EDUC 5305G - Authentic Assessment

The ultimate goal of this course is to enable educators to help their students to be able to think about their own learning processes. Authentic assessment is not about final exams and bell curves. The focus of this course is to research, analyze and apply a variety of assessment techniques and applications that are based on the notion that people learn most effectively when they are able to relate what they are learning to their previous knowledge. Assessment is defined within the context of simulating authentic life-related tasks. Young children and adolescents also need to understand their own thought processes through self and peer assessment if they are to see their own growth potential and develop self-motivation and self-esteem. Graduate students in this course learn key principles of authentic assessment and how to differentiate among assessments (such as criterion-referenced and norm-referenced). They apply theory to examine underlying issues concerning high stakes standardized testing. As they study how to create more effective rubrics and objective test items, they think critically about how to better assess their students’ academic development. By the end of the course, participants understand the differences between assessment for learning and assessment of learning.
Credit hours: 3