Authentic Assessment in B.A. Speech Communication

Abstract

Educators are aware of their goal to ascertain that learning occurs among their students. Personal and institutional resources are spent on teacher training, specifically on pedagogical techniques most applicable to a specific group of learners. The process of effective teaching, however, should not focus only on pedagogical techniques, but also on forms of assessment implemented to measure learning. Traditional pen and paper tests as the sole means of measuring student performance are outdated. However, how do educators identify what needs to be assessed? What assessment methods are more applicable to their students? There have been a number of articles that discuss the mismatch of skills among college graduates and the requirements of the industries dominating the urban sector. This leads to another basic question which educators should be aware of: What career options do their graduates pursue after college? Are the knowledge and skills they develop in college sufficient to the demands of the industries they are in? This is where authentic assessment comes into play. This paper looks into the authentic assessment techniques commonly used among selected faculty members of the Department of Speech Communication
and Theatre Arts, in the core courses that they handle. It seeks to answer the basic question: Are we measuring what needs to be measured among our students? If yes, how are we measuring them?
Keywords: Speech Communication, Authentic Assessment, Instructional Systems Design, Curricular Change, Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts