the choice of group members to work with, and the means for navigating group dynamics and choice of problem-solving strategies. The following questions and habits are helpful to prime such discussions.

• Where do I have an opportunity to express my perspective on the product/presentation/process/work structure (group)?
• To what extent do I have a choice in how I display my work? Where are the boundaries of my choice?

Before students begin creating a product, teachers can have them present their choice to others and receive feedback using a tuning protocol. Another option would be to have students work in groups and reflect on successes and challenges of their individual and collective decision-making using a critical friends protocol.

Authenticity doesn’t require field trips or yearly projects. Authenticity requires daily embedded practices that bring the real world into our classrooms. With a few shifts in our practice, we can bring authenticity into our classrooms and into our students’ daily lives.

15 Authentic Assessment Examples (Definition and Critique)

Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Dave Cornell (PhD)

Dr. Cornell has worked in education for more than 20 years. His work has involved designing teacher certification for Trinity College in London and in-service training for state governments in the United States. He has trained kindergarten teachers in 8 countries and helped businessmen and women open baby centers and kindergartens in 3 countries.

Authentic assessment is a way of assessing student learning by having students apply what they learned to real-life scenarios . The goal is for students to demonstrate they have learned the material by transferring classroom knowledge to situations that resemble the outside world.

So, the teacher creates various situations that mimic those found in everyday life and then the student is observed applying their knowledge to that situation.

Authentic Assessment Definition

Authentic assessment emerged as a counterpoint to the rise of norm-referenced standardized testing in the 1980s onward.

Generally, the key scholars cited when discussing authentic assessment are Archbald and Newmann (1989). Newmann defines it like this:

“…the extent to which a lesson, assessment task, or sample of student performance represents construction of knowledge through the use of disciplined inquiry that has some value or meaning beyond success in school” (Newmann, 1997, p. 361)

Here the key idea is that the assessment is linked to out-of-school application of knowledge rather than simply summative assessments in the form of purely theoretical and standardized tests.

The Strength of Authentic Assessment

The central strength of authentic assessment is that it encourages educators to focus on application of knowledge at school to real life. It aims to work against the narrative that school doesn’t prepare students for the real world.

Reinforcing this point, Wiggins argues that authentic assessment tasks are all about applicability to the world beyond school:

“The tasks [in authentic assessment should be] either replicas of or analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consumers or professionals in the field” (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229)

Traditional assessment techniques such as quizzes and exams are useful ways to assess memory of basic facts and concepts. However, authentic assessment is a way to evaluate if students can put that knowledge to use to solve a real-world problem.

Critiques of Authentic Assessment

• Lack of Clear Definition of Authenticity : Authentic assessment sounds like a great concept, but critics often highlight that the idea lacks clarity. There are few systematic explanations of how an assessment is authentic.
• Quality of Assessment is Questionable; If teachers use authentic assessment as a turn away from norm-referenced standardized tests, then the rigor and testability of student assessment may be lost. There are no clear guidelines on how to measure or grade an ‘authentic’ assessment piece.
• Authenticity is not always Achieved: It is also questionable as to whether an assessment is truly authentic just because it mirrors a real-life scenario. A flight simulator may be considered more authentic than a theoretical test about how to fly a plane, but it is by no means an authentic experience in the same way as actually flying an airplane.

Authentic Assessment Examples

• Creating models: A physics teacher has students work in teams to design and construct a paper bridge and then see how much weight it can support.
• Using scenarios from the workforce: The final exam in a radiology course involves students being given a set of 5 X-rays that they have to sort in terms of priority of treatment.
• Engaging with the profession: A business administration professor may require students to construct their own employee satisfaction survey, collect data, and produce 3 graphs that display the key findings.
• Pitching ideas to professionals: Advertising majors are required to design a comprehensive ad campaign for the product of their choice and then pitch it to a small group of faculty.  
• Demonstrating practical skills: Music majors are required to give a recital at the end of the course as part of their final exam.
• Engaging in mock-up scenarios: Students in a criminology course are taken to a mock crime scene and tasked with looking for clues and formulating an initial theory of what happened.
• Creating reports on real life scenarios: Students in a home economics course make a comprehensive budget for a middle-class family of five that includes all utility bills, insurance fees and taxes, and disposable income allocations.
• Creating a valuable program or app: Computer science majors are given a specific period of time to program a cyber-security firewall that can stop at least 3 out of 5 viruses set to attack their computer.
• Collecting samples from the field: Biology students are sent into the field where they must collect three soil samples at different locations on a farm and then analyze the nitrate and phosphorous levels of each sample.
• Getting real customers: Instead of just creating a business plan, going the next step and creating the business and getting real customers, then being assessed on implementation rather than just planning.

