Monday, July 6, 2026

12:45 PM - 4:15 PM

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Details

Facilitator Dr Daniel Clarke, University of Melbourne Aim University students often have mixed feelings about their preparedness to commence professional work (1), and this has implications for educators in terms of curriculum development and assessment design. To overcome this challenge, authenticity has been identified as a core feature of assessments (2), as it enables students to engage in cognitively challenging tasks that mirror activities/standards encountered in the workplace. Consequently, this workshop aims to define the concept of authentic assessment, discuss the benefits and challenges of implementation, and consider previously acknowledged design principles to scaffold these approaches into assessment tasks. Focus This workshop will focus on the provision of a practical application related to research on acknowledged frameworks of authentic learning (2, 3, 4). Participants will be encouraged to adapt these frameworks into different examples, including their own assessments, and case studies will be presented to showcase these principles in different assessment tasks (e.g., experimental design and scientific grant proposals, critical analysis and communication, group simulations of public health teams, reflective practice, evaluative judgement tasks). Overview The workshop is intended for educators, innovators, and learning designers that have a key role (or interest) in assessment design. It will bring together ideas and strategies from multiple discipline contexts to assess and consider authentic assessments for tomorrow’s learners. Workshop plan The workshop will provide the opportunity for participants to first work together to actively consider and discuss authentic assessment design, leading to the sharing of practical ideas around implementation by adapting previous design frameworks to different examples. The workshop will promote cross-disciplinary conversations, prompt reflection upon the aspects that work to optimise students’ engagement, leadership, agency, and independence that support them to become job-ready professionals, and enable attendees to leave with a concrete plan to implement an authentic assessment intervention in assignments within their own teaching.