Authentic

Lesson 1
Assessment
LESSON OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this lesson, the students are expected to be able to:
1. Identify sources of student learning programs;
2. Identify the characteristics of good student learning outcomes;
3. Appreciate the importance of good student learning outcomes;
4. Define authentic assessment;
5. Identify the characteristics and phases of authentic assessment; and
6. Differentiate between traditional and authentic assessment.

1.1 STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

Student Learning Outcomes refer to the set of knowledge, skills, and

attitude expected of a graduate of a particular course or program. In a
manner, these outcomes represent the ideal graduate of a course or
program – a student who embodies the knowledge, skills, and attitude
that the course or program targets to develop.

Let us take a look at the outcomes expected of a graduate from

OMSC-CTE:
 Demonstrate mastery of subject matter discipline.
 Develop innovative curricula, instructional plans, teaching
approaches and resources for diverse learners.
 Apply skills in the development and utilization of ICT to promote
quality, relevant and sustainable educational practices.
 Demonstrate a variety of thinking skills in planning, monitoring,
assessing and reporting learning processes and outcomes.
 Practice professional and ethical teaching standards sensitive to
the local, national and global realities.
 Pursue life-long learning for personal and professional growth
through varied experiential and field-based opportunities.

These are what are expected of our graduates as they finish their
degrees. Now, these outcomes are pretty generic as they apply to all
graduates of the College. However, there are also outcomes that are only
specific to one program and even to a course (subject).

SOURCES OF STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

Expectations on students may come from any of the following:

 SLOs may come from the institution’s mission statement. In the case of
public elementary or secondary schools, SLOs may be derived from the
DepEd VMGO. For tertiary schools, it may come from the institution’s
VMGO. For private schools may have their own set of VMGO as well
which may come from the founder’s philosophy or from the founder of the
system they are using (such as the Montessori schools). For sectarian
 schools (those which are ran by religious orders), the SLOs may come
from the order’s religious goals and philosophies (for example, Jesuit
education focuses on the development of a person in all aspects:
intellectual, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual).
 SLOs may also come from policies and guidelines set by governing bodies
such as the Department of Education (DepEd) for elementary and
secondary schools, Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) for State
Universities and Colleges (SUCs) or Local Universities and Colleges
(LUCs), and Technical Education and Skills Assessment Authority
(TESDA) for Technical-Vocational schools.
 SLOs may also come from the competencies set by each profession’s
governing body (in the case of teachers, the Teacher Education Council
as created under RA 7784).
 The thrusts and development goals of the country may also serve as
source.
 International trends, accords, and standards are also used as bases for
the creation of SLOs (for example, the Bologna and Washington Accords).

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

The following are characteristics of good student learning outcomes as
listed by Navarro & De Guzman-Santos (2013):
1. Good student learning outcomes are centered on the students, on what
the learners are capable of doing, instead of the teaching technique.
2. Good student learning outcomes are based on the program mission
statement agreed upon by the program faculty in consultation with other
stakeholders like alumni and other professionals. It is important that the
SLOs are based on issuances from government regulatory agencies such
DepEd’s K to 12 Law Enhanced Basic Education in the Philippines, the
thrusts of appropriate professional organizations, and advocacies of
employer and industry groups.
3. Good student learning outcomes are very well understood by both
students and faculty. They should be in agreement on the importance of
these competencies which they will cooperatively develop.
4. Good learning outcomes include a spectrum of thinking skills from simple
to the higher order of application of knowledge and skills.
5. Good learning outcomes are measurable.

ACTIVITY
Answer the following question in a short essay with a maximum of 500
words. The essay shall be graded using the following rubrics:

Why is it important to set appropriate student learning outcomes?

CRITERIA Weight
Content 50%
Organization of Ideas 30%
Mechanics (Grammar and other technical considerations) 20%
 1.2 AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT
Different lessons require different assessment methods. While pen-and-
paper tests mostly suffice for our theory-knowledge assessment, how students
will apply these theories in practice and real-life is a different hurdle together.
How do we assess how what the students will do with what we know so that we
can ensure that they embody our SLOs?

To this end, we use another form of assessment called Authentic

Assessment.

Jon Mueller (2011) defines Authentic Assessment as “a form of

assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that
demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills”.

Grant Wiggins (1987), on the other hand, sees Authentic Assessment as

“…engaging and worthy problems or questions of importance, in which students
must use knowledge to fashion performances effectively and creatively. The
tasks are either replicas of or analogous to the kind of problems faced by adult
citizens and consumers or professionals in the field”.