Detailed Examples

1. mock trial.

Learning about statutes in a university course on criminal law can be tedious, and grueling. There is a ton of case law to read and grades can be based on writing a lot of papers. However, integrating authentic assessment can be a way for students to practice their skills in a life-like situation.

For example, the professor divides the class into teams of three. Each team is given the same details of a criminal law case and then assigned to play the role of prosecution or defense. Of course, the professor will play the role of judge.

After two weeks of preparation, the students participate in a mock trial.

Each side gets to present their case, call witnesses, and conduct questioning.

This kind of mock trial can become as complex as time will allow. That can range from a short and simple presentation of arguments, to an event that involves every step of the process, from jury selection, to the preparation of courtroom exhibits and closing arguments.

Memorizing case law is one form of learning, but applying that law to the courtroom requires a completely different set of skills.

2. Comic Strip Adaptation

Comic books have made a comeback in the lives of teenagers. The interesting color schemes, artistic style, and action-oriented illustrations capture the attention of youth today.

That presents an opportunity for teachers. For example, a language arts teacher may assign a short story reading about a historical event or current affair.

These topics might be boring to some students, but when the teacher announces that the assignment involves students making their own comic books that portray those historical events, faces start to brighten-up.

The teacher explains that students will work in small groups and make a short comic book about the event they learned about. The number of pages are specified as well as other requirements regarding historical accuracy and the citing of facts, but beyond that, it’s up to the students.

This is an example of students taking information and knowledge they have learned in one medium, and then transferring it to another.

3. Anthropology Class

Believe it or not, anthropology students need to know a lot about human anatomy. The chemical composition of a skeleton can reveal a lot about the living environment and dietary intake of the person’s life when they were alive.

To put students’ knowledge of skeletal anatomy to the test, an anthropology professor has buried various bones in a designated location on campus. The bones come from both male and female skeletons, young and old, and different ethnicities. Just for fun, the prof throws in a few animal bones too, just to make things interesting.

The students work in groups, are assigned different plots, and given a specific period of time to unearth the bones, examine them thoroughly, and identify the designated characteristics.

Grades can be based on accuracy and how long it took for each team to complete the task. However, any team that mistook an animal femur for a human’s automatically fails.

4. Writing Employment Ads

After completing the chapter on job descriptions in an HR course, the instructor gives the students a true test of their understanding. They are to assume they work for the government and must write a job description and employment ad for a given job.

First, the class is broken down into small groups. Then, various job titles are written on slips of paper, folded, and placed in a hat. Each group selects a slip of paper and then gets started.

The assignment sounds simple enough and most groups finish within t0 minutes. They turn in their assignment and get to leave class early. However, one group seems to be taking a bit longer. The instructor investigates.

That group decides that their first step is to find a full and detailed job description from the appropriate government department, the pay scale schedule for that government position, and study the federal guidelines on equal employment from the EEOC .  They finish the assignment just in time.

At the next class, the instructor reveals that all groups failed the assignment except for the last one. The failing groups wrote ads that contained statements that are illegal and violate EEOC guidelines.

As the professor explained, had those ads actually been published, the company would have been sued for discriminatory practices and the head of HR most likely fired.

5. Healthy Habits Program

Being healthy is about more than just eating right and getting some exercise. It also includes establishing good sleep habits, developing a social support system, and a positive perspective on life.

