Authentic Assessment - Assignment Example

Quest Authentic assessment is the direct evaluation performance through tasks that exercise their intellect. These evaluations tend to exercise their: creativity, listening and comprehension skills, experimental research in science, speaking and discussion skills and historical inquiry. It largely corresponds with standardized testing. Authentic assessment asks that students acquire knowledge and be able to practice logic as apposed to just being able to regurgitate pre-fed facts. The main characteristics of these evaluations, is that they apply standardized test curriculum to real life circumstances. Authentic assessment is the product of a reform in education. This shift is to make standardized testing less drill oriented and applicable to what is expected will be necessary in the students' adult life. These tests hold students to higher standards as well as create a growing body of accurate awareness pertaining to student learning. This way the teacher learns from the student as well. The key argument these test pose is that for the traditional testing method, the right answers are not rationales. This basically acknowledges that the level of logic required for traditional standardized tests is lacking. This is due to a relationship that involves test takers who simply cram for their tests, and instructors who feel the tests have no relevance to their teaching ability. This is a common occurrence that has resulted in resentment for traditional standardized testing on the behalf of both parties involved. Authentic assessment is a genuine push towards the implementation of more authentic tasks. Instructors find it easier to apply these tasks to their curriculum and students find it easier to assess what is expected of them. It is considered a form of improving overall performance, in a testing system traditionally structured solely to monitor it. Authentic assessment applied to math and science addresses the notion among educators that this curriculum is designed to assist students in solving everyday problems like, civic affairs, jobs and professions. To do this less computation must be emphasized and these curriculums must focus more on the analytical. When I was younger, and my grades were starting to slip in math, my father required me to make calendars as a punishment until I was able to improve. Initially, I thought this would be an easy task, but he required that every square have equal length and width, and that all lines on each page be equal in length from one another. This served two purposes; it taught me that everything in the world around me can be weighed and measured. It also taught me the value of organization. The process of using mathematical tools like protractors, rulers and calculators, along with my own thinking and reasoning, incited me to be enthusiastic towards math. This is the perfect example of applying math to the student's surroundings. This is the type of authentic assessment I would apply to a middle school math or science curriculum. It doesn't have to be something as bland and mundane as creating calendars, but my task will be inherently applicable to the student's daily living routine. My student evaluations would consist of open ended questions that require mathematical awareness to produce solutions. For example, The Shoe Thief Puzzle A person went into a shop to buy a pair of shoes. The person chose a pair which were reduced to their cost price of $12, and gave the shopkeeper a $20 note. The shopkeeper didn't have any change, so he took the $20 note next door to his friend the restaurant owner to get some. He returned to his shop and gave the shopper $8 change. The shopper then departed. A few minutes later the restaurant owner stormed into the shop shouting "that $20 note that you gave me is a forgery". The shopkeeper took back the forged note and gave the restaurant owner a new and genuine $20 note. How much has the shopkeeper lost on the transaction, explain the cash movements, and show two methods of calculating the loss This is the type of authentic assessment question a student might find today on a standardized test, and it is very different from the traditional testing. It requires more reasoning and free thinking, as well as providing room for creativity. The main point that should be noted by this example is that the student will have absolutely no way to escape the use of math, and there is only one answer; yet the pursuit of the easiest and simplest solution will bring them closer to the importance assessments like this have in their daily lives. Quest 2 Integrated Immersed is the best form of the integrated curriculums. It can also perfectly be applied to a science and math classroom. This being, obviously, because science involves math, and this becomes more apparent as the levels of science grow more advanced. A student can't be expected to go into a physics classroom and calculate the equation for kinetic energy without knowing fractions. How it was ever deemed reasonable not to collaborate these two disciplines is beyond my understanding. Integrated Immersed is the ideal form, because it is the only form that shows a true understanding that all of these disciplines are connected, English included. Theorists like Freud, Jung, and Einstein had intellects which were fueled by the pursuit of patterns. Einstein created his own form of mathematics, because he was bored enough to think outside of the marginalized curriculum he was being taught. He found a pattern that connected separate aspects of math together. This is largely why contemporary I.Q. tests are simply tools used to assess an individual's ability to recognize patterns. One thing Einstein, Freud and Jung have in common is their publications consist of some of the most literally fluent and poetic verses to explain their scientific analysis. So, why are they not credited for their literary strengths It is because most societies have yet to adopt this method of integrated curriculum, so the students produced from these traditional curriculums