What is Authentic Assessment?

"Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performance on worthy intellectual tasks." (Wiggins, 1990)

The case for authentic assessment, left me wondering whether or not common assessment techniques in my classroom suffice. There appears to be an argument about ways to assess, no matter how you do it. In mathematics, I can teach "how to learn mathematics" to students, or I can teach, "how to learn", or I can simply teach, "mathematics" to my students. How I assess those students are going to be the deciding factor on whether or not they learned what I taught them...but is this good enough. If I can measure that learning has occured, isn't this what HLC has asked of me and my institution? If I can map this learning to a goal or objective of my program, I have satisfied the conditions set before me.

As does rubrics get student engaged in what it is that is expected of them in a particular assignment or project, a test review will also get a student involved...providing them with what is expected of them on the exam. For mathematics, I can see the difficulty in using authentic assessment versus traditional, but it would sure be interesting to see it in action.

http://www.educationoasis.com/curricuolum/assessment/case_authentic_assessment.htm