Discovery Education provides opportunities for students to demonstrate authentic understanding of content, which can be connected to the characteristics of authentic assessments.
From Jon Mueller's Authentic Assessment Toolbox: http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/tasks.htm
An authentic task is an assignment given to students designed to assess their ability to apply standard-driven knowledge and skills to real-world challenges.
Authentic assessment encourages the integration of teaching, learning, and assessing, so that the same authentic task used to measure the students' ability to apply the knowledge or skills is used as a vehicle for student learning.
Discovery Education provides opportunities for students to demonstrate authentic understanding of content, which can be connected to the characteristics of authentic assessments.
Discovery Education Studio
Discovery Education Studio is a digital creation tool that engages students as content creators. By incorporating Discovery Education content, as well as their own content and artifacts like videos, images, illustrations, and original text, students can demonstrate authentic understanding of content in real, relevant ways. Characteristics of authentic assessment include:
- Perform a task: By creating digital boards, students create a incorporate what they have learned authentically.
- Construction/Application: Using Studio allows students to construct a product that demonstrates their understanding of content with multimedia resources.
- Student-structured: Studio provide students latitude in choosing how to communicate their understanding.
SOS Instructional Strategies
SOS Instructional Strategies are research-based instructional strategies that incorporate digital media in meaningful, effective, and practical ways. Some SOS instructional ideas offer authentic assessment opportunities, such as Paper Slide, Music Video, and PechaKucha.
Characteristics of authentic assessment include:
- Perform a task: Each SOS asks students to create a product that incorporates their learning.
- Construction/Application: Student products using SOS require application of understanding.
- Student-structured: SOS provide students creative freedom in how to approach their product of learning.
- Direct Evidence: SOS products provide the opportunity to offer direct evidence of student understanding.
Downloadable/Editable Video Content
Most Discovery Education video content is downloadable, and much of it is editable. When a video is editable, students and teachers know they have the rights to mix that content to make something of their own, like adding their narration to communicate a new idea, green-screening to make themselves part of the story, or remixing different media types to formulate an argument. This allows students to manipulate and interact with the content in new ways and can be used to demonstrate authentic understanding.
Characteristics of authentic assessment include:
- Perform a task: Incorporating existing video content into students’ responses is a complex task.
- Real-life: Creating a new video has real-world relevance.
- Student-structured: Students have flexibility in how to utilize the video content.
- Direct Evidence: How students use the video content can provide direct evidence of understanding.
Challenge-Based Learning
Discovery Education’s Corporate Educational Partners offer annual challenges that allow students to demonstrate their understanding of real-world issues.
Characteristics of authentic assessment as part of these challenges include:
- Perform a task: Each challenge requires students to create a product that is submitted as part of a contest.
- Real-life: Partner challenges are offered by real companies and address real issues.
- Construction/Application: Understanding of the concept must be applied in order to complete each challenge.
- Student-structured: Students have choice in creating their product that responds to each challenge.
Collaborative Projects
Discovery Education offers six different collaborative projects, investigating such as topics biodiversity, STEM careers, service learning, cultural awareness, and more. Each collaborative project offers opportunities to build background knowledge, conduct investigations, and create and work with collaborative data sets with other classrooms.
Characteristics of authentic assessment include:
- Real-life: Each collaborative project is built around a real-word issue and has them conduct an investigation to generate answers.
- Construction/Application: Students demonstrate learning through the hands-on process and must report their results.
- Direct Evidence: Collaborative projects are designed so that students must reason and reconcile their data with that provided by other classrooms.