Seminar Task 8
Assessment strategies in the classroom
What do you consider to be the difference between authentic and traditional assessment? Is there a difference?
Experiential education continues to be challenges around student assessment. A comparison of traditional assessment and authentic assessment reveals that different purposes are served, as evidence by the nature of the assessment and item response format. In our academic life, traditional assessment is the usual common form of assessment (Brady and Kennedy 2019) Traditional assessment is limited to standardized paper and pencil tests, which emphasize objective measurement. Standardized tests employ close-ended response formats such as true-false, or multiple choice. Alternatively, authentic assessment is when students are asked to perform real-word tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of knowledge, understanding and skills (Brady and Kennedy 2019). It can be characterised by open-ended tasks that require pupils to construct extended responses, to perform an act, or to produce a product in a real-world context – or one that mimics the real-world.
Choose 5 of your favourite assessment types
1. Journal entries (reflective writing)
Journal entries includes both description and analysis and helps students clarify their thoughts, understand important aspects of learning. It assists students to personalise and contextualise their own learning experience.
2. Character analysis
This form of assessment I find to be engaging and simulative in an English classroom setting. Perhaps, through a novel or film study students can use this method to evaluate a character’s traits, their role in the story and the conflicts they experience. This requires students to think critically, ask questions and draw conclusions about the character by looking in-depth into the areas of discovery.
3 Inquiry Report Writing
Constructing an inquiry report is my most favoured form of assessment type. This assessment type places student’s questions, ideas and observations at the centre of the learning experience. Not only does this encourages student to foster greater interest in the material being taught but allows students to become active contributors to their own learning experience through a method of teaching known as inquiry-based learning.
4 Peer assessment and evaluation
This collaborative learning method allows student to evaluate their peer’s work and have their work evaluated by peers. Peer assessment is an effective learning tool and provides feedback on the quality of their work, often with ideas and strategies for improvement. This can enhance the evaluators own learning and self-confidence. Peer involvement personalizes the learning experiences, motivating continued learning.
5 Debates
Structured classroom debates, whereby teams of students debate a question prepared outside of class, help advance two goals: classroom participation beyond the ‘‘usual suspects’’ present in every classroom and critical thinking and analysis of political issues.
Provide a comment on the 'portfolio' and describe what you like/dislike about this strategy from both a student and teacher perspective.
The use of a portfolio as a form of assessment has become a prominent tool to encourage diverse, reflecting and creative learning through a semi-structured form. I particularly like how the platform allows for a wide range of evidence from multiple sources and involves continuous document to specifically scale student’s status, progress and accomplishments. However, portfolio assessment, whilst common within contemporary education, can also be problematic. The creation of portfolios is highly time consuming and require utmost discipline to carry out. Additionally, since outcomes are very personal, contents vary from one student to another, it would be very difficult to objectively asses the contents of portfolios.
Works Cited
Brady, Laurie & Kennedy, Kerry J., (author.) 2019, Assessment and reporting : celebrating student achievement, 5th Edition, Pearson Australia, Melbourne, VIC