Authentic Assessment by

Third Grade Expo

emilycampbell7 — 2025-03-28 22:47:07 UTC

When I was student teaching in a 3rd grade class our students were learning about businesses and economics. We designed a project where the students create a business and sell their goods and services to other students in the school at an "Expo". They had to use math to budget and price their goods and services. We even invited local small business owners to host a Shark Tank panel. All of the profits went to a charity. - Emily

Classcraft

emilycampbell7 — 2025-03-28 22:50:44 UTC

There is a website called Classcraft that I used in my last year of teaching 4th grade. The platform was a classroom management platform like Class Dojo but a little more "grown up". They had a feature called Quests. Teachers could put content into a Quest and students could navigate the Quest and earn points. They also could be personalized where if a student gets a question wrong it directs them to a review page vs a student who gets all the answers right. It was something fun and different I used to assess my class. - Emily

Reader's Theater

emilycampbell7 — 2025-03-28 22:54:39 UTC

Writing a script for a play or skit describing a topic that was taught in class. - Emily

Peer observation with rubric

lisavan9 — 2025-04-02 04:08:36 UTC

When I teach negotiation to adults, we use role play to learn and practice the techniques. When it's time to assess, there are a group of observer-students who get additional instructions, training on describing observed behaviors, a rubric and a template tracking tool. The observers watch the role play and assess their peers' work.

Challenge of authentic assessment in professional development

lisavan9 — 2025-04-02 04:26:53 UTC

In my work with adults who work in the public sector (usually office-based jobs) we mostly do Level 1 assessment (satisfaction) and some self-report Level 2. I do know of some programs like mine that do surveys of the learners' managers to assess behavior change in the workplace. But that seems a bit intrusive in my context because sometimes learners are in our program because they want to leave their employer or manager. I'm still learning and working on how to do higher levels of authentic assessment that feel natural and not forced. - Lisa

ps. I added a link to Guskey's levels of assessment as a reference.

Student Tour of School - video

jlieberman15 — 2025-04-22 15:04:01 UTC

As a cumulative assessment after learning about cultural differences between American and French schools, students can create a tour of our own school that we then send to our penpals in France.

Drawing/visuals

jlieberman15 — 2025-04-22 15:05:53 UTC

I think that allowing for multiple modes of expression can be very valuable when developing assessment. Students could have the option to support their work through use of visuals.

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

jlieberman15 — 2025-04-22 15:06:28 UTC

One of my favorite authentic assessments that I already do is called the "If you Give a Mouse a cookie" project where students write their own children's book in the style of "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" to practice "if clauses" in French. The illustrations/photos/stock images allow them to be so creative and to elevate their final product from some random sentences into a complete book.

Muddiest Point

2025-04-23 23:38:20 UTC

When utilizing the Muddiest Point assessment technique, students can describe the most unclear or confusing part of a lecture, discussion, homework assignment, or field experience in a course that emphasizes integrating, synthesizing, and evaluating information. I find this tool especially helpful in honing in on material that can use more or varying explanations for students' comprehension.

Padlet/Google Forms/Hypothesis

2025-04-23 23:46:10 UTC

In addition to being dynamic and engaging, all three of these tools can provide authentic assessments for individuals and peers, promoting reflecting and tying material back into real-world applications. Students can also revisit these tools as conversations continue for further engagement.

Team Workshops

2025-04-24 00:01:26 UTC

During a team workshop, the participants collaborated on creating multiple flowcharts, provided oral presentations of key components to a system, experimented by changing/removing system variables, debated over utility of key components (including use of a pros vs. cons list), and summarized the real-world impact of system changes and how they can affect the product. Participants developed a deeper understanding and appreciation for how the system works overall--which proved the workshop to be successful!

