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What is authentic learning?
Submitted by Mel on Wed, 23/07/2008 - 11:30am.
"Hipkins (2005) suggests ... that the Key Competencies are intended to be developed in contexts that are challenging, have personal relevance to students, and require them to actively engage with problems. This implies some key shifts in practice, for example, an increasing use of student-centred practices to source contexts that are authentic for learners, and an emphasis on the idea of “using” rather than “covering” curriculum content.... Authentic learning involved students working on projects to research, design, plan, and create solutions to real-life problems. These teachers reframed the experiences listed above or created new ways of giving students these opportunities. This summary of the international literature supports the current direction the case study schools are taking with assessment and also suggests a need to progress cautiously with the more formal aspects of assessing the Key Competencies."
(Authenticity. Shifting the frame. Key Competencies.)
Click here to view full document off the New Zealand Curriculum Online Site.
Students' thoughts about authentic learning
There are good examples of New Zealand secondary and primary students carrying out authentic learning:
www.nexusresearchgroup.com
The most powerful argument for authentic learning has to come from the students:
Maths students’ comments about authentic learning from a NZ classroom:
What does “authentic learning” mean to you?
Maximising learning:
Authentic learning could be described as a more appropriate or natural way for students to learn. Yet care must be taken as to how to design learning tasks.
Research in the US looked at using problem based learning (PBL) and case studies (CS). Both PBL and CS offered more authentic learning experiences and fit the constructivist philosophy of learning.
However students that engaged in problem based learning are faced with an "anything goes" situation with few signposts to indicate if they are going in the right direction to meet learning outcomes.
Students following case studies to solve problems did significantly better. There was a chance for students to take risks or try different strategies to solve a problem but a particular goal was always identifiable from the start.
An example of PBL is being trialled with currently with students to build a small robot. Not surprisingly, the open-endedness of this task can lead to confusion as well as learning, and a great deal of time involved if it is unclear as to when the task has been completed well enough.
In contrast, the same students set challenges based on a CSI case study and a NASA engineering case appeared to do better. They had a goal to compare their work against but the freedom to get to that goal as they saw fit.
_______________________
The most important thing about authentic learning for me and my students has to be putting the fun back in to school!
Michael Fenton, 2008 E-Learning Fellow
Dragging the Chain with Assessment
I absolutely agree with Hipkin’s belief that authentic learning occurs when content is “used” rather than “covered”. Students nowadays are taught a whole range of skills across a variety of subjects and most often see little reason as to what and why they are learning it. The big driver of this is the underlying belief that students need to be compared and funnelled through the senior (Y11-13) assessment regime. Attempts to change this through NCEA have proven largely to be a dismal failure. Little has changed in the curriculum to move learning away from the necessity to cover enough content to get through to the end goal which is that of grades.
As a mathematics teacher I cringe when I see an NCEA paper full of contrived “real world” situations to try to make the topic relevant. In the Year 11 Mathematics Graphs Exam of 2005 we find a tent made into the shape of overlapping quadratic graphs in order to manufacture a so called authentic situation. As a history teacher I see students asked to regurgitate enough information in a badly written essay to achieve their grade, when we could be asking them to analyse the information and assess its current impact on us and our world. I could go on and on but I won’t.
It will be interesting to see the impact of the new 2010 curriculum on moving our teaching towards a genuine problem based approach. Alas, I feel that we will continue to be anchored with our assessment obsession. I am not a pessimist but a realist. Please convince me that I am wrong!
Mark Callagher, 2008 Efellow
Authentic learning and Languages...
During our visits to schools gathering data for the Learning Languages with ICTs research, we have come across a number of examples of authentic learning. In one school, students learning Chinese will soon be departing for a trip to Shanghai. In order to give students survival skills, the teacher is teaching them the art of bargaining in Chinese. These sessions are videoed, and critiqued by participants and their peers.
Another example involves French students taking part in a Singstar contest via a Playstation. The students are fully engaged, learn about French youth culture and practice pronunciation. The element of competition gives the sessions added spice!
In both these cases, students use their language skills in situations that are real to them. In both cases, the teacher took the context and "transformed it into something real, meaningful and motivating" (to quote Nick R.) However, in the Singstar case, the students have gone further, taking ownership of the process to the extent that they frequently run sessions outside class time, and are often reluctant to leave the class room.
What I think is of equal interest to the whole issue of authentic learning is how, and to what extent this type of experience encourages students to persist with the challenging, and often boring, aspects of learning that require mastery of content and rigorous thinking.
Who is 'Anonymous'?
Technology to Address Authentic Learning
Technology has a pivotal role to play in enabling authentic learning in our classrooms. Students have access to a great deal of information on practically any topic they wish to explore, they have relatively easy access to experts in their field of study and equally important, the power of new technologies give students an audience to present their work and engage with in an authentic context.
The challenge for us as teachers is to set tasks that encourage and enable authentic learning to take place. To move away from being the 'holders of all knowledge' and scaffold our students through engaging learning opportunities which allow and encourage them to explore topics, ideas and questions that they want to know the answers to. To help them disseminate their findings with their classmates and the wider community and empower them to become active participants in their learning. Learning that is completely student centred. It will force us (and is currently forcing many teachers) to rethink current assessment pracitices - particularly in regard to the key competencies - which are integral to enabling authentic learning. I guess the question will become are we assessing students' knowledge of a topic or their ability to learn? The most important thing is that we don't try to cram the key competencies on top of already overflowing curriculum. Rather we rethink the way that we are teaching and use the Key Competencies as a strong foundation on which to build our teaching and consider the way that technology can be integrated to enhance this.
Toni Twiss eFellow 2008
Inquiry learning and key competencies. Perfect match or problem?
Nick Billowes, CORE Education
What is Authentic Learning?
Re: What is authentic learning?
Authentic learning is described above in two different ways. Firstly, Hipkins' definition of the environment that the key competencies should be developed in is to me the text-book definition of authentic learning. I agree with the concepts as described, but feel that defining authentic learning is in itself not that difficult. What has more relevance is when the defintion additionally incorporates the actual actions required by those facilitating learning in the classroom.
The second description is closer to the mark where research projects, planning and designing, and creating solutions through the teacher reframing experiences is clearer to what authentic learning is all about. That is, the teacher holds the key to any authentic learning, regardless of the curriculum, level or ability of the students or the school they teach in. Authenticity is about the teacher taking a context or content and transforming it into something that is real, meaningful and motivating to the student.
The second theme of the above text is the notion of the key competencies and whether or not they should be formally assessed. I am glad to read that we need to progress cautiously with the more formal aspects of assessing the Key Competencies. Pheww! The last thing that we need to do is go back to the days of assessing concepts and skills that should be being interwoven and integrated into all learning and don't stand alone by themselves.
---------------Nick Rate
eFellow 2008
Assessment for Learning and ePortfolios