Authentic learning and achievement

Literature springboard 5: Authentic learning and achievement

• Participants should read this prior to the activity and highlight areas where there can appear to be a tension between maximising test scores and authentic learning.

This literature springboard considers the interplay between authentic learning and common measures of achievement. It seeks to explore points of similarity and difference between the two and identifies the tensions that emerge from a consideration of achievement in light of the principles of authentic learning.

1. During the pre-reading of Literature springboard 5: Authentic learning and achievement, individual participants identify the tensions that emerge between authentic learning and a narrow emphasis on test performance as the measure of achievement.
2. Form groups of four to five.
3. In groups reflect on aspects of current practice, in assessing and reporting achievement, which may act as obstacles to authentic learning in the classroom.
4. Record your groups collective responses onto the school collaborative copy of the B9: Authentic learning and achievement IRA strategy Google document.
5. In groups now consider what actions could be taken in the classroom, and school to redress any imbalance between the emphasis given to achievement and the embedding of authentic learning principles and practice.

Stimulus one

Stimulus two

This 1.58–minute clip is a trailer for A is for Apple: Grading Achievement in Schools (which is 38 minutes in length and a worthwhile resource if time permits) and raises questions of: What counts for education? What should we measure? How achievement limits the curriculum? Is education about success in tests? Discuss the questions raised in small groups in response to the video

This 11.41–minute clip by Sir Ken Robinson provides a survey of the history of education, considers the forces influencing current educational practice and challenges traditional approaches to education suggesting that learning rather than achievement in standardised testing should drive future educational policy and practice.

Stimulus three

Stimulus four

This 1.05–minute clip provides a provocation from Alfie Kohn that contrasts how a focus on achievement can remove the focus of teachers and students from learning.

The article explains how a new study on the effects of the National Assessment Program - Literacy And Numeracy (NAPLAN) has found the nationwide school testing is not achieving what it set out to do, and is having unintended negative consequences. The clip on the ABC News site goes for 5.25 minutes.