Theoretical considerations: Authentic assessment

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Introduction

In today's technology-rich classrooms that encourage group assignments and multimedia projects and have rapidly changing standards, it has become difficult to measure student achievement accurately. Added to this is the challenge to measure such things as creativity, problem solving and cooperative learning – the sort of skills that are facilitated with the use of technology. Today’s teachers are being encouraged to widen their repertoire of assessment tools and methods. Having students perform self-assessment, observing the processes that students engage themselves in, and evaluating the products they create are suggested ways of assessing students’ knowledge constructions. Using rubrics can make these tasks more manageable.

The rubric is an authentic assessment tool which allows teachers to formatively assess their students. By using rubrics for peer and self-assessment, students can also be involved in the assessment process without the problems of subjectivity and as students become familiar with rubrics, they can also assist in the design of the rubrics they are to use. Some advantages of rubrics are that they:

• allow assessment to be more objective and consistent.
• focus the teacher to clarify his/her criteria so that students know what is expected of them.
• focus students to assess specific criteria when evaluating peer performance.
• provide feedback regarding the effectiveness of the activity or lesson so that changes can be made.

Although there are several types of rubrics that can vary in levels of complexity, they should all focus on measuring specific outcomes (performance, behavior, or quality), use a range of levels to rate the outcomes, and contain specific characteristics for each level indicating the degree to which an outcome was achieved.

Discussion possibilities

• What advantages are there to using rubrics to assess students’ use of technology?
• What are some important things to consider when using or creating a rubric for technology use?

Readings

Henri, J. (1996). Students on the Net: Enhancing learning through authentic assessment. Meeting of the Minds: Conference Proceedings of the ITEC Virtual Conference. Asla Press.

Jonassen, D. H. (2000). Computers as Mindtools for Schools: Engaging Critical Thinking Second Edition. Chapter 15, Assessing Learning with Mindtools. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Lupton, P. (1996). Assessing students’ work from the Net: An impossible dream? A Meeting of the Minds: Conference Proceedings of the ITEC Virtual Conference. Asla Press.

McCullen, C. (1999). Taking Aim: Tips for evaluating students in the digital age. Technology and Learning, 19(7), 48-50. Dayton, Ohio : Peter Li, Inc.