A theoretical model for the authentic assessment of teaching

Abstract

Over the course of the last decade, many higher education institutions that prepare teachers along with states, districts, and national organizations have sought to design new forms of assessment for preservice teachers. These efforts have stemmed from a growing sentiment that more powerful and nuanced assessment strategies are now needed to target the complexities of the knowledge that teachers bring to bear in their teaching (Shulman, 1987) as well as the subtleties of innovative teaching practice (Smith, 1990). Efforts to create new forms of assessment have sought to transcend the limits of traditional testing practices as they provide ways to sensitively document the personally and contextually complex world of teaching. This movement towards new forms of assessment for preservice teachers has been marked, generally speaking, by movement away from standardized paper and pencil tests of knowledge and skill and the use of observational checklists of teaching behaviors. These types of assessments are targeted by would be reformers as reflecting a narrow conception of teaching (DarlingHammond, Wise, & Klein, 1995). As an alternative, we hear calls for more nuanced, “authentic” forms of assessment that can capture the complexities of teaching and learning as they develop over time and across different contexts (Shulman, 1988; Wolf, 1991).