Transcript A Closer Look at Action Research and Authentic Assessment Dr. Cher Gauweiler College of Education Critical Thinking Retreat February 17, 2010

A Closer Look at Action
Research and Authentic
Assessment
Dr. Cher Gauweiler
College of Education
Critical Thinking Retreat
February 17, 2010
Then…
…and now!
Defining the terms…

Simply put, action research is the
process of systematically testing new
ideas in the classroom or school,
analyzing the results, and deciding to
implement the new idea or begin the
process again with another idea.
(Johnson, 1993)
Another way of looking at it…
Identify the
Question…
Try it out…
Analyze
your
findings…
Define the
Solution…
Apply the
Solution
and Collect
Data…
What do these all have in
common?
Teachers as Researchers…

Start with a question…

What do you wonder about within your
discipline?
Who can you do it with?
How do you know they have
learned?

An assessment by any other name….
authentic assessment
OR
performance assessment
OR
alternative assessment
Think about it…

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
What would be an appropriate
performance assessment for…
a math class?
a music class?
a speech class?
a chemistry class?
or…your subject area?
Keep in mind…

1.
2.
3.
Is it really a genuine performance
assessment? If so…
It has multiple evaluative criteria
It has prespecified quality standards
It has a human judgmental appraisal
(Popham, 2010)
Compare

Sample A

Sample B

Sample C
What do you need for the
instrument?
1.
2.
3.
Evaluative criteria
Descriptions of qualitative differences
for the evaluative criteria
Either a holistic or analytic scoring
approach.
Examples of Rubrics

Holistic Rubric

Analytic Rubric
References

Johnson, B. (1993). Teacher as
researcher. Retrieved from
http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIC/Teache
r-Researcher.htm

Popham, W. (2010). Classroom
assessment: What teachers need to
know, 6th ed. Prentice Hall: Upper
Saddle River, NJ.