So, students in nutrition, physical education, and health psychology courses are assigned a collaborative project. By working in small teams, they are to design a comprehensive Healthy Habits program for middle schools.

The program must contain several key components of health : physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual. Assessment of outcomes must include a rubric of both physical and psychological domains.

The students are given until the end of the academic term to design their programs and grades will be determined through peer assessment.

Authentic assessment takes a very pragmatic approach to evaluating student outcomes. Instead of asking students to repeat memorized facts or write abstract essays, they are tasked with demonstrating skills.

Teachers create situations that resemble those often encountered in an actual job, and the students attempt to resolve whatever challenges exist in that situation. Grades are based on observed performance.

Any type of course can include authentic assessment. Law students might perform in a mock trial, anthropology students may need to dig up a few bones and identify who they belong to, or students in an HR course may have to construct their own employee satisfaction survey. However, it is questionable as to whether authentic assessments can also be formal assessments or exams that can be administered en masse to compare students’ performances.

Archbald, D. & Newmann, F. (1989) “The Functions of Assessment and the Nature of Authentic Academic Achievement,” in Berlak (ed.) Assessing Achievement: Toward the development of a New Science of Educational Testing. Buffalo, NY: SUNY Press.

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J., & Brown, C. (2014). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39 (2), 205-222.

Cumming, J.J. & Maxwell, G.S. (1999). Contextualizing authentic assessment. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policies, and Practices, 6 (2), 177-194.

Newmann, F.M. (1997). Authentic assessment in social studies: Standards and examples. In G.D. Phye (Ed.), Handbook of classroom assessment: Learning, adjustment and achievement. San Diego, Ca: Academic Press.

Palm, T. (2008). Performance assessment and authentic assessment: A conceptual analysis of the literature.  Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation ,  13 (1), 4.

Wiggins, G. P. (1993). Assessing student performance . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Koh, K., Tan, C., & Ng, P. T. (2012). Creating thinking schools through authentic assessment: The case in Singapore. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 24 (2), 135-149. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-011-9138-y

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 23 Achieved Status Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Ableism Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Defense Mechanisms Examples
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Theory of Planned Behavior Examples

• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 23 Achieved Status Examples
• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 25 Defense Mechanisms Examples
• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 15 Theory of Planned Behavior Examples
• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ 18 Adaptive Behavior Examples

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• Write a Great Authentic Task

Great authentic tasks incorporate collaboration, real-world problems, community connections, and self-directed learning.

Project-based Learning engages students in projects that allow them to construct their own knowledge and develop authentic products while dealing with real-world issues. In order to challenge students on this level, it is helpful to frame their work with an authentic task.

Authentic tasks require students to demonstrate proficiency by applying existing knowledge to solve a real-world problem.

Authentic tasks create a bridge between what is learned in the classroom and why this knowledge is important to the world outside of the classroom. Authentic tasks are not meant to replace current classroom practice, but to provide another strategy to meet learning goals and measure student understanding.

What does an authentic task look like?

Consider immigration. An authentic task that addresses the essential question – “What factors contribute to successful relocation of new immigrants?” – should require students to apply their knowledge about past immigrants and the immigration process to solve a problem. For example:

Immigration Station

In the past four years, your city has had an influx of over 10,000 immigrants. Some of them have found work and are settling in, while others are having problems with assimilation and cultural differences. Due to your vast expertise on immigration, the mayor has asked you to join a newly-formed task force for successful immigrant relocation. Before the next budget is formed, the task force must devise a plan that will help these new immigrants relocate successfully in your city. Your plan might address housing, education, language barriers, cultural pride, job training, and health care.

Your task force will make a 15 minute presentation of what needs to be done. You should also have a list of expenses and a budget for implementing your plan.

Writing an authentic task is not an easy process, and your first few may be time consuming. You might choose to begin by looking on the Web and asking other teachers for samples. It is much easier to create authentic tasks once you have seen many examples.

When you are ready to write on your own authentic tasks, consider these ideas and questions.

