Authentic Assessment in Social Studies

Book excerpt: This engaging book will show you how to move beyond tests and essay writing to implement authentic assessments in your middle or high school social studies classroom. Award-winning teacher David Sherrin explains the value of authentic assessments and offers practical ways to get started and dive deeper in your own practice. You’ll be encouraged and inspired by the real-life stories of classroom successes and failures that illustrate the points throughout the book. The chapters cover a range of categories, including different types of written, creative, and civic action assessments. The book includes: planning charts and rubrics showing how to use, grade, and give feedback on assessments so they truly aid student learning and progress specific examples, useful tips, and ready-to-go instructions that you can use immediately with your class open-ended assessments encourage scaffolding or adaptation for individual or group work to fit your classroom needs You will learn how to personalize instruction and provide students with avenues for creativity and the types of learning experiences they need to be prepared for a complex world.