Designing Authentic Assessment in Higher Education: a workshop proposal for Aston University

Dr Panos Vlachopoulos

Programme Director Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Practice in Higher Education

September 30 2011

Workshop Pre-requisites
This workshop is scheduled to run for 2 hours, with a break of 15 minutes for coffee. Ideal number of participants: 12-14 Seminar-style room, with a data projector and a networked computer. flip chart paper and coloured marker pens Special arrangements for staff with visual, mobility, dyslexia issues or other declared special needs (e.g. printouts with larger fonts, simple background in presentation slides )

Workshop Outline at a Glance

PART 1
Introductions (approx 5 minutes) Outcomes of the session (approx 5 minutes) Important clarifications: terminology, prior knowledge (5 minutes) Opening question and discussion in pairs (10 minutes, 5 minutes to discuss and 5 minutes to report to others) Further elaboration on the opening question by the workshop facilitator (10 minutes) Group activity one (15 minutes) Break (15 minutes)

PART 2 Examples of authentic assessment and student feedback (15 minutes) Group activity two (20 minutes) Discussion (15 minutes) Thank you and encouragement to register for a follow-up session

Intended outcomes of the session

At the end of this session participants should: 1. Have a good understanding of authentic assessment approaches in higher education and how they can be used in their discipline area. 2. Be able to design authentic tasks and guide other colleagues within their faculties and schools in the effective use of authentic assessment to improve student learning.

Are we all familiar with the terminology?

Formative Criterion-referenced Contextualised/ authentic Teacher-centred Summative Norm-referenced Decontextualised/ traditional/unauthentic Student-centred (Peer and self-assessment)

Opening question
Group Discussion (in pairs)
What are the functions of authentic assessment in higher education and how does it differ from other forms of decontextualised assessment ?

Further elaboration on the opening question

In this section, the facilitator will summarise the answers given by the participants and will elaborate with a slide that has a definition of authentic assessment and some of its functions, e.g: Assess both content and higher order thinking skills Provide opportunities to demonstrate creativity, problem-solving and decision-making Opportunities for reflection, peer and selfassessment

Traditional Assessment VS Authentic Assessment

Assessments that often reveal only whether students can recognise, recall or plug in what was learned out of context.

Linking learning and working by creating a correspondence between what is assessed in universities and what students need to do in the workplace.

Group activity 1
Participants will be presented with a number of assessment scenarios in various disciplines, formats and of different quality, ranging from a summative, decontextualised essay type question in civil engineering to a reflective journal assignment for nurses, and an eportfolio task for trainee primary education teachers. Participants will need consider what they could use in their own situations - and why they rule out any aspects of it.

Examples of authentic assessment and student feedback

After the break, the facilitator will present participants some examples of completed authentic assessments by students. These will include some reflective blogs from a research methods and practice students, the product of a collaborative student-led seminar in foundation year student seminars, and some artifacts of a teaching portfolios of primary education teachers. The facilitator will reveal also some tips and tricks of providing feedback and feedforward on this type of assessment.

Group activity 2
Using a given template that will scaffold the participants to follow the processes involved in assessment (from setting the learning outcomes to reporting the final grade), and in pairs (working together and peerreviewing) they will have to produce an outline of authentic assessment in their discipline area and rationalise why they think its appropriate. They will use the flip-chart paper to outline their ideas. The facilitator will collect the materials produced and will upload them in the courses wiki, which will gradually become a point of reference for future good practice by themselves and by other academics.

Discussion
At this point the facilitator will try to summarise the key points of the session with the support of the participants. Each participant will have to tell (with a reference to the learning outcomes of the session): What did they learn about authentic assessment that they didnt know before the session? How does this new learning can help them with their future practice (with an example if possible).