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What is authentic learning and what does it look like?
What is authentic learning and what does it look like?
"Authentic learning is learning designed to connect what students are taught in school to real-world issues, problems, and applications; learning experiences should mirror the complexities and ambiguities of real life."
Authentic learning is going into the environment around us and exploring it with hands on experiences. This type of learning helps get us into our environments, make predictions and observations about the world around us. What better way to learn about science than to use the resources we have right in front of us. Authentic learning can be supported through our Science and Engineering standards and practices. Here are some examples...
K-ESS2-1. Use and share quantitative observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.
1.K-2-ETS1-1. Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change that can be solved by developing or improving an object or tool.*
2-LS2-3(MA). Develop and use models to compare how plants and animals depend on their surroundings and other living things to meet their needs in the places they live.
Students become community learners when they learn about the environments around their house, school and overall town! This is so expecting for students because they already have background knowledge and personal experiences in these locations.
This becomes more powerful compared to learning science from textbook. Students are putting themselves into their communities and environments where they get to explore and see lessons right in person. This is more exciting for students where they will retain and understand key information about their environments.
Here is an example of authentic learning involving technology look for the albedo affect in the world around us!
Please click here to see an example of the lesson!
For this activity students would be using an app called "Albedo: A Reflectance App for iOS."
They will complete the worksheet by using the app and the environment around them.
Students can watch this video to help further explain the MOSAIC expedition!
Authentic learning experiences are absolutely amazing but their can be some challenges to them. Some students are not as fortunate as others where the environment they live in might not give them all of these wonderful resources outside of their homes. This authentic learning style would need to mostly take place at school for the students who need support in the accessing these materials. Some schools might not be as fortunate to have the access to using APPs in the classroom, the lesson above would need to be altered. I picture these classrooms, making predictions about what the albedo affect would be and then finding evidence as a class to support their predictions!
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