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

2. Then…

3. …and now!

4. 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)

5. Another way of looking at it…
Identify the Question…
Define the Solution…
Apply the Solution and Collect Data…
Analyze your findings…
Try it out…

6. What do these all have in common?

7. Teachers as Researchers…
Start with a question…
What do you wonder about within your discipline?

8. Who can you do it with?

9. How do you know they have learned?
An assessment by any other name….
authentic assessment OR
performance assessment
alternative assessment

10. Think about it…
What would be an appropriate performance assessment for…
a math class?
a music class?
a speech class?
a chemistry class?
or…your subject area?

11. Keep in mind… 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)

12. Compare
Sample A
Sample B
Sample C

13. What do you need for the instrument?
Evaluative criteria
Descriptions of qualitative differences for the evaluative criteria
Either a holistic or analytic scoring approach.

14. Examples of Rubrics
Holistic Rubric
Analytic Rubric

15. References
Johnson, B. (1993). Teacher as researcher. Retrieved from
Popham, W. (2010). Classroom assessment: What teachers need to know, 6th ed. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ.