Week 12B Blog

 Career and Professional Development

I love authentic assessment. My son is in a High School where they use authentic assessments, and he is flourishing. He is on the autism spectrum, but allowing for both authentic learning, as well as assessment has let him interact much more with the material in a way he would otherwise have had a very difficult time in doing.

I also appreciate that in my Masters Program, I have also been assessed authentically. Doing so allows not only my instructors to know how well I have picked up and understood the knowledge, It has also allowed me to see that I now understand and can use the knowledge – that is a confidence booster to be sure.

I do recognize though, that this is difficult for the instructors to implement. Karunanayaka and Naidu in their 2021 article note, “Although authentic assessment encourages deeper level learning and the development of generic graduate attributes, the design of such assessment activities needs careful planning and orchestration (Karunanayaka, & Naidu, 2021, p 231). That being said, these authentic assessments make me feel like I am becoming a marketable asset, and so the rest of the reading was also of interest to me this week.

I especially liked the Klein and Rushby article (Klein, & Rushby, 2018) where the authors indicated a path for IDT (IST) professionals to keep one at the peak of one’s game. I liked the elements that they indicated:

  • ·         Join a professional organization,
  • ·         Join an online forum,
  • ·         Attend Conferences, and
  • ·         Read, Review, and Write.

This is good advice for any professional and surely will lead to a fulfilling and respected career. I appreciated that not only did these authors list the ways to be and stay relevant, the listed examples of each element and how that element might help you in your career. It was not only good advice; it was actionable advice – that is something that I find as I attend conferences is missing far too often.

-Kevin

 

 References:
Karunanayaka, S. P., & Naidu, S. (2021). Impacts of authentic assessment on the development of graduate attributes. Distance Education, 42(2), 231-252.
 
Klein, J. D., & Rushby, N. (2018). Getting involved in instructional design and technology: Recommendations for Professional Development. In R. A. Reiser & J. V. Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design and technology (4th ed.) (pp. 219-228). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 15, 2021 at 7:14 AM

    Kevin,

    I am so glad to hear that both you and your son have had wonderful experiences with authentic assessment so far! It does take additional time to create authentic assessments, but it is so much better for student learning. Once an educator creates authentic assessments, they often just require revising so they're not too time-consuming after the design and development of the assessments. Many faculty love using publisher-created test banks and remote proctoring and these types of assessments often have so many issues from both a pedagogical and technological perspective. I have also loved that we are assessed using authentic assessments in this course. I know that we are being assessed on whether or not we have really met the course learning objectives.

    -Shanna Sanders

    ReplyDelete
  2. KeirstenNovember 15, 2021 at 4:54 PM

    Kevin,

    I agree on your thoughts on authentic assessments. Authentic assessments are a meaningful way to gauge student mastery of key concepts or learning outcomes. However, like you mentioned they can take much longer to create as they require careful planning and orchestration.

    You are right, attending conferences can be valuable for networking opportunities, but not all are great for providing actionable advice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownNovember 16, 2021 at 7:58 PM

    Kevin, I like this article about authentic assessment. It makes sense to test on a topic in a similar environment that the information would be used in. I also see this as a challenge to implement in every subject. Before you can get to an authentic assessment, there has to authentic learning. To get to that point though, the courses that are requirements need to be taken into consideration. From high school to college, we are required to take courses that aren't part of our authentic environment. Why make a student take course like history or humanities if he or she is not majoring in either. As I had mentioned in some of the other post, I believe high schools are putting to much pressure on students to take course that are not relevant to anyone but admissions at colleges. Why does students have to take honors or AP everything? I know things are better than I went to high school before the internet and computers but the focus of learning seems to be worse.

    Ed

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2 Blog

  Instructional Systems Design I found the readings this week to be quite interesting. I work for an international dental research journal. I find that this colors my perception of models and lenses. I am mostly a positivist and a behaviorist, and I appreciate, trust, and understand quantitative research far better than qualitative. That being said, my masters program in adult education is making some inroads into that thinking, and I can at least see where other lenses and theories might be acceptable. Because of that, I had a little bit of a rollercoaster ride this week trying to keep up with the transition from a behaviorist based Instructional design to more of a design-based approach. I did appreciate that Branch (Branch, 2018, p8) started out defining terms and clarified that, “Systemic stresses the application of creative problem-solving methods.”, that the word systemic indicated that, “all components within [a] system respond when a single component is stimulated.” (Br...
Read more

Week 1A Blog

  Reflection on My Pedagogic Creed by John Dewey I found this creed to be fascinating. Dewey seemed very forthright and far-reaching in his thoughts about the ‘perfect’ educational setting. Being that the creed was published in 1897, It took me a few moments to orient myself on the meaning of the terminology he used. He spoke of race, which at the time would not indicate genetic groups rather it would encompass the ‘human race’. Dewey spoke of social situations and status, and, as he was an American, it seems unlikely he was speaking solely about nobility class structures, but, I believe, would also be including economic classes, and the ability of one born in any of the ‘social situations’ to rise, or sink, according to their educational efforts. I think the greatest takeaway, for me, was the idea present in Article Two, where Dewey says (Dewey, 1897), “I believe that…school life should grow gradually out of home life”, that “[The school should] deepen and extend [the students] ...
Read more

Week 7 Blog

Theories of Learning: Comparison As much as I like last week’s articles, I was super concerned as I started reading this weeks, and could barely keep my eyes open. Paper 1 – BORING, Paper 2 – Informative, but boring, Paper 3 – I really wanted to enjoy it because I enjoyed the interview with Dr. Newby, but – boring, paper 4? (sorry Curt) – not boring, but so info dense it was hard to read and pick up much (it will take many readings). I was starting to get really apprehensive about finding anything I could “sink my teeth into”. Paper 5 was at least very practical, I will admit that I only read the inro and conclusion for 6, I couldn’t take anymore. But I hit a gold mine with 7! I loved R Keith Sawyer’s chapter, “The New Science of Learning” (RK Sawyer, 2006). I think the biggest take away was in the introduction where Sawyer talks about how theories and processes can have a time and a place (p1). It is not logical, but I kind of had in my head that it was kind of like math, 2+2=4, alw...
Read more