The Pros And Cons Of Authentic Assessment

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When discussing assessments most people envision a pen and paper evaluation that measures the acquired knowledge on any given subject. While this is partly true it’s important as educators that we understand that there are many different ways that a student’s knowledge can be assessed. One ideal way is to provide the students with an authentic assessment. Authentic assessments demonstrate what a student actually learns in class rather than their ability to do well on traditional tests. Which makes this type of assessment an excellent way of evaluating a student’s knowledge of a subject matter. Authentic assessments should be tied to real-world contexts and require the student to “do” the subject. For example after a Math lesson on telling time to have the students complete a “time” worksheet. Tell each child to write their beginning time and once they …show more content…

We know the main pro of authentic assessment is that it allows the student to take what they’ve learned and apply it to everyday life. Students aren’t forced to just memorize facts that will fade away after a few days. They are able to demonstrate their creative side to show what they’ve learned. Students are able to also refine their writing and oral presentation skills through authentic assessment. While authentic assessment is a great tool that allows students to display their knowledge in many different ways, it also has its downfalls. With authentic assessment, it can be difficult to grade a student’s work since scoring can be subjective. Also, the same way each student is different, as educators so are we and it’s difficult to determine wasn’t important or relevant among each other. The biggest issue though would be the time constraints that educators face. Feeling forced to teach a lesson quickly in order to move on to the next subject can limit the use of authentic assessment in the