How Do I Design Authentic Assessments?

One approach to preparing students to use their critical thinking and problem-solving skills is to give them an authentic task that they might encounter in their professional careers. Authentic assessments present students with “ill-structured challenges” they might encounter in a complex and uncertain work environment and ask students to use their higher-order thinking skills of analysis and evaluation, and to construct, perform, or produce something that demonstrates their learning (Wiggins, 1990). Authentic tasks play a key role in different pedagogical approaches, such as problem-based, project-based, inquiry-based, or design-based learning. Both process (open questioning, feedback, and self- or peer-assessments) and product are equally important to authentic assessments (Koh, 2017). Authentic assessments can also motivate students by showing the real-world relevance of complex tasks and disciplinary learning. 

Strategies and Examples

Consider the Attributes of Authentic Tasks. When designing an authentic assessment, check to see if your task incorporates the criteria of an authentic task:

• The task is realistic; meaning, it should mimic what students might encounter in a real-world context, drawing on the knowledge, skills, and/or dispositions for which professionals would need in the workplace.
• The task requires students to use critical thinking, decision-making or problem-solving for a novel situation.
• Students have opportunities to practice and receive feedback (i.e., the strengths and weaknesses and how to make progress moving forward) to improve the quality of their work.
• Students engage in either self- or peer-assessment on the process and the product of the authentic task (Koh, 2017).

Use Your Course Learning Outcomes to Design the Tasks. Ideally, your learning outcomes include higher-order verbs (e.g., research, evaluate, develop, demonstrate, present) that can be translated into a set of authentic tasks. For example: Illustrate findings of your lab research or Prioritize your key findings using a variety of visual media uses higher-order thinking verbs and applies them to an object or a product (Brown & Sambell, n.d.).

Bring in Your Discipline or the Professional Context in Which Students Will Work. For the task to be realistic, it’s helpful to brainstorm scenarios or hypothetical contexts for which the task might occur. This creative part of writing the assignment provides students with some background information that provides relevance to the task. If you have a relationship with an industry partner or a community organization, you can work with them to develop a task that would be beneficial to both your students and your partner.

Decide How the Task Will Be Evaluated. Sharing the assessment criteria and rubrics for the task before students begin can clarify your expectations and provide students with an opportunity to ask any clarifying questions. Building in moments when students can give and receive feedback (to their peers and from you) while engaging in the task—either through practice or by chunking the task into smaller discrete parts—can help students understand the purpose of the task and prompts them to reflect on and improve their work.  

Get Creative. The examples below offer some ideas and creative inspiration for authentic tasks in different disciplines.

• Biology: Review a grant proposal and decide if the applicants should be funded and why.  
• Business: Develop a new hiring strategy for an imaginary (or real) company.
• Computer Science: Develop an app to solve a particular problem for an imaginary (or real) company.
• English: Develop a persuasive advertising campaign on the importance of the humanities in the college curriculum.  
• History: Write a blog post or an op-ed on how our knowledge of history could be applied to addressing or understanding the problems or challenges we are encountering today.
• Nursing: Provide a background story for a patient and ask students to assess or create a plan of care.
• Political Science: Have students conduct a poll on a key issue, analyze, and report the results.