Canva (or other design software)

2025-04-24 00:28:45 UTC

I love using Canva with my students because there are so many templates that spark inspiration, many of which can be used to create authentic (and visually dynamic) materials. They have the traditional slide presentations and reports, but you can also make videos for social media, websites, infographics, postcards, etc. It's an excellent tool to encourage students to creatively represent their knowledge and communicate their learning with others.

1st Grade Social Studies/Writing

2025-04-24 00:36:56 UTC

When I taught 1st grade in Germany, we read stories about immigration and the experience of being a newcomer in a foreign country. We related these stories to our experiences of living in Germany as Americans, as well as being "the new kid" in school. Drawing on what we learned about the needs of newcomers, we brainstormed important topics that new students might need to know about our school and community. We then collectively created a Newcomer's Guide with each student contributing a page on a specific topic. The students wrote 3-4 sentences on their topic and took a photo to add to their page.

Word Journal

2025-04-24 00:48:07 UTC

This strategy is new to me, but I really like the idea. One student summarizes the content with a single word. The other students writes an explanation of why the student selected the word. This isn't a "real world" application type strategy, but I think it is a great way to summarize your thinking and check for understanding. It also could lead to some great collaborative conversations.

This Module Project!

2025-04-24 22:43:01 UTC

It might be a bit of an obvious example, but this whole project of designing a learning module for our fellow students is an authentic assessment of what we've learned in class!

Project Prompts!

2025-04-24 22:50:49 UTC

Projects have so much potential and can be applied to so many topics, and having interesting prompts is even better. In high school, once we were given a whole bunch of options with the theme "rebuilding after a catastrophe", and my group ended up with the Great Pyramids having been destroyed in some kind of disaster. I don't remember the finer details, but a good hook is a powerful thing for engagement!

Online Whiteboards

2025-04-24 22:58:38 UTC

FigJam, Lucidspark, Miro, or other online interactive whiteboards! I'm not familiar with this particular list, as I used Jamboard throughout my online teaching experience. Alas, Google Jamboard no longer exists.

Having a shared space to collaborate or participate in an activity (without all the bells and whistles of Google Slides) is a great resource. I imagine some of the assessment strategies we've seen—like the Categorizing Grids, Defining Features Matrix, or Pros and Cons Grid from the CATS list—could be adapted to an online whiteboard pretty easily!

Picture Transformations Project

2025-04-25 15:07:59 UTC

As a middle school math teacher, I have found that geometry concepts lend themselves well for more authentic assessments. My most successful authentic assessment I have given in the past is the picture transformations project. Students draw a figure in the coordinate plane, list it's coordinates, translate the figure, rotate the figure, reflect the figure, then describe how the rigid transformations changed the coordinates. I definitely feel that this project requires students to think about the concepts on a deeper level as they must demonstrate the effect that the transformations have on the actual coordinates.

Development of a product or proposal

shaunmartin4 — 2025-04-25 16:12:24 UTC

I love this idea...it requires identifying a problem, generating a solution, and figuring out what an intended audience's needs. Its super complex.

A More Perfect Question

shaunmartin4 — 2025-04-25 16:15:48 UTC

I don't think we teach kids how to formulate and then edit/revise questions. We do a good job of providing questions, but that doesn't foster authenticity. A More Beautiful Question provides a process and a framework for teaching this skill. I've used it for years and the results are better thinkers who are more able to guide their own learning.

https://amorebeautifulquestion.com/

Gentrification

shaunmartin4 — 2025-04-25 16:22:11 UTC

I taught at an EL school years ago, and during my time there I facilitated an expedition about gentrification. We started the expedition reading and discussing the concept AND learning about documentary film making. After getting a good base, we hopped in the bus and spent a couple weeks walking around 5 points, talking to residents and business owners. With their permission, groups of kids interviewed people and gathered b roll. We then spent a couple weeks learning editing software and editing our films. The final day of the expedition we held a premiere for all our films, inviting city council members, families, and business owners.

The films themselves and the Q and A after were the most authentic assessments of learning I have ever experienced.