How To Assess Authentic Learning

For courses in assessment, general methods, and select courses in educational psychology. This text presents a wide range of alternative forms of assessment. They are presented in a meaningful and practical format, which makes their use easily applicable to those in schools and classrooms searching for more authentic forms of assessment. They will prove valuable to teaching teams wishing to collect data to evaluate their curriculum and instructional decision making. They will assist in communicating more thoughtfully to parents. Most importantly, they will signal to students that self-assessment is the ultimate goal of the mindful school. Its non-threatening approach offers explanations of learning standards, performance tasks, portfolio development and scoring rubrics. This book was written to help educators expand their repertoire of strategies to provide a more balanced assessment of student learning and to help students increase achievement and meet both knowledge and performance standards.

Create assessments that meet state standards and target students’ learning needs! In this revised edition of her bestseller, Kay Burke provides a wide range of easy-to-implement alternative assessments that address today’s accountability requirements. Designed for use across all content areas, these formative assessments are rooted in the language of state standards and emphasize differentiating instruction to meet students’ diverse learning needs. Updated research and examples help K–12 teachers: Build Response to Intervention checklists for struggling students Develop unit plans using differentiated learning and assessment strategies Create portfolios that emphasize metacognition Design performance tasks that motivate and engage students Construct rubrics that describe indicators of quality work Create tests that focus on higher-order thinking skills

Assessment has provided educational institutions with information about student learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades. But has it informed practice and been fully incorporated into the learning cycle? Conrad and Openo argue that the potential inherent in many of the new learning environments being explored by educators and students has not been fully realized. In this investigation of a variety of assessment methods and learning approaches, the authors aim to discover the tools that engage learners and authentically evaluate education. They insist that moving to new learning environments, specifically those online and at a distance, afford opportunities for educators to adopt only the best practices of traditional face-to-face assessment while exploring evaluation tools made available by a digital learning environment in the hopes of arriving at methods that capture the widest set of learner skills and attributes.

Go beyond traditional paper-and-pencil tests! This book provides a framework and practical ideas for assessing 21st century skills such as problem solving, collaboration, and creativity.