Authentic or Real-World

The authentic, or real-world, nature of the task frames student work in a relevant and interesting way. The world of work provides many contexts for authentic tasks, but real-world connections can also be daily activities such as buying a house, determining nutritious meals for a family, and hosting a family celebration.

By requiring students to solve a real-world problem, an authentic task creates a bridge between the content learned in the classroom and why this knowledge is important in the world outside of it. Much of what we ask students to complete in the classroom is contrived. Life in the real world doesn’t usually ask you to choose from provided options A, B, C, or D.

An authentic task can help you make classroom work relevant to students by asking them to make these real-world decisions.

Consider these questions to help you give the task real-world relevance:

• Who might be faced with a problem that requires this knowledge?
• Where might they work?
• How would knowing this information affect a person’s life or work?

An authentic task should include the creation of some sort of product. Again, rarely in the world of work does an employee create something for no reason at all or complete a worksheet that someone else will never utilize.

What kind of product should students make? As you are exploring a task, think about a person in the real world who would complete this task. Where would they work? What would they make? The definition of a “product” is quite broad. For example:

• A lawyer makes an argument.
• A politician creates a position paper.
• A graphic designer creates an ad campaign.
• An environmental scientist helps to create policy.
• A dancer completes a performance.
• A director puts together a movie.

The creation of a product also provides students with an opportunity to demonstrate their learning. Because of this, you will need to make sure that the product created will demonstrate mastery of the topic and understanding of key concepts.

• What kind of product can students create to address this problem or situation?
• Who is the audience for this product?
• What value does this product have?

Interdisciplinary Study

Authentic tasks, by definition, involve study from a variety of different disciplines. The essential question helps to facilitate this by both requiring inquiry and work from within many different disciplines, and also by linking disciplines and blurring the lines between them.

As students work to answer the essential question, they draw from their experiences in a variety of disciplines and stretch their knowledge and understanding of many subjects. Students also benefit from connecting to learning that goes beyond the traditional walls of the school building. The world literally becomes the students’ learning space.

• What different subject areas are involved?
• Can we work with a different subject area teacher?
• Collaboration

Working in collaborative, heterogeneous teams prepares students for modern citizenship and work, as most complex communal, social, and workplace problems are solved by groups of individuals. Working in teams on complex problems requires skills and expertise, helping students identify their own strengths and weaknesses, and driving them to achieve their team goals.

• Can we collaborate in this classroom?
• Can we collaborate with another classroom?

Self-Direction

We often tell students what we want them to know; however, we often do not tell them why. Students’ involvement in their schoolwork increases significantly when they are taught why they are learning, and how these concepts can be used outside the classroom. Questioning how a classroom activity is relevant to the students who will be completing it is the first step on the long journey of developing a student-centered learning environment.

In answering the project’s essential question, students will be probing concepts and ideas in great detail and will not all be studying the exact same topic at the same time. A student-centered learning environment requires students to determine what and how information is learned. This improves their self-assessment skills, responsibility, and meta-cognition (learning how they learn). An authentic task also requires students to be responsible for locating the information and finding the answer on their own, with you as a resource or “guide on the side”.

Students, whether exploring on their own or in a group, are likely to investigate and study beyond the knowledge of their teacher. In this case, the teacher and students learn simultaneously and the students may enjoy the role of teaching their teacher. This, combined with the use of technology, creates an environment where it is impossible for the teacher to be the “sage on the stage”.

• Does the task allow students to choose the type of product they want to make?
• Does the task require students to become experts on the topic?

Reviewing Your Task

It may be impossible to include all of these recommendations for every task, but keeping them in mind will help maximize learning during the project. As your students complete your task, there will be many opportunities for discussion. Use these to help you expand the scope and make next year’s project even better!

by Melinda Kolk

Melinda Kolk ( @melindak ) is the Editor of Creative Educator and the author of Teaching with Clay Animation . She has been helping educators implement project-based learning and creative technologies like clay animation into classroom teaching and learning for the past 15 years.