are unable to connect the relation of literary genius to mathematical, scientific, or sociological intellect. This separation is most apparent with the relationship between math and English. Our society is one that stresses an individual can only be extremely good at one or the other. This leads literary critics to avoiding Einstein's work, and it leads science and pre-med majors to cramming years of math into one semester of college. It is a common occurrence in our culture where adults who have been praised for their literary talents find themselves inept at balancing a check book. It is increasingly becoming clear in our society we are doing ourselves an injustice by not integrating our educational curriculums. I would use the Integrated Immersed method to create a curriculum for middle school students. It would combine math and science, specifically: trigonometry, geometry, algebra, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. I group these disciplines together because I feel they are the courses that most immediately relate that also can be taught at a moderate enough pace for middle school students to understand. This curriculum would start at the six the grade and then carryon until eight or ninth depending on the middle school. The benefit of this curriculum would be helping the students to realize the mathematical relevance within all three of these sciences. Another thing this ideal of integration inspires is the fact there is an underlying connection and meaning to all things; this gives purpose to study, the same purpose most students aren't aware of until college. By inspiring this notion it is more liable to motivate students to aspire for college that might not necessarily have gone. This method would require 3-6 instructors that could integrate the material and tests would assess knowledge of the connections as well as calculative capability. This is the most educational method, because it embodies the most amount of disciplines imaginable while still respecting the connections all these subjects hold. The next best integrated curriculum theory, and most similar would have to be nested. This would be a harder method to carryout because the number of disciplines studied would depend entirely on the educational capabilities of the instructor, or use of multiple instructors in one classroom would have to be implemented. This is a complex method and not as promising as the Integrated immersed method. Quest 3 Project based learning is a long lived tradition of learning through the implementation of field trips, labs, investigations and other projects. It is considered to be an American tradition, as well as a substantial method of teaching. The premise backing this form of learning revolves around the idea that students will be more liable to gain interest in curriculum that they can correspond to their surroundings. Solely studying the work in a text can become mundane and arbitrary for to the student. The methodology itself is a concept of much study, but the main purpose of both PBL and its method inherently is to create the ultimate learning community, for the classroom. A technique commonly used, collaborating PBL with text book instruction, is known as coverage versus uncoverage. It's basically a method in which the teacher acknowledges the less complex topics of study and reviews them briefly using only the text; the instructor then applies PBL to the assignments which are more complex or less interesting. This is often seen in many classrooms due to the lack of time and extensive curriculums required for teaching. The classrooms most common to put this technique into practice are middle school math and science classrooms. This is largely due to the analytical nature of these two subjects. A trip to the IMAX, King's Island, and the aquarium are classic field trips taken in math and science courses. Field trips through reservoirs to study plant and animal life, is commonly used in many classes. The common practice of dissecting animals and insects has become an American tradition and almost a right of passage in high school, and it is also and example of PBL. It is clear to see that Project Based Management has a dramatically influential effect on the education of our country, so why isn't it the only method used. There are many weaknesses involved with this method. The use of chaperones, instructional tools, and often methods of transportation are often required. People tend to remember more from their field trips than their other lessons. Many of the projects and labs involve authentic assessment and this is a positive aspect. But since authentic assessment is also congruent with, and dependent on, the student's background, the projects can result in the isolation of certain students. This depends on how familiar the students are with the particular authentic topics being assessed. Studying wild life out in a park, might not be beneficial to the interests of a student living in an inner city. Project based learning is often contrasted to textbook instruction, in cases like coverage versus uncoverage, as well as in general to judge which is the better method. Traditional textbook learning method is often depicted as less entertaining and interesting than PBL. This is part of the reason why in many cases, the traditional textbook approach is largely underestimated. Students learn in multiple ways. One student might be a visual learner and another an auditory learner; either way, they both are required to understand the same curriculum. This is why, more often than not, these two methods have been used in correspondence for decades. Acknowledging the traditional textbook method's value does not eliminate the fact that people learn more from experience than anything else. This is the reason why field trips are implemented in most classroom curriculums. The reason why they aren't use more than, or as much as, textbook instruction is because PBL tends to be more expensive. Schools that have substantial funding tend to provide their students with more projects. Read More