Learning happens all the time...at least I think it does...I hope it does!
Facilitating a class is such an exciting experience! You get to share your knowledge with others, you get to meet people from various backgrounds coming together to achieve the same learning objectives, and you also get the satisfaction of helping others achieve their goals. There is so much excitement about facilitating, but it would be a disservice to the industry to not share the not-so-exciting parts of facilitating. The pressure to have to accomplish all objectives in the session in an environment that encourages group discussions runs the risk of going over time. Even worse, what if nobody talks and you end your session way earlier than anticipated? The biggest fear as a facilitator is having learners tell you they didn’t learn anything in the session.
What is a facilitator to do other than assess the learner’s progress? Not all learners carry the same skills as others on the job, for example, one learner may be great at testing and can ace a knowledge check but learn nothing, and another learner can fail an assessment but have the desired skills an employer is looking for. Most of the time employers are only interested in how the learner did in the session, from the perspective of the facilitator.
In traditional lecture environments, it can be tough to determine how the learner did in the session without a traditional pass-and-fail assessment. As an instructional designer, it can be hard to evaluate the success of the session if the facilitator is doing most of the talking.
Times are changing in learning environments and most places are opting for engaging the learners. This approach is offering a meaningful style of learning that is allowing learners to easily transfer knowledge to the job. With a change of learning styles should come a more fitting style of assessing learners’ progress. Authentic Assessment evaluates the learner outside of the assessment that is graded and questions that are multiple choice/multiple selections. By applying real-world skills to gain a better understanding, learners are empowered to take control of their learning environment.
Inquiry-Based Learning
Learners are able to research and experiment with complex topics. Rather than facilitators providing learners with the steps to complete a process, learners are tasked with finding the steps given a set of resources that help guide them through the process. In a group setting, this allows others the ability to communicate within the group, it helps the groups demonstrate problem-solving skills which can be carried on to the job. As desirable as it is to have learners take 100% of what they learn back to the job, it is not always feasible. Researchers for the Center for Creative Leadership created a model that says 70% of knowledge is learned on the job, 20% is learned by peers and 10% is learned in the session. This highlighted that learning environments carry beyond the classroom and should focus more on applicable skills that can be carried on the job.
Authentic Assessment can be Influential
One thing that past learners have identified as a barrier in transfer knowledge is confidence in applying what was learned on the job. Having an authentic assessment that focused on real-world application helps with the ability to apply. As a facilitator, you can provide verbal confirmation that the learner is doing a great job but it’s not until the learner does the job will they be able to fully believe what others see in them. Having the opportunity to apply what was learned while still in the learning environment allows the learner to evaluate their own progress and adjust before going to the job so that they can assess what still needs to be improved. Empowering learners to take control of their learning will not only help them understand the content better because it is at their pace it will also help learners be receptive to changes that may come in the process. Ideally, student-centered learning creates meaning for why they are learning what they are learning which helps those adapt to the content that is learned because the motivation of learning the job to the best of their ability is at top of their mind.
What prevents Authentic Assessment from being effective?
Not knowing what the outcome is supposed to be is a major barrier to applying authentic assessments effectively. As a designer, it can be tough to understand what the learner is supposed to do once the session ends if the designer is not familiar with the content. When designing a curriculum, it makes sense to have the learner in my mind so that I know the original outcome, it also helps to know the level of experiences that learners will be bringing into the session so that any chance for assessment will have a complexity that fits all learners. Also, as a designer, it is beneficial to test out anything that is being created to assess the progress of learners; set timelines can jeopardize the ability to test anything that is created, being aware of timelines and included testing is a crucial step in the design process. Walking into a learning session and not knowing what to expect when assessing progress is not only frustrating as a learner but can be perceived as unprofessional as a facilitator.
References
The 70-20-10 model for Learning and Development. Training Industry. (2023, March 17). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://trainingindustry.com/wiki/content-development/the-702010-model-for-learning-and-development/
Authentic assessment. Authentic Assessment | Institute for Teaching Excellence. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.njit.edu/ite/authentic-assessment
Center for the advancement of teaching excellence. Authentic Assessments | Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence | University of Illinois Chicago. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://teaching.uic.edu/resources/teaching-guides/assessment-grading-practices/authentic-assessments/
Whatever happened to authentic assessment? Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice. (2022, August 31). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2020/09/28/whatever-happened-to-authentic-assessment/
YouTube. (2021, September 22). Understanding different types of assessments | Kathleen Jasper. YouTube. Retrieved March 18, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U_syfhNN64
Authentic vs Traditional Assessments
IDT520-0 01 Blog Case Study Response 3
Week 2.2 Project
Tricia Sang
https://drdeason.wixsite.com/201911-blog-idt520/post/authentic-assessment-vs-traditional-assessments
Can motivation be measured?
As a teacher I’ve often wondered about the value placed on traditional assessments and why those assessments are tied to teacher assessments. Afterall traditional assessments merely asks students to tell what they know whereas authentic assessments require that the students use that skill or knowledge gained to create something tangible and involves higher level thinking skills that students will use beyond the classroom. Traditional tests most definitely have no way to even gauge or inspire a student’s creativity much less their motivation in completing a task.
Authentic assessments do, rather than fill-in the blanks, multiple choice…
Meaningful Knowledge
In assessing mastery, the level or type of mastery must be determined before the assessment can be accurately created. If mastery is based on compliance and successful delivery of factual instruction, the assessment can be a knowledge-based, mixed-format test. However, if the mastery is intended to be at a more complex and authentic level, the assessment needs to match that expectation. Despite the unpredictability of authenticity, learners possess more control over the outcomes than they do when trying to align learning with a contrived assessment (Reiser & Dempsey, 2017, 81)The term “teach to the test” has a negative connotation, however when the instructor is creating both the distribution and assessment of knowledge, “teaching to the test” is actua…
The added benefit of authentic assessments is that they offer a real-world view of the knowledge the student has gained. Clifford E. Thermer states that, “They encompass a wide variety of techniques while focusing on evaluating a learner's mastery and performance of a training objective, rather than the degree of compliance or conformity.” (Thermer, 1996) I think this level of experiential assessment offers a deeper glimpse into what the student has been able to retain from the learning session. In an article for Community College Enterprise in a discussion between Dr. Steven L. Berg and Dr. Jon Mueller, Dr. Mueller says about traditional assessments vs authentic assessments that in a traditional assessment, “If a student gets a multiple-choice question wrong,…
This article addresses one of the key components of any instructor or instructional designer’s toolkit, feedback. The role of the instructional designer and instructor is to ensure that information is presented in the best way possible to encourage active learning and engagement. The process of instructing and gathering feedback on the learner’s experience in a course and interpreting assessment feedback often falls on the shoulder of a facilitator.
This is where the drawbacks of time, resources, individual learning styles and motivation come into play, dealing with the expectations of workplace job objectives, and measuring learning through assessments have seen skewed results on whether regurgitating information for end of course assessments are effective in determining whether the learners actually learned the…