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Authentic Assessment

Authentic assessment evaluates whether the student can successfully transfer the knowledge and skills gained in the classroom to various contexts, scenarios, and situations. Authentic Assessment is grounded in theoretical best practices for teaching and learning and serves as an effective measure for course learning outcomes. In many ways, it can be considered the difference between measuring what students know vs. how they can apply that knowledge. These types of assignments will vary by discipline but typically require students to complete a project. For example, you may ask students to apply an engineering problem to a real world example, develop a web application, design a model, critically review case studies, or create multimedia presentations.  This page has more information on authentic assessment.

What is authentic assessment?

An authentic assessment evaluates if the student can successfully transfer the knowledge and skills gained in the classroom to various contexts, scenarios, and situations beyond the classroom. Authentic assessments can include a myriad of assessment techniques including skill labs, experiments, presentations, simulations, role-plays, class/term projects, debates, discussions, etc. (University at Albany SUNY, n.d.).

The table below from Wiggins (1998) compares traditional assessments (tests and exams) to authentic assessments (tasks).

Source: Indiana University Bloomington's Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning

Why use authentic assessments?

Authentic assessments evaluate how students are learning the course material and subject matter over time. Traditional assessments such as quizzes and exams are useful in providing a snapshot of the students' mastery over the subject at a specific interval, but these assessments do not necessarily evaluate how the student can (or will) apply what was learned beyond the classroom.

Consider the way physicians, professional engineers, electricians, teachers, firefighters, and other professionals are assessed. Students of these professions must provide direct evidence they are competently applying learned knowledge/skills before being allowed to perform them in the real world. This is accomplished by way of an authentic assessment and does not solely rely on a written or oral exam (traditional assessment) (Mueller, n.d.).

Moreover, reliance on traditional assessments may prompt students to learn the material simply to pass the exam and then discard the material (or knowledge and skills) after the exam or course has been completed (Thompson, 2016). Authentic assessments provide students a chance to apply what they've learned and allows students to construct meaning about what they've been taught (Mueller, n.d.).

Lastly, authentic assessments do not have to be chosen over traditional assessments. A mix of both types of assessments can be effective, and in some cases (depending on the course objectives and outcomes), required.

Authentic assessments benefit students in a number of ways, but also present some challenges (adapted from  this resource  from the University of New South Wales Sydney).

Motivates students to deeply engage with the subject matter leading to more constructive and productive learning

Builds a portfolio of academic work, which is helpful for students to:

Reflect on and assess their own work and effort

Seek admission into advanced degree programs and continue their academic career

Pursue career opportunities after earning their degree

Aids students in preparing for the complexities of professional life by equipping them with relevant workplace skills

Prepares students for lifelong learning

Authentic, Formative, and Summative Assessment

There are two types of assessments frequently used in courses: formative and summative.

Formative assessments can be thought of as "spot checks" used throughout the course to assess the student's current grasp of the material and current mastery over the subject matter (e.g. pop quizzes). Formative assessments are focused on evaluating specific knowledge and/or skills at a specific point, the results of which can be used to improve learning as the course progresses (Indiana University Bloomington, n.d.).

Summative assessments are used to measure how well students have mastered the entirety of the material and subject matter sometimes by the mid-point of the course (mid-term) and/or at the end of the course (final).

Well-designed summative assessments can be authentic assessments requiring students to think like a practitioner of the field/discipline (Wiggins, 1998). Authentic (summative) assessments require a significant investment of time from both the student and the instructor. The student will be required to think critically and apply a myriad of skills (merging those learned within the course with those learned outside the course) to approach, evaluate, and solve a problem which may take weeks to solve (e.g. a final project). The instructor will need to take more time to evaluate and grade the students' work than they would if applying a traditional assessment technique such as a multiple choice exam.

How do you design authentic assessments?

The following infographic taken from the  Authentic Assessment Toolbox  created by Mueller (n.d.) provides a design map for creating authentic assessments:

Source: Jon Mueller's Authentic Assessment Toolbox

The first step (STANDARDS) involves reflecting on, writing down, and determining what the goals are for your students (re: course outcomes). Standards can be one-sentence statements or phrases of what students should know and/or be able to do at some point (e.g. "students must define single integrals by week 3"). Course outcomes and standards should be written using  Bloom's Action Verbs , which will help with designing the assessment and to measure how much of the material students have learned.

