Authentic Learning

Authentic learning is student work that is "real, actual, genuine" in all the aspects experienced by students. Authentic learning engages learners because they consider it relevant, interesting, and important.

Authentic learning...

• gives students purpose by naturally connecting purpose and achievement. Authentic learning at its best kindles a desire in students to learn more about fascinating and meaningful topics that they might otherwise not have known about.

• is meaningful. Students work on projects that make a contribution to their community, environment, or their world.

• is personally relevant. Work is only authentic if students truly care about what they are doing.

• promotes motivation. For many students, having an increased say in their learning leads to and increase in motivation.

• increases engagement and learning. Since much of this learning occurs during real-world experience, students are much more likely to remember what they have learned.

• empowers students. Few things are more empowering than overcoming challenges and accomplishing a task that you care about.

1. Identify the purpose of the project. For authentic learning to being, the work requires a purpose. That purpose can be expressed as a question, objective, or problem. The temptation is to simply tell students what the project will be and then push them to complete it. But such an approach dramatically decreases student motivation. If students are to truly embrace authentic learning, they need to make a choice to do the project.

2. Mediate relationships with mentors and experts. A critical characteristic of authentic learning is that students learn with and from other people, who share important knowledge and help them complete their project. This usually involves directly contacting experts in the field being studied and mentors, who provide support and guidance as students move through the project. Experts help students understand important aspects of the issue they are tackling and help students see what kind of questions they are studying.

3. Identify and divide tasks. Once students have committed to a project, they need to identify what tasks have been completed and who will do them. In many cases, when students are tackling a project that they truly believe it, and they have the freedom to identify tasks and determine who will do them, they are capable of doing this on their own.

4. Establish criteria for success. One of the aspects of authentic learning that makes it "real" is that the work is judged by real-world criteria. One way to do this is to simply assess whether or not the students did a satisfactory job of solving a problem they were addressing. Students can also identify the criteria for judging their work by contacting or reading the work of experts in the field or with the help of their mentors who can guide students to find the information that they need.

5. Identify a real audience. Another way to make a project real is to have a real audience for what is being created. A real audience provides focus to a project. As they work at whatever their project is, students can ask themselves, "What will our audience really think of what we are doing?"

6. Teach the skills and knowledge students need to complete a project. To complete any project, students need to learn important skills. Teachers can teach important skills and knowledge in real-world contexts that help students remember them by directly teaching the skills and knowledge students need to learn to succeed.