In other words, authentic assessment allows us to assess how the

students will perform or showcase a skill or use their knowledge in a preactical
setting.

Authentic Assessment is also known as performance assessment,

alternative assessment, and direct assessment.

So, how does it differ from a the traditional mode of assessment?

Traditional Assessment is commonly associated with pre-determined

choice measures of assessments such as multiple choice tasks, fill-in-the-blanks,
true-false, matching type, and others. Essentially, traditional assessment springs
from the educational philosophy which involves the following principles and
practices:

1. A school’s mission is to develop useful citizens;

2. To be a useful citizen, one must possess a certain body of knowledge and
skills;
3. The school is entrusted to teach this body of knowledge and skills;
4. To determine if the students have acquired these knowledge and skills,
the school must test the students on these knowledge and skills

On the other hand, Authentic Assessment is grounded on the following

principles and practices:

1. A school’s mission is to develop useful citizens;

2. To be a useful citizen, one has to be capable of preforming useful tasks in
the real-world;
3. The school’s duty is to help students develop proficiency in performing the
tasks that they will be required to perform after graduation in the work
place;
4. The school must then require students to perform tasks that duplicate or
imitate real-world situations.
 The following table summarizes the difference between the two:

Attributes Traditional Assessment Authentic Assessment

Action/ Options Selecting a response Performing a task
Setting Contrived/Imagined Simulation/Real-life
Method Recall/Recognition Construction/Application
Focus Teacher-Centered Student-Centered
Outcome Indirect Evidence Direct Evidence

However, contrary to popular belief, one is not better than the other. Just
as how there is no “best method in teaching”, these two are not black or white
options in which when you choose one, you cannot use the other. Traditional and
Authentic Assessments must complement each other. We cannot expect
students to execute skills without the students having knowledge of how to
properly execute them.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

1. Authentic assessment starts with clear and definite criteria of performance
made known to students.
2. Authentic assessment is criterion-referenced rather than norm referenced
and so it identifies strengths and weaknesses, but does not compare
students nor rank their levels of performance.
3. Authentic assessment requires students to make their own answers to
questions rather than select from given options as multiple choice items,
and requires them to use a range of higher order thinking skills (HOTS).
4. Authentic assessment often emphasizes performance and therefore
students are required to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, or
competencies in appropriate situations.
5. Authentic assessment encourages both teacher and students to determine
their rate of progress in cooperatively attaining the desired student
learning outcomes.
6. Authentic assessment does not encourage rote learning and passive
taking of tests; instead, students are required to demonstrate analytical
skills, ability to work in a group, skills in oral and written communications.
7. Authentic assessment changes the role of students as passive test takers
into becoming involved participants in assessment activities that
emphasize what they are capable of doing instead of their weaknesses.
This results to diminished fear of tests and improvement of self-esteem.

PHASES OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT

1. Identifying the most important knowledge and skills that students should
be able to demonstrate as a result of their learning activities;
2. Determining the criteria and standards of outcomes performance and the
acceptable evidence that may be presented as proof of outcomes’
attainment;
3. Implementation of the supporting activities that will facilitate the attainment
of the desired student learning outcomes;
4. Measuring the extent at which the students are attaining the desired
learning outcomes; and
 5. Interpreting the assessment results and evaluating whether they indicate
attainment of the desired outcomes and utilizing them for continuous
improvement,

Identifying
learner
outcomes

Interpreting
Determining
Assessment Standards
Results

Measuring
attainment Implementing
of Activities
Outcomes

ACTIVITY

Think of any topic in your line of specialization and come up with an

authentic assessment activity. How do you think will your activity help you
assess whether your students learned your chosen topic?

CRITERIA Weight
Content 50%
Organization of Ideas 30%
Mechanics (Grammar and other technical considerations) 20%
Tell whether each of the following is an example of authentic or traditional
assessment. Write A if it is an example of Authentic Assessment, and T if
the item is an example of Traditional Assessment.

1. Dramatizing a story

2. Writing an essay for the topic “how to write an argumentative text”

3. Administering a multiple choice test

4. Recitation of the elements of the periodic table

5. Labeling the parts of a the circulatory system]

6. Observing specimens under the Low Power Objective and High Power
Objective lens of a Microscope

7. Interviewing a local albularyo about traditional medicine

8. submitting a report about the trend in social media exposure of students

9. Listing the multiples of 7, 8, and 9

10. Dismantling and reassembling an air conditioning unit