Authentic Assessment helps students see themselves as active participants, who are working on a real world tasks where they apply the content and skills they have learned to a realistic scenario, situation or problem. Authentic assessments, or performance tasks, require students to demonstrate mastery of a concept by applying the material learned to solve a real world problem. This concept works very well for gifted students because it removes the restrictions often imposed by traditional assessment methods and allows students the flexibility to be creative and demonstrate their full depth of knowledge surrounding a topic.
Examples of Authentic Assessments:
Conduction research and writing a report
Character analysis
Student debates (individual or group)
Drawing and writing about a story or chapter
Experiments - trial and error learning
Journal entries (reflective writing)
Discussion partners or groups
Student self-assessment
Peer assessment and evaluation
Presentations
Projects
Portfolios