Week Three Discussion One

Authentic Assessment refers to assessments given to students (mostly written by teachers or departments) that accurately represent students' knowledge and abilities in a specific content area or topic. Unlike blanket assessments that are often multiple choice or labeled as "written for every student", authentic assessments give a more accurate picture of how well a student is comprehending and appropriately using the material.

Effective teachers in my content area utilize authentic assessments on a constant basis. Because our foreign language (ASL) is a very visual and intricate language that is interpreted from English and NOT translated (meaning, you don't really have sing-word pairs - everything has to be understood in order to be put into the target language and vice versa), we have to use authentic assessments for basically every assessment if we are to get any idea on whether our students are learning the material and understanding the language. We very rarely use multiple choice tests. Most of our assessments are fill in the blank or whole sentence translations (for receptive assessments). For expressive assessments, students individually work to create, write, rehearse, memorize, and film a specific text or concept. We have very specific rubrics that students are to follow that have been compiled by all of the ASL teachers in the district (and modified slightly over the years). This helps us to assess them on every specific and minute detail of producing the language in order to help us pinpoint weaknesses and work on those with our students.