Read  Step 1 in the Authentic Assessment Toolbox  to learn more about standards.

Authentic Tasks

The second step (AUTHENTIC TASKS) determines how you will know students have met the standards written in Step 1. At this step, selection of the appropriate  authentic task(s)  is performed.

There are three types of authentic tasks:

• Constructed-Response: students construct responses out of previously learned and newly learned knowledge
• Production: students create a deliverable that demonstrates their ability to apply, analyze, and synthesize what they've learned
• Performance: students perform a task that demonstrates their ability to apply, analyze, and synthesize what they've learned

Read Step 2 in the Authentic Assessment Toolbox  to learn more about authentic tasks.

The third step (CRITERIA) establishes indicators of "good performance" on the authentic task(s) selected in Step 2. Students must achieve these criteria when completing authentic tasks to not only demonstrate what they've learned, but that they are also capable of effectively applying what they've learned.

Read Step 3 in the Authentic Assessment Toolbox  to learn more about criteria.

The fourth step (RUBRIC) measures the student's performance on the authentic task(s). Rubrics are essential for structuring the authentic assessment. To start building the rubric, use the criteria established in Step 3 and then decide whether to create an analytic rubric or holistic rubric.

An analytic rubric is used when performance will be evaluated for each criterion. A holistic rubric is used when all of the criteria are evaluated together (holistically).

Read Step 4 in the Authentic Assessment Toolbox  to learn more about rubrics.

• Assessing Authentically. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/authentic-assessment
• Authentic Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/assessing-student-learning/authentic-assessment/
• Bloom's Taxonomy Action Verbs. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fresnostate.edu/academics/oie/documents/assesments/Blooms%20Level.pdf
• Mueller, Jon. (n.d.). "How Do You Create Authentic Assessments?" Retrieved from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/howdoyoudoit.htm
• Mueller, Jon. (n.d.). "Why Use Authentic Assessment?" Retrieved from http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/whydoit.htm
• Summative and Formative Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/assessing-student-learning/authentic-assessment/
• Thompson, Steven. “The Differences Between Traditional and Authentic Assessment.” YouTube , YouTube, 2 July 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOupbmSx27A
• Unit 2: Types of Authentic Assessment. (2008, May 14). Retrieved from https://tccl.arcc.albany.edu/knilt/index.php/Unit_2:_Types_of_Authentic_Assessment
• Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative Assessment: Designing Assessments to Inform and Improve Student Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• IF Rubric >
• Authentic learning: what, why and how?

