THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT
IN THE 2013 CURRICULUM AT MAN 2 MODEL MAKASSAR
Muh. Safar Nur
campaace3@gmail.com
Muh Asfah Rahman
asfah_rahman@yahoo.com
Haryanto Atmowardoyo
haryanto@unm.ac.id
ABSTRACT
This research focuses on the implementation and the challenges of authentic assessment in 2013 Curriculum. Employing case study design, the study draws insights of the implementation embracing the types of assessment, the competences to assess, and the challenges encountered by two English teachers and two classes of the students from a senior high school in Makassar. The obtained data from six nonparticipant observations, two sessions of a semi-structured interview with teachers and documentation toward teachers’ documents were all analyzed using thematic analysis model in relations to the concerns of this study. The findings demonstrated that the teachers implemented the authentic assessment in three cyclical stages covering planning, implementing, and evaluating. Three assessment types covering observation, written test, and performance assessment were employed to assess three competencies consisting of attitude, knowledge, and skills. Unfortunately, this practice still remained challenges for teacher covering pertains to scoring, time and effort consuming, and validity issue. It, therefore, could be concluded that the challenges will adhere to the implementation of authentic assessment. These findings inform teachers, policy maker, and future researcher to take possible actions on what and how to do next in order to enhance the practice of assessment in Indonesia.
Keywords: authentic assessment, 2013 curriculum, implementation, competences, challenges.
Introduction
Over the last three decades, actually, there has been a major shift in this area around the world (Roscoe, 2013). The concept of assessment in Indonesia through the policy and practice is interesting to discuss. It is demonstrated by the policy in which since 2013 the government through the Ministry of Education and Culture has decided to change the previous curriculum by implementing the new one namely 2013 Curriculum. One of the prominent characteristics of this curriculum is the use of authentic assessment which Shams and Tavakoli (2014) claim as a part of the post method era. This assessment is a mandated assessment to implement by the teacher as stated in the Regulation of Ministry of Education and Culture Number 66 (2013) on Assessment Standard, Number 81A (2013) on Curriculum Implementation, and Number 104 (2014)) on assessment of learning outcomes. The use of authentic assessment then will contribute to the improvement of English instruction. Traditional forms of assessment such as standardized English test are considered inappropriate for English Language Learner (ELL) students. The language components of standardized test mainly assess reading and vocabulary knowledge and ignored progress in written and oral language, important components of foreign language instructional programs. Virtually all schools administer standardized test once a year, leaving teachers without regular information throughout the school year on what students have learned. “Even formal language testing for oral proficiency is typically conducted only once annually” (O’Malley & Pierce, 1996). Without additional assessment tailored to the need of language students, the teacher is unable to plan instruction effectively or make an accurate decision about student’s needs and progress.
Therefore the researcher decides to examine further the study about the authentic assessment in terms of implementation and challenges of the authentic assessment at a senior high school which has been implemented the 2013 curriculum since 2013/2014 academic year.
RELATED LITERATURE
1. Definition of Authentic Assessment
There are many experts explaining the definition of authentic assessment, such as Mueller (2005) which explain in his web that authentic assessment is a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of knowledge and skills that they learn in school. Student performance on tasks usually determines how successful the student has met the specific standard. Supported by Aitken (2005), the authentic assessment captures aspects of students’ knowledge, deep understanding, problem-solving skills, social skills, and attitudes that are used in a real-world, or simulation of a real-world situation. Authentic assessments set meaningful and engaging tasks, in a rich context, where the learner applies knowledge and skills and performs the task in a new situation. Authentic tasks help students rehearse for the complex ambiguities of adult and professional life.
Particularly, based on The Regulation of Ministry of Education No.81A (2013) about the implementation of Curriculum 2013, authentic assessment is an assessment which significantly focuses on measuring student’s learning process dealing with their attitude, knowledge, and skill. It has to be able to diagnose whether the student has or has not possessed the knowledge, attitude and skills and how student actualizes their competences.
RESEARCH METHOD
This research applied a case study which was involving 2 teachers of MAN 2 Model Makassar. The data were obtained through observation, interview, and documentation and analyzed by thematic analysis (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007).
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
1. The Implementation of Authentic Assessment in the 2013 Curriculum
Both teachers assessed the students comprehensively in the classroom. There were activities regarding the implementation of authentic assessment. They were planning, implementation, and evaluation.
Designing reliable authentic assessments is as crucial importance as implementing them in instructional activities. Teachers are demanded not only to be able to deliver the learning materials well but also to develop the assessment effectively. The interview indicated that English teachers of MAN 2 Model Makassar had conducted several steps in planning. Based on the results of observation and documentation, the researcher saw the learning tools of the teacher that used in the learning process. Before the learning process was conducted, the teacher prepared a rubric of assessment as the reference in the assessment process.
