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Geoff Johnson: Authentic assessment takes more than just a simple test

Testing, at least the kind that frequently happens in schools, is back in the news. The U.S.
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University of Victoria students write final exams in the schoolÕs gymnasium. Assessment of studentsÕ real-world skills is more useful than just standardized testing, Geoff Johnson writes.

Testing, at least the kind that frequently happens in schools, is back in the news.

The U.S. college entrance pay-for-test results scandal is the latest example of the worst application of the belief that standardized test results somehow equate with educational opportunity, learning and life prospects.

The Program for International Student Assessment on 15-year-old students from 65 countries, issued every three years, always causes politicians to have conniptions about “the state of Canadian education.”

This is not a diatribe against testing but, as most teachers and parents know, there are qualitative differences between assessment, measurement and standardized tests.

The point is that “not everything that counts which can be measured and not everything that can be measured counts.”

Learning is complex, multi-dimensional and, in some ways, quirky. An attempt to quantify it, to describe it with a single number or alphabetic letter grade, misunderstands and minimizes the astonishing experience of learning.

Leon Nevfakh, writing for the Boston Globe, emphasizes that being successful in today’s world requires more than an ability to think quickly and recall facts on command.

The problem, as Nevfakh implies, is that our education system often fails to recognize that distinction and, as a result, the general approach to testing lags behind reality.

Traditional standardized testing using pen and paper with multiple-choice, true or false or matching type test items tests specific abilities at a specific hour on a specific day.

Authentic assessment refers to assessments in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of what they have learned.

Traditional approaches tend to rely on a one-shot attempt to evaluate if the students have learned the content. Traditional testing seeks to determine whether students are successful in acquiring factual knowledge. A grade is ascribed and the person is ranked and compared to standards.

Authentic assessment provides students with a variety of ways to demonstrate best what they have learned and are able to apply to real-life situations.

A driving test can involve a test on paper, but the authentic assessment happens behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Authentic assessment still provides feedback and helps students manage their own learning.

Demonstrations, portfolios of student work, projects, multimedia presentations, exhibits and even recitals all can be forms of authentic assessment.

Authentic assessment measures a student’s ability to apply knowledge of the content in real-life situations and the ability to apply what they have learned in meaningful ways.

“[Historically], the testing industry, because it was pragmatic, only tested what it was easy to test,” writes James Paul Gee, presidential professor of literacy studies and a regents’ professor at Arizona State University, “but as a parent, I don’t want you to just test what’s easy to test, I want you to test what’s important to test.”

Traditional testing notoriously dropped the ball on behalf of many people who excelled in later life.

Winston Churchill, in his autobiography A Sun That Never Sets, wrote about his struggle with paper-and-pencil standardized tests. “I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations.”

Albert Einstein was refreshingly vocal about his dislike of formal testing. His teachers called him a poor student.

“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not.” he wrote. “This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”

Standardized testing of one kind or another led Walt Disney’s teachers to report that Disney “lacked imagination and has no good ideas.”

Fortunately for the future of public education, the researchers at the forefront of test design have a bigger dreams. The challenge is to build smarter, more sophisticated assessments which measure potential, perseverance, attitude to learning, ability to think through a problem and adaptability.

That, they say, will change education itself.

Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.