As educators, we have all known for a long time that learning is best done through experience – learning by doing rather than learning by listening or observing. Educational theory and research support this claim. The daunting thing is, how do we as educators, plan for this? How do we design learning so that it is a meaningful experience? How do we ensure that students are active and engaged participants in their learning? In this article, I aim to help to define ‘authenticity’ in learning, and begin to introduce some ideas to help guide you through the design process. What is authentic learning? Authentic learning is learning designed to connect what students are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications; learning experiences should mirror the complexities and ambiguities of real life. Children work towards production of discourse, products, and performances that have value or meaning beyond success in school; this is learning by doing approach. It was once said that ‘education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten’ (New methods and new aims in teaching, 1964). Experiences that do not encourage the children to make meaning from their learning will quickly be forgotten. Any learning experience should aim to instill authenticity into every task, lesson and unit to ensure that ‘students are [able] to develop problemsolving skills and confidence in their own learning abilities’ (Nicaise, Gibney and Crane, 2000). It is only with this confidence that children are then able to use the skills and knowledge learned beyond the classroom walls. To prepare students for life outside school, we need to develop children who can make meaning of their learning; this is done by making links between previous learning and new learning, from one subject to another. Research at Canterbury Christ Church University has found that placing ‘each learner’s personal quest for meaning at the heart of curricular and pedagogical decisions, is one most likely to generate the resilient communities needed to face a future of unimaginable challenge and change’ (Barnes and Shirley, 2007). Neither our lives, nor our jobs, are compartmentalised and sectioned into subjects. In order to reflect the real world, authentic learning takes a truly cross-curricular approach in its design as well as implementation in the classroom. There are ten design elements that learning researchers believe represent the ‘essence’ of authentic learning. According to these researchers, each learning experience should have: 1 Real life relevance Activities and tasks that represent those of a professional as closely as possible. 2 An ill-defined problem Challenges that are not easily solvable, or don’t have an obvious answer. There may be layers of tasks that need to be completed in order to solve the problem. 3 Sustained investigation Projects and tasks that require a significant investment of time and cannot be solved in a matter or minutes or hours. 4 Multiple sources and perspectives Resources may be theoretical or practical, and may require learners to distinguish useful information from irrelevant information. Experiences that do not encourage the children to make meaning from their learning will quickly be forgotten Figure 1: The AMT Model (McTighe, 2010) 5 Collaboration Individuals cannot achieve success alone. Projects and tasks will require social connections. 6 Reflection Learners will reflect on their own learning and make choices and set targets accordingly. 7 An interdisciplinary perspective Projects are not limited to a single subject or set of knowledge, but will make use of knowledge and skills from across subjects. 8 Integrated assessment Formative assessment is woven seamlessly into tasks and activities and used purposefully by learners and teachers alike. 9 Polished products Activities and tasks will lead to the creation of a product. 10 Multiple interpretations and outcomes There are many possible solutions and answers to the problem. (in Lombardi, 2007) This checklist is exhaustive and represents authenticity at its greatest. However, I do believe that it can seem intimidating to the first time authentic learning designer. Essentially, authentic learning is multi-disciplinary, skills-based learning in a real-life context, demonstrating to students that their learning is connected, relevant, and can have an impact upon the world around them, as well as their future selves. Why is authentic learning beneficial? Every day, in both our professional and personal lives, we come up against unfamiliar situations in which we have to solve problems, adapt our own behaviours and make decisions. We do this by utilising and manipulating the knowledge we already have, drawing upon our experiences and skills to guide our choices and help us to determine our next steps within the context of the situation we find ourselves in. Authentic learning aims to equip students with these essential life skills, to show the connection between learning and real-life and to give students the problem solving abilities that they require for life beyond school. Along with this, authentic learning experiences give students the opportunity to address the three goals of learning: acquisition, making meaning and transfer (AMT). The AMT model in Figure 1 illustrates how these three processes are interrelated: By designing learning experiences with relevance and authenticity, teachers can plan occasions for all three of these goals to be realised, allowing teachers to become ‘coaches of understanding, not mere purveyors of content or activity’ (Wiggins and McTighe, 2011). In the AMT model in Figure 1, understanding cannot be told; it is constructed by the learner and transferred independently between tasks or activities. Further to this, authentic learning is able to change the dynamics of the learning environment, to ‘[break] down the barriers of the classroom and the power hierarchies within it’ (Steventon, 2016), encouraging learning communities and connections among both peers and staff. Learning along with the students about a topic with which you may not be familiar models learning behaviours in a way that students do not see in other learning pedagogies. When thoughtfully designed, authentic learning experiences can help teachers in their assessment of, and for, learning. Building in ongoing assessment, teacher led as well as peer and self assessment, is an added benefit for teachers and students; assessment becomes a part of the learning process, a formative tool to drive next steps, rather than an added extra at the end of a unit that generates data yet has no meaningful impact on learning. More than anything else, authentic learning experiences generate engagement with students. Think about it – how many times in your own schooling did you ask the teacher, ‘Why are we learning this?’ or ‘When am I going to use this in real life?’