What about Standards, Goals, Objectives, and Assessment?

Rubrics are great tools for assessment, but in today’s educational arena, there is a strong emphasis on addressing state and federal mandated standards when planning goals, objectives and assessment. How do these components fit into authentic assessment?

“Good teachers have standards in mind when they set their lessons up, where the idea of a ‘standard’ represents a specific idea of what the teacher expects a student to recall, replicate, manipulate, understand, or demonstrate at some point down the road - and of how the teacher will know how close a student has come to meeting that standard. Standards, in other words, are conceptually nothing new - though we do seem to keep reinventing them.”
-- Charles Hill

The best way to ensure that the required standards are covered in curriculum is to include them right from the start of the planning phase. The first decision should determine specific learning objectives. Once this is done, it is important to match these objectives to the standards that are to be covered. A common mistake is trying to cover too many things, whereas the best projects focus on one or two specific ones By looking at the objectives and standards it is possible to come up with goals and a mission statement for the project. While many teachers feel comfortable creating these last two steps, their results are not easily measured in assessment. Connecting these broader expectations with standards and objectives makes it easier to ensure that curricular goals are met.

Visit this link http://www.gsn.org/web/pbl/plan/assres.htm

Some questions to keep in mind:
* What required coursework will this project teach or supplement?
* Where does the project fit into your curriculum guidelines?
* Is the project aligned with your required curriculum framework and requirements?

Have a look at the grid for Authentic Assessment created by Jon Mueller