From the two teachers, they confessed that the attitude assessment nowadays is only for the homeroom and counseling teacher. That was why they did not overlook the attitude assessment since they are subject teacher. The first teacher did the written test on the second meeting. The form of the written test was description questions. Moreover, the second teacher not only used written test in assessing students. From the documentation, there was a form of discussion observation. However, the teacher did question and answer activity on the second meeting before the other groups presented their drama yet the teacher did not use any instrument in assessing students’ knowledge. The first teacher divided the students into groups and asked all students to perform an oral presentation while the second teacher asked the students to perform a drama. Due to the student, the oral presentations and drama were divided into a group task where groups of 4-5 students for presentation and 9-10 for drama and then presented their oral presentation/drama. The meeting ran for 90 minutes for the presentation and 60 minutes for the drama. Both the oral presentation and drama took 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the number of students in the group. Each student was required to speak. The oral presentation/drama was marked by the teacher, and the teacher was assisted by students’ paper for presentation and script for the drama. Although students presented in a group, they received an individual marked criteria sheet and an individual mark. Immediately after the presentation/drama, the teacher provided the group with oral feedback on their group’s performance. According to Newmann, King, & Carmichael (2007), a monologue is not the only type of performance task. The teacher can also ask students to do telling story, debate, or even doing written assessment. All of the students’ performances were observed and recorded by teachers by using instruments. In fact, the first teacher assessed the students’ paper of presentation too. From the documentation, the first teacher used two instruments of performance assessment. They are rating scale of presentation and rating scale of paper with the rubric. The second teacher used one instrument of performance assessment. She used assessment rubric of English drama which is developed by herself to assess the students’ performance in the drama.
The first teacher gave evaluation for the students by giving remedial for the students who did not achieve the minimum passing grade. Similar with the first teacher, the second teacher gave remedial for the students who did not pass. But the second teacher gave enrichment for the students who already passed. It is reasonable to think that these kinds of activities are easily implementable in senior high school classrooms, although such an approach might warrant some additional professional development for the teachers and classroom organizational considerations. The ultimate goal probably was to investigate the conditions that best support the production of lasting and flexible knowledge for a wide range of students. Furthermore, the use of assessment by the teachers in the classroom was not only regarding how the teachers assessed the students while doing presentation or drama. It was more likely that the teachers’ ways of using assessment in the class, such as giving instruction, questioning, and giving feedback conducted to improve the learning process for the next meeting.
1. The Challenges Encountered by the Teachers in Implementing Authentic Assessment
The process of implementing authentic assessments in curriculum 2013 at MAN 2 Model Makassar did not run properly. The English teachers seemed to experience some constraints in assessing students’ competence. Based on the findings, the English teachers have generally understood both the concept of the assessment system in the curriculum 2013 and the idea of authentic assessment but they have not yet got in depth about all type of assessments. However, there were still some difficulties related to the teacher used English in the class. In fact, based on the observation, the researcher did not find the teachers’ own difficulties in assessing students in the class.
Furthermore, from the information that the researcher got from the interview, according to the teachers, the main problems they had in assessing students in the classroom were the students and the time they had in the classroom. For the first teacher, students’ were varied in the classroom and teachers' prior knowledge of their students influences the objectivity of their performance ratings. Personality, effort, work habits, cooperativeness, and the like are all part of a teacher's perception of the students in his or her class. Often, these prior perceptions influence the rating a student is given: the likable, cooperative student with the pleasant personality may receive a higher rating than the standoffish, belligerent student, even though they performed similarly. Assessing students on the basis of their personal characteristics rather than their performance lowers the validity of the assessment. Each of these concerns threatens the validity of teacher interpretations and scores (Russell & Airasian, 2012).
For the second teacher, the assessment method was quite complex and time-consuming so that the teacher confused and shifted her focus from teaching to mostly assessing. However, she had another duty to do besides teaching at the school. That was why her work mostly postponed and it made her to finish the unfinished work late at school.
Above all, managing time and scoring the result of the students’ were the two most complicated duties to conduct by the teachers. The researcher assumed that the problems of implementing the assessment in relation to the managing time and scoring might have been prevented by designing an application that might facilitate the teachers in manipulating and presenting scores easily. The teachers need an online system in having a mutual relationship between them so that they might save their time and effort. With the existence of the online system, the effort that the teachers, especially the class teachers, spend might be minimized. The researcher also expects that there will be a system that might be implemented easily in the process of score input, score integration and description printout of the results of the students’ learning process.
CONCLUSIONS
The teachers employed several authentic assessment types to assess the students’ competences in the 2013 Curriculum. The teachers employed observation, written test, and performance assessment. They were sometimes conducted in one class session, and some other were conducted separately.
The teachers in the study assessed only two out of three competencies as suggested by the 2013 Curriculum covering knowledge, and skills. Those competencies sometimes were conducted with the same technique of the assessment, and some others were conducted exclusively by the particular technique.
Finally, the discussion of the last major research question about the challenges of implementing authentic assessment in 2013 Curriculum encountered by the teacher reveals several important things. The teacher encountered student-related issues, time and effort consuming, and validity issue. One challenge created a domino effect on the existence of other challenges. Besides, some challenges were encountered consciously and some others were not. The most important thing dealing with the teacher in the study in implementing authentic assessment and facing the challenges of it was that they tried to fulfill the demand of the 2013 Curriculum. However, the English teacher seriously did some efforts to conduct the assessment as effective as possible. The authentic assessments were always prepared organized. They conducted the performance assessment in such a way that all students could demonstrate their expertise equally. They also considered managing the activities well. Besides, they monitored the students intensively. Nevertheless, as with all assessments, the major challenges are to ensure that the assessments help improve classroom instruction. It is a good fact since the teacher spent her time and energy to educate the students in relation to the demand of the curriculum and the context of their teaching.
References
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