. Authenticity automatically gives relevance to the learning journey; relevance encourages engagement and enthusiasm, which should bring about meaningful learning. How to design authentic learning experiences? There is no set formula for the planning and design of authentic learning experiences. The guidance here should be used merely as that – guidance. As an educator, it is you who knows your students best, who knows what they need from their learning and can make decisions accordingly. Use your professional judgment as your best guide! 1 Get to know your students. What are their interests? What engages them? Determine their learning needs. For example, are they a group who performs well in written tasks but could work on speaking and listening skills, or vice versa? The needs and interests of your students should always be a starting point. 2 Based on your students, determine a possible project, goal or outcome. This is where relevance and authenticity come into play – link the outcome to something real life. It could be running a restaurant, publishing a book, creating a museum, solving an environmental issue or a number of other ideas. There are many Project Based Learning (PBL) websites that can give you ideas if you need a starting point. More than anything else, authentic learning experiences generate engagement with students Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Maya Angelou Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Mahatma Gandhi He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger. Confucius 3 Break down the skills that your students will need in order to complete the project or reach the outcome. Remember, these may be across a number of curriculum areas and can be matched to curriculum statements and objectives if necessary. 4 Pre-assess your students – how do they perform in these skills already? There are a number of ways to pre-assess, but the best approach is to speak to your students – what do they think they need? Giving the students a role in the design of their learning journey helps to break down the ‘hierarchy’ and gives them ownership and control over their progress. 5 Make time for the AMT model – give students the opportunity to transfer previously learned skills (or skills they have learned for this outcome). 6 Teach, facilitate, coach, guide…and learn. Some skills will require discrete teaching in a traditional sense, then an opportunity to transfer. Others will be better suited to more student-led learning and exploration. Assess throughout the project; help students determine their own next steps. Model positive learning behaviours. 7 I think it is helpful for students to self-assess at the end of a project. What have they learned? What new skills do they now have? What would they like to learn more about? There are some who would argue that true authenticity only comes when the outcome or goal is shared beyond the classroom; this may well be the case, but again, the first time authentic learning designer may see the idea of sharing beyond the classroom daunting. I think it should be said at this point that authentic learning experiences do not have to be all singing and dancing, which it may seem from the steps above. Start small and work towards the larger projects. The key is that they need to have relevance, some sort of application to the real world – larger-than-life outcomes are not always necessary and can actually be a deterrent when taking on this approach. Conclusion From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in school comes from his inability to utilize the experience he gets outside while on the other hand he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning in school. That is the isolation of the school–its isolation from life. (Dewey, 1915) The outcome of any schooling or education system should be to send students into the world prepared for both their personal and professional lives – education and life should not be isolated from each other. However, we cannot teach our students everything. What we can do is teach our students to be adaptable and creative thinkers who are able to utilise the skills and knowledge they do have to create new solutions to problems. By giving students the opportunity to learn through authentic, real life, relevant learning experiences, we are giving them the ability to apply their learning, to learn through doing, to see their abilities, to adapt and change, and to form the habits required to do this successfully in their lives beyond school. References Barnes, J, Shirley, I 2007, ‘Strangely familiar: crosscurricular and creative thinking in teacher education’, Improving Schools, vol. 10, no. 2, pp.162–179. Dewey, J 1915, The School and Society, U of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Lombardi, M 2007, 1st ed. [ebook], available at https://net. educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3009.pdf, accessed April 2016. McTighe, J 2010, Understanding By Design Stage 3: Teaching for understanding 1st ed. [ebook] p.2, available at: https://www.nesacenter.org/uploaded/conferences/ FLC/2010/spkr_handouts/McTighe_Workshop_-_NESA. pdf [Accessed 1 Mar. 2016]. ‘New methods and new aims in teaching’, 1964, New Scientist, pp. 122. Nicaise, M, Gibney, T, Crane, M, 2000, ‘Toward an Understanding of Authentic Learning: Student Perceptions of an Authentic Classroom’, Journal of Science Education and Technology, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 80. Steventon, G 2016, ‘Authentic Learning. A route to student attainment?’, in: G Steventon, D Cureton and L. Clouder, (eds.), Student Attainment in Higher Education: Issues, Controversies and Debates, 1st ed, Routledge, New York, p.98. Wiggins, G, McTighe, J 2011, The understanding by design guide to creating high-quality units,. Alexandria, Va, ASCD

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